Psychological studies of survival examine how people remain alive, preserve psychological functioning, and adapt to extreme adversity, encompassing physical survival, trauma, bereavement, imprisonment, disaster, and the longer-term processes of resilience and meaning making.

Early foundations include John Bowlby (1969), whose attachment theory proposed that secure emotional bonds provide a protective base during danger and distress, and Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman (1984), whose transactional model of stress and coping argued that survival-related adaptation depends partly on how individuals appraise threats and evaluate their coping resources. Aaron Antonovsky (1979, 1987) developed salutogenesis, shifting attention from the origins of illness to the resources that support health, particularly a sense of coherence comprising comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness.

Viktor Frankl (1959/2006), drawing on his experiences of Nazi concentration camps, argued that the pursuit of meaning can sustain human beings through suffering, although his existential account should not be mistaken for experimental proof that meaning guarantees survival. Developmental research by Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith (1982, 1992) found that many children exposed to substantial adversity nevertheless developed successfully, particularly when supported by caring relationships, individual competencies, and community resources. Michael Rutter (1987, 2012) subsequently conceptualised resilience as a dynamic process involving protective mechanisms that modify responses to risk, rather than as an invulnerable personality trait. Similarly, Ann Masten (2001) described resilience as “ordinary magic”: adaptive outcomes frequently emerge from everyday systems, including supportive caregiving, problem-solving abilities, relationships, and opportunities for competence.

In research on adult trauma, George A. Bonanno (2004) distinguished resilience (relatively stable psychological functioning following potentially traumatic events) from recovery after an initial period of substantial disruption, demonstrating that resilience is not as rare as earlier clinical assumptions suggested. Dennis Charney (2004) and Steven Southwick and Charney (2012) synthesised evidence for interacting biological, psychological, and social influences, including stress-regulation systems, cognitive flexibility, realistic optimism, role models, and social support, whilst Southwick et al. (2014) further emphasised that resilience must be understood in developmental, cultural, and social context rather than as a single universal trait.

Psychological survival can be understood alongside the Biblical conviction that human beings possess dignity, relational needs, and a capacity for hope amid suffering, without implying that faith eliminates psychological distress. Saint Paul’s declaration that believers may be “perplexed but not driven to despair” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9) resonates with research distinguishing resilience from invulnerability, while Romans 5:3–5 connects suffering, endurance, character, and hope without suggesting that suffering is intrinsically good. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:20–22), the healing of the person through communion with God, and the Church as a community of prayer, worship, and mutual care offer a theological framework for enduring adversity. The Orthodox understanding of theosis (participation in divine life through grace) places survival within a broader vision of spiritual transformation, while the writings of the Church Fathers, including Saint Maximus the Confessor, emphasise the transformation of human life through communion with God.

Engelhardt (2014) cautions, however, that suffering has no intrinsic salvific value: its possible spiritual significance must not be used to romanticise trauma, excuse abuse, or discourage medical and psychological treatment. Accordingly, an integrated Orthodox-Christian approach can affirm psychological evidence for attachment, coping, social support, and meaning while also recognising lament, vulnerability, pastoral care, professional treatment, and hope in the Resurrection as complementary resources. Psychological survival is therefore best understood not as an individual’s obligation to remain strong, but as a complex process shaped by personal capacities, relationships, social circumstances, and, above all for believers, spiritual life, at the heart of which is a personal and experiential relationship with God.