What is resilience and how does that affect us?
Resilience is commonly defined as the capacity to ‘bounce back’ after an adverse event.
This idea comes from early psychological studies of resilience.
When psychologists first began to study resilience in the 1950s, they looked at groups of people who had experienced troubled childhoods and tracked those who managed to thrive into adulthood.
Dr Emmy Werner once did a research. She research on a group of children who had grown up in troubled families, about a third of the group thrived into adulthood while many others developed problems of their own. Werner called the group who thrived ‘vulnerable but invincible’.
What enabled these individuals to overcome the difficulties of their childhoods and go on to lead healthy, productive lives in adulthood?
Some protective factors were put down to temperament: the children who later thrived were described as affectionate and good natured from an early age. They tended to be intelligent and didn’t experience any significant developmental difficulties.
But there were also strong links to external factors. For example, children who survived and thrived tend
ed to find a key member of their family, often a grandmother, who they bonded with. They also sought out and connected with role models in their community (such as a favourite teacher).
A key insight we can draw from this research is that resilience is not just something you’re born with; it happens in connection with others. (Resource from Deakin University)
So everyone can be resilience!
and in my next blog I will be sharing how to and I guarteen everyone can build resilience.