Traumatic Stress and Resilience

Definitions

The term resilience is generally defined as the ability to withstand, adapt to, or rebound from adversity. This traditional definition, although simple, fails to be sensitive to the realization that different characteristics, or attributes, may support adaptation rather than the ability to rebound from adversity.

The Johns Hopkins model of resistance, resiliency, and recovery was developed and offered as a means of gaining necessary clarity and specificity. This entry will address resistance and resilience.

Resistance was the term chosen to capture the notion of being able to withstand or adapt to adversity. Resistance may be best thought of as a form of “psychological immunity.” Resistance is relevant for individuals, groups, communities, and even nations.

The term resilience, however, denotes the ability to “rebound” from adversity once one's ability to function has been to some degree impaired. The term recovery refers to the treatment and rehabilitation of stress syndromes. Although we know a great deal about recovery, we know less about resilience, and even less about resistance. The concept of recovery will not be addressed in this entry. A natural corollary to this discussion is that of “resilient leadership.” Resilient leadership refers to those leadership behaviors that promote resistance and resilience in others.

Characteristics of Psychological Resistance

What appear to be the key characteristics of human resistance (immunity to disabling stress)? Most research has been focused on longitudinal studies of children who grow up in challenging, if not hostile, environments. Although these studies provide valuable insight on where to begin, there is uncertainty whether they can be generalized to adults in potentially traumatizing situations, such as disasters and warfare.

In a series of research projects using structural equation modeling (SEM), researchers endeavored to deconstruct the phenomenon of human resilience and identify its most salient elements. The results of those investigations revealed that the attitudinal domain attitudes was an important factor in what appeared to be both resistance and resilience.

Combining the results of the SEM results with interviews with resilient people, all in combination with the previous research on children, revealed what many believe to be the essential elements of resistance and resilience. The characteristics that support psychological resistance that appear to be emerging consist of both attitudes and behaviors.

Attitudinally, characteristics such as optimism and tenacity appear to be important. If you ask most people if they are optimistic, they will respond in the affirmative. They will say they hope for the best. However, truly resistant people conceive of optimism in a different way. They see an optimistic attitude as a mandate to create a positive future. As for tenacity, verses on the power of tenacity are legion. Success often goes to those who simply will not quit, even though they may have less innate talent than their competition does. Tenacity is often based on a belief in one's own “self-efficacy.” Decades of elegant (state of the art) research from Stanford University has revealed self-efficacy to be a belief in one's own agency; that is, the belief that one can be an effective agent of change. Self-efficacy is fostered by four interacting factors: success by attainment (doing), watching others of similar aptitude being successful, encouragement, and controlling one's own emotional reactions and stress. Perhaps the single best predictor of resistance, however, is appropriate expectation. In other words, the better one is prepared through setting appropriate expectation, the more resistant one becomes. Appropriate expectations can be engendered through realistic training, prior experience, and/or effective coaching or mentoring.

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