Many of us experience pain in our childhoods, and young people face trauma all over the world. How is it possible to recover? Do those abused always go on to hurt others? This incredible bestseller has overturned the way we view trauma, by showing how the extraordinary power of resilience can heal damaged lives.

Renowned psychoanalyst Boris Cyrulnik has dealt with many young victims of distress and he relates stories of children who have been abused, orphaned, fought in wars and escaped genocide, yet who have not only survived, but grown in the face of adversity. By the way we deal with our memories and emotions, he shows, we can reshape our lives and transform pain into something stronger - just as a grain of sand in an oyster becomes a pearl.

Resilience is not just about resisting; it is about learning to live. This life-changing book points the way towards hope and happiness.

Boris Cyrulnik is an internationally-renowned psychologist and leading proponent of the theory of resilience: that we are much more capable of overcoming traumatic events in our lives than we imagine. Working with genocide victims in Rwanda and child soldiers in Colombia, he travels around the world helping individuals and countries come to terms with their pasts to create positive new outlooks. Author of numerous books on resilience and its possibilities in childhood and throughout life, this is the first time Resilience has been published in Britain. An international bestseller, his work has been credited with helping France heal the wounds left by the Second World War. Born in 1937, Cyrulnik's parents were deported to a concentration camp and never returned. Maltreated by his foster parents, he was eventually chosen as a runner in the liberation, perilously crossing enemy lines to deliver messages to French fighters. He was seven. This personal trauma helped him develop his belief that trauma is not destiny.