[7] Scientific American summarized a main finding of his work, "The ability to rebound remains the norm throughout adult life.

[10] His contributions include the following: Bonanno's research found psychological resilience to be at the core of human grief and trauma reactions.

Bonanno's finding of resilience overturns what has been the status quo assumption of a person's experience of grief and trauma in the West since Sigmund Freud nearly a century ago.

Bonanno's contribution to the field is to have found resilience through rigorous research and not through anecdotal evidence, theorizing, or simple but unreliable methodology.

Many in the field of bereavement and trauma have found Bonanno's finding of persistent resilience in the face of potentially traumatic events controversial.

Many therapists and psychiatrists, who tend to treat the chronically affected, find it hard to imagine that no treatment is needed for most people who have experienced a loss or even an extreme stressor event, such as during 9/11 or childhood sexual abuse.

Further, in contrast to Freud's and his followers' ideas and prevailing popular theories, it is difficult for many people to accept laughter as a healthy response.

Bonanno has argued that universal counseling after potentially traumatic events does more harm than good, a point eventually verified by convincing research.

The attitude of the field before Bonanno could be summarized by Tom Golden, a prominent bereavement expert who specializes in male grief.

People want to take a magical, mystical perspective, but it's very dangerous to assume that they have access to a sacred realm that research can't touch, relying only on their own observations, feelings, and thoughts—things that are very unreliable."

"[11] Bonanno conducted multi-cultural research into grief and trauma, including studies in Nanjing, China; among war survivors in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and in trauma-exposed people in Israel and elsewhere.

[38] Bonanno proposed that any solution to the paradox must account for both situational variability and the cost-benefit tradeoffs inherent in all behavioral responses, and further that these factors can be accommodated by the concept of flexible self-regulation.

James W. Pennebaker's findings seemingly contradict Bonanno's claims on the harmful effects of retrieving bad experiences.