What the research actually finds, including the awkward part

Bonanno GA (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events?. American Psychologist, 59(1), 20 to 28 doi

In bereavement, roughly 10 to 15 in every 100 people show lasting depression and distress, while more than half show relatively low levels of depression after a loss. The author states there is no evidence for delayed grief, meaning grief that is absent at first and surfaces later as a hidden problem. He describes four patterns after a loss, resilience, recovery, chronic disruption and delayed disruption, and argues resilience is both the most common and the most underestimated. The author states his own limitations: most bereavement research starts after the death, which makes genuine resilience hard to tell apart from a weak attachment; long term studies were thin at the time of writing; and whether resilience can be taught to an adult was largely uninvestigated.