Cyrulnik is one of the great figures of modern psychology. A neurologist, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and ethologist by training, he is considered one of the fathers of the notion of resilience and one of the founders of human ethology. Professor at the University of Toulon in Provence and head of a research group in clinical ethology at the Toulon Hospital, he is also the author of a long list of books, some of them best-sellers.

In the case of Boris Cyrulnik, it is inevitable to establish a certain connection between his life and his work, especially in relation to the work he has done to conceptualise the concept of psychological resilience. At the age of seven, he saw his entire family, Jewish emigrants of Russian origin, deported to Nazi concentration camps from which they never returned. He was miraculously spared. He entered school for the first time at the age of eleven, after the end of World War II. His personal circumstances did not bode well for his future, but fifteen years later he became a neuropsychiatrist. He has devoted his career mainly to the study and treatment of childhood trauma.