From experiencing homelessness as a teenager to attaining the most senior rank in the British fire service, Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has lived a life defined by adversity - and by the remarkable capacity to turn it into strength. As a neuroscientist, she has spent her career trying to understand why.

In this book, Cohen-Hatton draws on cutting-edge brain science and her own extraordinary story to explore how adversity shapes the way we think, feel and perceive the world around us. She shows how we misjudge others based on limited perspectives, why we so often internalise our setbacks as personal failures, and how unconscious bias - in ourselves as much as in those around us - can quietly determine the limits we place on our own lives. Each chapter takes a relatable experience of adversity and pairs it with science-backed strategies for moving through it.

Compassionate and deeply practical, The Adversity Advantage shows us that our worst experiences need not define us - they can, with the right tools, become our greatest source of strength.



Professor Sabrina Cohen-Hatton is one of the world's most senior women fire officers, awarded the King's Fire Service Medal - the highest possible accolade - for distinguished service and for research that has transformed emergency decision-making worldwide. After leaving home at fifteen and experiencing a period of homelessness, she has also studied for a first-class degree in Psychology, a Masters in International Fire Service Development, and a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience.

A leading international expert on risk-critical decision-making in crises and an Honorary Fellow at Cardiff University, she has used her research to change national policy and presented her work around the world. Her first book, The Heat of the Moment, has been published in three languages; her second, The Gender Bias, was published in 2023. She is an Advocate for Prince William's homelessness charity, Homewards, and has appeared in a two-part ITV documentary about the project, now streaming globally on Disney+.