Thriving and resilience in sport and performance teams

Over 25 years ago, Carver (1) published a seminal paper describing four trajectories of human responses to adverse events (see also, 2). These trajectories—succumbing, survival with impairment, resilience (recovery), and thriving—described the extent to which an individual’s physical or psychological functioning was permanently impaired, restored, or enhanced following trauma. Carver’s work, along with others (e.g., 3, 4), coincided with the establishment of the positive psychology paradigm, and a shift towards understanding what is desirable and adaptive to human psychological experience, instead of trying to mitigate deficits and prevent deleterious behaviors (5).