Resilience is the ability to recover and adapt positively in the face of stress or adversity. It is a multidimensional construct involving personal characteristics, external protective factors, and dynamic processes. Developing a comprehensive understanding of resilience across the lifespan is important for mental health promotion and identifying risk factors. Resilience has biological underpinnings and is influenced by factors such as genetics, environment, and neurochemistry. It can be affected by life experiences and interventions, and understanding its neurobiology may open new areas for treating mental disorders.
3. Resilience
Developing a comprehensive understanding of resilience across the lifespan is
potentially important for mental health promotion.
Resilience has been vastly understudied compared to disease and
vulnerability.
4. Resilience
Resilience is closely related to positive coping styles (Xiao et al., 2005; Zhang
et al., 2017).
Based on the concept of resilience, it may be possible to identify
predisposing factors or risk factors for psychopathologies and to develop
new intervention strategies, both preventive and therapeutic.
5. Resilience stands for one's capacity to recover from extremes of trauma
and stress.
Resilience in a person reflects a dynamic union of factors that encourages
positive adaptation despite exposure to adverse life experiences.
Resilience
6. Resilience is a process lasts a lifetime, with periods of acquisition ,
maintenance, reduction and loss for assessment.
Resilience is currently recognized as a multidimensional construct
including:
1. Personal characteristics and skills (e.g., Active problem solving)
2. External protective factors (a supportive family & social environment) .
Resilience
7. One needs to have a three-dimensional construct for understanding
resilience:
A state (what is it and how does one identify it?)
A condition (what can be done about it?)
A practice (how does one get there?).
Resilience
8. Three Main Aspects Within
The Concept of Resilience
The ability to achieve positive results in high risk situations
The ability to function competently in situations of acute or chronic stress
The ability to recover from trauma
10. Theory of Resilience
It is conceptualized as a dynamic process that fluctuates according to age,
gender, individual circumstance and developmental, historical, and
cultural context.
Focused on personal attributes such as:
Self-esteem
Self-efficacy
Hardiness
11. Protective Factors
Religious beliefs and practices:
1. Accessible
2. Afforded a sense of continuity,
3. Comfort
4. Meaning in life
5. Psychosocial training on nonviolent communication
6. Cooperation, and tolerance
Almost any demographic are to have a secure, solid support from family
members, friends, and school
13. Characteristics of Resilience
There are number of characteristics of resilience whose integrity or
damage indicates resilient capacity:
Control over the process of remembering traumatic experiences
Integration of memory and emotions
Regulation of emotions related to trauma
Control of symptoms
15. While Understanding Resilience, One Needs
to Look at The Three Factors:
Identifying resilient factors and qualities
Processes for building resilience
Developing measuring instruments.
18. Neurobiology of Resilience
The neuroscience of resilience is beginning to uncover the circuits and
molecules that protect against stress-related neuropsychiatric diseases.
Glucocorticoids (GCs) are important regulators of basal and stress-related
homeostasis that influence a wide array of genes in almost every organ and
tissue.
GCs promote or prevent adaptation to stress.
19. Neurobiology of Resilience
Literature on trauma has focused predominately on limbic and cortical
structures that innervate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and
influence GC-mediated negative feedback.
Neuroendocrine pathways that a self-perpetuating “fearful memory” can
propagate the long-term effects of early life trauma.
20. Central neurochemical response to trauma is HPA axes which governs, coordinates, and
modulates changes in hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis, corticotropin-releasing
hormone, and corticotropin-releasing factor
Regulate neurotransmission mechanism
neuronal loss and functional dysconnectivity & neuroplasticity
HPA axis response to stress, neurotransmissions of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine
resilience plasticity
21. Neurobiology of Resilience
Neurochemical changes suggest that cortisol related sustained, enhancement of
amygdala, and hippocampus loss of functional connectivity.
Resilience is associated with increased connectivity between the ventral and
dorsal prefrontal cortex.
22. Neurobiology of Resilience
Resilience being an independent paradigm.
Genetic and environmental factors: (a situation of enhanced vulnerability and
a reduced resilience ).
Early life stress
Chronic stress during adulthood
An unsuccessful aging of the brain
23. Neurobiology of Resilience
A nother abnormalities in the brain have also been observed:
A. Changes in neurocircuitry mediating reward
B. Activation and regulation of mesolimbic dopaminergic projections from
the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens
24. Neurobiology of Resilience
It is not clear whether resilience is a modifiable or nonmodifiable factor
?!
Answer
Studies report that resilience is affected by pharmacological interventions, e.g.,
antidepressant drugs
“Such findings open a new areas of treatment to mental disorder”
30. Resilience at Various Stages of Life Cycle
Abstract Within various stages of life.
Individuals encounter events filled challenges and distress for overcoming and moving
forward to the next stage.
