Resilience

Resilience Defined

Resilience is a dynamic developmental process wherein the individual is able to utilize resources in and outside of the self to negotiate current challenges adaptively and, by extension, to develop a foundation on which to rely when future challenges occur. In contexts of prior or current adversity, resilience reflects both the absence of psychopathology and the presence of competence wherein the individual is able to negotiate age-salient issues effectively. In infancy, these issues center on the challenge of negotiating a consistent pattern of relating to caregivers, whereas the emphasis shifts toward the negotiation of peer relationships and the challenge of self-regulation in the toddler and preschool periods. Thus, resilience is a multidimensional, culturally embedded, and developmentally anchored process.

Resilience is a feature of development, not of individuals. Resilience follows from the operation of normal developmental processes despite extraordinary circumstances, rather than from exceptional individual capacities. To the extent that typical developmental processes are protected or enabled despite adverse experience, resilience is fostered. Relational processes are central among these developmental capacities: relationships between different developmental systems such as biology and psychology; relationships among different levels of the environment such as families, schools, and communities; and, as discussed here, relationships between people.

Resilience-Fostering Relationships

Interpersonal relationships have been a key focus of resilience research since its inception. Pioneers of this field, such as Norman Garmezy, Lois Murphy, Sir Michael Rutter, and Emmy Werner, were the first to document the powerful and positive impact of a supportive, caring, and connected relationship with an adult on developmental trajectories of high-risk youth. In childhood, caregiving relationships are of primary significance, but relationships in other arenas increase in salience over time. Relationships with teachers, coaches, spiritual leaders, mental health providers, and peers take on increasing importance across childhood, whereas adolescence and adulthood bring romantic relationships, employee-employer, and collegial connections to the fore. Yet the nature and quality of these later relationships are uniquely influenced by early patterns of sensitivity and reciprocity in the caregiving milieu. Evidence clearly points to the unique importance of the early caregiving environment for the development of basic capacities, such as self-regulation, perspective taking, and self-esteem, which shape individuals' responses to current and future developmental challenges.

From the earliest days of life, interpersonal relationships influence developmental trajectories, for better or worse. Associations with deviant peers, for example, may engender disruptive, antisocial behaviors among high-risk youth. Yet prosocial peer connections may provide opportunities for high-risk youth to apprehend and practice positive, rule-abiding behaviors. Having documented the importance of relationships for both typical and atypical developmental trajectories, contemporary resilience research has shifted toward delineating processes by which such relationships, particularly early relationships, engender positive adaptation despite exposure to significant developmental threat. Although initially conceptualized at the level of dyads and later families, these relational processes have since been examined at group and cultural levels, as well as at biological, social, and cognitive levels.

...