Resilience – what it means, why you need it, and how to develop it. Nicky provides a brief introduction to resilience, and the theory and empirical research that underpin the Personal Strength Resilience Workshops.

 

Further information and links

* Online and in person resilience courses

* DNA-V model (DNA-v (c) L. Hayes & J. Ciarrochi, www.thrivingadolescent.com

* Dr Louise Hayes

* Acceptance and Committment Therapy (ACT) model

* Resilience Research and Training Systems, Macquarie University

* Resilience Podcast – Parramatta City Council

Transcript

Hello! Welcome to Episode 2! Today is a quick primer on resilience. I have done a lot of work in positive psychology and resilience. Apart from the tutoring work I have done at university, I also spent two years researching family resilience during parental cancer, and have taught resilience workshops for a range of corporate, government, and community groups with Resilience Research and Training Systems at Macquarie University. I’ll include a link to their website in the show notes.

Through my work with Personal Strength, I have developed an online course in resilience. Today I’d like to explain the psychological models and empirical evidence behind the course.

Resilience – definition and clarification

Firstly, I feel it is important to define resilience. Something I feel most definitions don’t do well is to distinguish between a resilient outcome, and resilient capacities. A resilient outcome is when we maintain a relatively stable and healthy level of psychological and physical functioning after a potentially traumatic event. Depending on the type and severity of the event, we would often expect a small decrease in healthy functioning, but then people bounce back. That sailing through, or bouncing back, is a resilient outcome which can only be observed by looking at functioning before, during, and after stressful events.

In contrast, resilient capacities are beliefs, skills, and assets that may help us to achieve resilient outcomes. Resilient outcomes and resilient capacities are often bundled up together, but there isn’t a one to one correlation. Someone with great resilient capacities could still be faced with an event that is too much for their resources, and not achieve a resilient outcome in that instance. On the flip side, someone could have few resilient capacities, but what they have could be perfectly suited to the challenge they face, and therefore help them achieve a resilient outcome.

Resilient capacities

We may not always achieve a resilient outcome, but we all have resilient capacities. Let’s talk more about the capacities. There has been a lot of research into how people go after major potentially traumatic events like natural disaster, terrorism, job loss, divorce, bereavement, and serious injury. A review of this research revealed a number of factors that contribute to resilience[1]. Some of these we can’t change very easily, for example characteristics like demographics and personality, circumstances like exposure,