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"Often when we least expect it, we all have to face overwhelming challenges. It is very tempting to give up, yet we have to find the will to keep going.” —Christopher Reeve

"Often when we least expect it, we all have to face overwhelming challenges. It is very tempting to give up, yet we have to find the will to keep going.” —Christopher Reeve

When his life as an able-bodied “Superman” abruptly changed to that of a C-2 vent-dependent quadriplegic after a horse-riding accident, actor Christopher Reeve turned to resilience as his superpower. But not right away.

The odds were stacked against him. In his 2002 memoir, Nothing Is Impossible, Reeve wrote that his chances of surviving surgery to reattach his head to his spinal column were “50/50 at best,” and that even if the operation was successful, doctors explained he’d still remain paralyzed from the shoulders down and would be unable to breathe on his own. As a result, his body, including his bones, skin, and muscles, were destined to atrophy and decay.

He was lucky to be alive, but Reeve wasn’t so sure. In his memoir, he describes “suicidal despair” as his first response to his circumstances.

Yet, somehow Reeve didn’t surrender to his unimaginable physical and psychological adversity. Instead, he grasped onto the rungs of an adaptability ladder and doggedly climbed upward.

The Resilient Mindset

I first studied Reeve’s case while researching resilience, but it was my therapist who had introduced the resilience mindset to me years earlier, when I was in my own suicidal despair while processing a prolonged trauma history. The........

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