. 2020 Apr 17;6:23. doi: 10.1038/s41394-020-0267-8

Table 2.

Leveraging individual strength theme examples by case and study.

	Study 1 (2002–04)	Study 2 (2014–15)
Mary	…if I continued to let everybody do it for me all the time, I would never do it myself… But then that’s the kind of person that I am. I believe that even though they say it can’t be done, if I try hard enough, I can do it. And I’ve always had a strong faith in God… but after this accident, I think it—well, no, I know that it helped to really increase my faith and really trust Him very much. I learned that God does not make any mistakes.	I would say the secret would be accenting the positives and trying to take care of the negatives. Don’t get so caught up in all of the problems, but be aware of them and try and find solutions. And then it’s just being grateful and thankful… I think my faith, my positive attitude and my strong will. If I didn’t have that I probably wouldn’t even be sitting here talking to you because the doctors had said when I first got hurt, “Put her in a nursing home. She’s not going to be doing anything for herself or anybody else.”
Ruth	…people suspected that I was in denial and I don’t really think that I ever was and they were waiting for me to crash. And five years later, I really never have. So, either I’ve been in denial for five years or I just learned to accept it real fast. But I kept telling myself it was going to be all right and that I would be able to deal with it so I… tried to rationalize my way through it and not be too stressed out… I think that I’m a really brave and strong person and that I really persevere… It’s just the way I am…	I’m very, very resilient and I think that that’s what I can attribute to be adjusted to a level of where I’m at. Believe me, it did not happen overnight. It took years… I really do push myself hard, so I think that my personality, being as driven as I am, has really helped me. I think that it’s just a normal process of desensitization, just the human adaption. I can’t think of anything special that happened. Again, I just think that it was a process over time that occurred… Life goes on.

Study 1 (2002–04)

Study 2 (2014–15)

Mary

…if I continued to let everybody do it for me all the time, I would never do it myself… But then that’s the kind of person that I am. I believe that even though they say it can’t be done, if I try hard enough, I can do it.

And I’ve always had a strong faith in God… but after this accident, I think it—well, no, I know that it helped to really increase my faith and really trust Him very much. I learned that God does not make any mistakes.

I would say the secret would be accenting the positives and trying to take care of the negatives. Don’t get so caught up in all of the problems, but be aware of them and try and find solutions. And then it’s just being grateful and thankful…

I think my faith, my positive attitude and my strong will. If I didn’t have that I probably wouldn’t even be sitting here talking to you because the doctors had said when I first got hurt, “Put her in a nursing home. She’s not going to be doing anything for herself or anybody else.”

Ruth

…people suspected that I was in denial and I don’t really think that I ever was and they were waiting for me to crash. And five years later, I really never have. So, either I’ve been in denial for five years or I just learned to accept it real fast.

But I kept telling myself it was going to be all right and that I would be able to deal with it so I… tried to rationalize my way through it and not be too stressed out… I think that I’m a really brave and strong person and that I really persevere… It’s just the way I am…

I’m very, very resilient and I think that that’s what I can attribute to be adjusted to a level of where I’m at. Believe me, it did not happen overnight. It took years… I really do push myself hard, so I think that my personality, being as driven as I am, has really helped me.

I think that it’s just a normal process of desensitization, just the human adaption. I can’t think of anything special that happened. Again, I just think that it was a process over time that occurred… Life goes on.