This paper describes psychological theory about stress, coping, and psychological resilience, and considers how coping strategies can help develop resilience in the context of outdoor education. Outdoor education programs often aim to develop psychological resilience through structured challenging and reflective experiences. Use of coping strategies such as positive reinterpretation appears to be resilience enhancing, whereas passive acceptance and focusing on negative emotion are resilience undermining. Further research is needed to better integrate psychoeducational curricula about stress and coping into challenge-based outdoor education programs which aim to foster psychological resilience.