Can adversity lead to enduring positive change across the lifespan? Providing a thoughtful and considered exploration of this question, this book presents a critical reassessment of posttraumatic growth, based on correcting prior theoretical and methodological limitations in the current research. Its core argument is that posttraumatic growth should be reconceptualized as positive personality change, and thus should be studied using novel methodological approaches from the field of personality psychology.

Broadly, this argument is put forward in five progressive sections. Beginning...