Resilient Posttraumatic Adjustment in Childhood and Beyond

Studies of resilient adjustment in childhood began more than three decades ago with the pioneering work of Norman Garmezy, Michael Rutter, Emmy Werner, and others. Early studies examined positive adjustment in the context of risk and adversity and often used the terms resilience and stress resistance interchangeably. More recently, theorists have distinguished these terms and their referents. Stress resistance describes the ability to maintain functional homeostasis despite ongoing major stressors (such as poverty or family discord), whereas resilience refers to successful recovery following acute traumatic events (such as maltreatment or disasters). In other words, resilience refers to the ability to rebound from significant setbacks, whereas stress resistance means the ability to resist psychosocial perturbation. The general use of the term resilience persists, however, to describe a range of outcomes, including positive functioning in the context of high risk, competence under stress, and recovery from traumatic experience. This is how the term will be used here because, in general, the variables associated with positive childhood adjustment appear to generalize across different levels and types of stressors.

The study of resilience in development originated in studies of children at risk for psychopathology because of parental psychopathology, deprivation, or family rupture or disturbance, and was prompted by observations that some children appeared to have self-righting tendencies that allowed them to prevail psychologically over the potential impediments dealt by their genes and/or early environments. Since then, investigators have concluded that positive adaptation is actually normative; indeed, it has been described as “ordinary magic.”

The focus of resilience research in children and youth has most commonly concerned protective factors—characteristics of the individual and environment that buffer or remedy the impact of acutely stressful or traumatic experience or chronic hardship. Three wide categories of protective factors—personality features, family variables, and the availability of external supports—each appear to be critical to successful adjustment.