At the Crossroads Peter Bray and Loyola Mclean Thrust over the threshold of a major life crisis it seems unrealistic to suggest to the survivor that his or her experiences may ultimately provide rich ground from which unimagined opportunities will spring. 1 Could it be that the apocryphal trope, beloved of politicians and motivational speakers the world over, that the calligraphic characters for the Chinese word for ‘crisis’ signifies ‘danger and opportunity,’ is dead? 2 Perhaps not quite – even in its misinterpretation and passing the original characters retain the essential ingredients of their allegorical truth. In fact, the second character, the ‘jī of wēijī, in denoting something like an ‘incipient moment’ or a ‘crucial point’ is predictive of a beginning and a change. 3 The universally optimistic understanding that harsh conditions force an organism to respond and grow supports the humanistic axiom that people are physically and psychologically hard-wired to make a journey toward positive personal development and completeness. 4 Extraordinary anecdotes and mythic stories universally inform us of how nations, communities, and individuals have triumphed over harrowing circumstances. 5 However, it is the danger, most often contained within the fearful choicelessness of crises that is perhaps the most challenging to humanity because it forces change, and through encounters with significant loss, the re-evaluation of existential priorities. 6 Thus, confrontations with new and difficult experiences, with the need to surrender something of the old, may reveal and reinforce hidden vulnerabilities or have the potential to create resilience and strengthen growth. In the last few decades there has been a growing interest in the management of crises and the use of predictive models that have influenced high level social, economic, and ecological policy change. When applied to therapeutic work this strategic thinking is transformed into interventions that enhance personal and psychological support for individuals and groups. Indeed, recent trends in psychology have suggested that in the aftermath of crisis the safe return to pre- crisis functioning, albeit personally desirable, is fundamentally impossible. 7 Consequently, as difficult as crises may be, there is a growing body of scholarly opinion that accepts that positive benefit may be found in even the most extreme of circumstances and that individuals might be encouraged to consider crises in terms of the positive as well as its negative outcomes. 8 More specifically, in addition to the recognition of possible traumatic breakdown secondary to crises, we are now asked to embrace the concept of post-traumatic growth in individuals and systems, in which the integration of the crisis experience is a reflective process which rebuilds identity and a sense of self, and fosters future resilience. 9 Initially, the interdisciplinary project that brought together the work in this volume, defined ‘crisis’ as an unstable, potentially dangerous, situation or event that imposes difficult or extreme life changes and challenges on human beings and © 2015. Inter-Disciplinary Press. Full volume available at http://tinyurl.com/nuq6t6y