Childhood, youth, adolescence and young adult stages are each delicate stages of
life, in which potentially traumatic events might occur.
31. Resilience at Various Stages of Life Cycle
Adverse events during family life cycle can translate into issues in family relationships,
mental health and overall family functioning.
These may be escalated due to other challenges such as differences in structure and
composition of families, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
34. The Concept of Family Resilience
Family-focused Approaches (Ecological Theory)
The concept of family resilience refers to the capacity of the family, as a functional
system, to withstand and rebound from situations adversity
(Walsh, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2016a, 2016b).
35. The Concept of Family Resilience
The micro system:
1. The most important system in which to begin strengthening families in their resources and
encourage the traits of resilience in children.
2. Highlighting the importance of familial roles , interactions and feedback loops to
procure desired behaviors as a part of resilience in youth and adolescents.
3. Individual factors in the individual and his/her surrounding environment.
36. Family systems theory:
A basic premise in family systems theory is that serious crises and persistent life
challenges have an impact on the whole family.
Adaptation key family processes mediate adaptation (or maladaptation) for individual
members.
The Concept of Family Resilience
37. Family developmental theory:
The concept of family resilience extended family developmental theory and research on
family stress, coping, and adaptation (McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013).
Severe trauma or very troubled relationships can experience repair and growth over the
life course and across the generations (Walsh, 2007, 2016b).
The Concept of Family Resilience
38. Belief systems
Making meaning of adversity
Positive outlook
Transcendence and spirituality
Organizational processes
Flexibility
Connectedness
Mobilize social and economic resources
The Concept of Family Resilience
39. The Concept of Family Resilience
Communication/Problem-solving Processes
Clarity
Open emotional sharing
Painful feelings
Positive interactions (love, appreciation, gratitude. humor, fun, respite)
Collaborative problem-solving
40. Community Resilience
Resilience is “the capacity of a system, be it an individual, a forest, a city or an
economy, to deal with change and continue to develop.”
Resilience is a measure of how well people and societies can adapt to a changed reality
and capitalize on the new possibilities offered.
The resilient system can improve one’s ability to cope with emergencies through self-
adjustment to cope with changes.
41. Community Resilience
◦ CCFH Resilience-Oriented, Community-Based Program Applications
◦ Chicago Center for Family Health (1991–2015)
◦ Family resilience-oriented training, services, partnerships
◦ • Recover from crisis, trauma, and loss
◦ • Family adaptation to complicated, traumatic loss (Walsh)
◦ • Mass trauma events; Major disasters (Walsh)
◦ • Relational trauma (Barrett, Center for Contextual Change)
◦ • Refugee families (Rolland, Walsh, Weine)
◦ • War and conflict-related recovery (Rolland, Weine, Walsh)
◦ • Navigate disruptive family transitions
◦ • Divorce, single-parent, stepfamily adaptation (Jacob, Lebow, Graham)
◦ • Foster care (Engstrom)
◦ • Job loss, transition, and re-employment strains (Walsh, Brand)
◦ • Overcome challenges of chronic multistress conditions
◦ • Serious illness, disabilities, end-of-life challenges (Rolland, Walsh, R. Sholtes, Zuckerman)
◦ • Poverty; ongoing complex trauma (Faculty)
◦ • LGBT issues, stigma (Koff)
◦ • Overcome obstacles to success: at-risk youth
◦ • Child and adolescent developmental challenges (Lerner, Schwartz, Gutmann, Martin)
◦ • Family–school partnership program (Fuerst & Team)
◦ • Gang reduction/youth development (Rolland, Walsh & Team)
42. Resilience Under Dire Situations:
Impact of Circumstances of
Disaster, War, and Terrorism on
Children's Development
43. What is traumatic to a child?
The response to trauma is different for every child –
some are naturally more resilient than others
What is traumatic to one child may not seem to phase
another child
Trauma is personal to each individual
A child may find an event to be traumatic even if an
adult doesn’t
44. Childhood Trauma
Car Accident
Death of a Family Member
Failing a test
Death of a Pet
Personal Illness or Surgery
Family Illness
Witnessing Family Violence
Being Physically Abused or Neglected
Emotional Abuse
Sexual Abuse
Poverty
Fire
Moving
Family Member in Military
Divorce
Drug Use in the Home
Family Member in Jail
Surgery
Bullying
CPS Removal
Natural Disasters
Mental Illness within the Family
Fleeing home as a refugee or immigrant
Witnessing Community Violence
Being Held Back in School
Repeated Doctor Appointments
Loss of Family Income
45. Repeated Trauma
Some children never experience a true trauma in their lives, some have one instance, and
some experience trauma on a very regular basis.
Some children build resiliency to situations and seem invincible – some seem to fall under
the stress
48. “Soldiers Are and Will Always Be The Centerpiece of Army”
The readiness and resiliency of soldiers, civilians and family members is dependent on
their physical, mental and emotional fitness.
