As a consumer (I'm a nurse, but not a mental health professional) I sometimes find it difficult to judge the scientific merit of popular books on positive psychology. This is especially true for a book like What Doesn't Kill Us,. I really want to believe the book's premise; that trauma can lead to growth rather than disorder, but it seems at the same time classically “too good to be true” or too much like mainstream religions that instruct their adherents to accept suffering.

At the same time, What Doesn't Kill Us does cite well -replicated, peer reviewed research that suggests that within trauma there are opportunities for growth. The author doesn't claim that all trauma survivors are ultimately resilient, only that some are, and that trauma “bounce back” is extremely understudied. Since, as reviewers have pointed out, suffering in endemic to the human condition, this is an extremely hopeful book. I wished there were more information about some of the basics though: why do some trauma survivors have short term difficulty but no long term affects? What makes the difference?

One of the difficulties of trauma studies as a whole and thus this book is that is difficult to find situations in which other, non trauma related variables are kept constant. Since it's not ethical to create trauma for the sake of studying it, it is only when large groups of people in specific geographical situations with relatively homogenous populations experience the same trauma that large scale conclusions can be drawn.

I'll be interested to see what will happen as trauma expert Sandra Bloom's premise that “trauma is a social wound and thus has a social solution” combines with recent positive psychology research. Perhaps we'll see ourselves getting stronger after all.