In this seminal new study of resilience, Meg Jay tells the stories of a diverse group of people who have overcome trauma in their childhoods to go on and live successful lives as adults. These are the ‘supernormal’, who having shouldered greater than average hardship as children defy expectation and achieve better than average success as adults. But how, and at what cost?
Whether it was experiencing parental divorce, or growing up with an alcohol or drug-abusing parent, living with a parent or sibling with mental illness, being bullied, living in poverty, being a witness to domestic violence, suffering physical or emotional neglect, the people Meg Jay introduces us to are all survivors. She explores what they have in common that made it possible for them to transcend the trauma of their early years and to build successful adult lives. And she asks the questions: What was the cost of developing those powers? And having survived, even thrived, how do you go on and build a trusting, fulfilled life?
Drawing on her clinical experience with survivors of childhood trauma, Meg Jay documents ordinary people made extraordinary by the experience of all-too-common trauma. Bringing together personal, scientific and cultural knowledge Jay gives a voice to the experience of the ‘supernormal’, furnishes them with the tools to better understand themselves and take full advantage of their strengths, and gives a window into their world for those who seek to understand them.
About the author
Meg Jay, Ph D, is a Clinical Psychologist and an Associate Professor of Human Development at the University of Virginia. She earned a doctorate in clinical psychology and in gender studies from the University of California, Berkeley.Her books The Defining Decade, Supernormal and The Twentysomething Treatment have been translated into more than a dozen languages and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review and on NPR and BBC. Her TED talk ‘Why 30 is Not the New 20’ is among the most watched to date.
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