Success requires engaged leadership at all levels, a collaborative and multidisciplinary
approach, and effective prioritization of resources.
Perspectives on Resilience for Military
49. a focus on resiliency in military society:
We will continue to be ready to take on any mission
The army ready resilient and what’s different?
Based on lessons learned from a decade of war, ready and resilient formalizes
Perspectives on Resilience for Military
50. Whole-person concept:
Recognizes an individual’s ability to bounce back from adversity (resilience) as a key
component of individual performance and unit readiness
Training & education:
Resilience is increased through education and training, from peer-to-peer teamwork,
recruitment, during service and at separation
Perspectives on Resilience for Military
51. Holistic approach:
Better synchronizes and optimizes current readiness and resiliency training and education
programs, and creates measures to improve readiness
A stigma-free climate:
Soldiers don’t quit.
If we get knocked down, we help each other get back up, dust ourselves off and get back
into the fight why is it important?
Perspectives on Resilience for Military
52. A healthy mind and body are essential to individual and unit readiness
Resilience combines mental, emotional, and physical skills to generate
optimal performance (i.e. readiness)
In combat, healing after injury, and in managing work and home life.
Perspectives on Resilience for Military
53. An Army Soldier ….
Is a skilled professional who lives by the Soldier’s Creed and Army Values
Works with strong Army Civilian teammates who embody the same resilient characteristics
Is a valued member of the Army Team who treats all with dignity and respect
Manages sleep, diet and mind/body conditioning to become stronger and optimize
performance
Bounces back from adversity to thrive and meet goals and objectives
Is self-aware, seeks help when needed and intervenes to help others, treats all with dignity and
respect
Ready and Resilient
54. An Army Soldier ….
Embraces challenges, solves problems, continuously learns, improves and strengthens An Army
Family ...
Is an essential member of the Army Team
Is able to thrive and remain strong through deployments, reassignments, and adversity
Is aware of resources, and willing to seek help for themselves and their Soldier when needed
Supports other families, connects with their community and makes positive contributions An Army
Leader ...
Leads by example, sets and enforces high standards, and holds themselves and others accountable
Ready and Resilient
55. An Army Soldier ….
Establishes a climate that fosters resilience and trust
Knows their team and equips them with the skills to achieve missions, overcome challenges
and grow
Teaches, coaches and mentors team members through positive thinking and effective
problem solving
Follows a moral compass of integrity
Is well-led and cohesive, with members proud to be part of the team
Is trained, resourced and equipped to accomplish assigned tasks and quickly adapt to future
missions
Is comprised of members who provide each other and their families strength and
encouragement in all situations and conditions
Ready and Resilient
56. An Army Soldier ….
Is stronger and more resilient than the sum of its individual parts An Army Unit ...
Is a skilled professional who lives by the Civilian Corps Creed and Army Values
Works with strong Army Soldiers to provide stability and continuity during war and peace
Is a valued Army Team member, crucial to military operations support and provides full
complement to military occupational specialties
Seeks out training and self development opportunities to strengthen readiness and resilience An
Army Civilian ...
Resilience is the mental, physical, emotional, and behavioral ability to face and cope with adversity,
adapt to change, recover, learn and grow from setbacks.
Ready and Resilient
57. In the daily military environment, psychological resilience training is used to guide
soldiers to improve their rational understanding, stimulate their internal potential, and
enable them to evaluate and actively respond to situations of stress (Zuo et al., 2013).
Study had shown that high self-resilience can allow soldiers who are exposed to the war
environment to better integrate into normal life after the war.
Psychological Resilience Training
58. Who have good personal abilities, can withstand stress, and can reduce suicide,
alcohol dependence, PTSD, and other problems (Green et al., 2010).
Psychological resilience has a positive predictive effect on soldiers’ positive coping
style.
Psychological Resilience Training
59. Due to their remote geographical location, strange and closed environment, monotonous
life, military training intensity, critical mission requirements, and other special military
environmental factors.
Soldiers can easily develop psychological stress responses that cause anxiety, depression,
and other uncomfortable emotions, and take a negative response.
Coping is the selection and execution of behaviors evaluating the intrinsic or extrinsic
requirements.
Psychological Resilience Training
60. It produces behavioral efforts of an individual to control problems.
As an important mediating and regulating factor in the process of psychological stress.
Coping plays a regulatory role between stress and response results and regulates the
mental health of military personnel (liao, 2014).
To improve soldiers’ mental health, attention should be paid to the cultivation of
soldiers’ active coping styles and the avoidance of negative coping patterns.
These coping situations are believed to be beyond the ability of an individual and
require changing cognitive and behavioral efforts
Psychological Resilience Training
61. Relationship Between Resilience and Positive Coping
Style of Air Force Soldiers
Resilience in military environments generally refers to the psychological process in which
individuals adapt to or maintain adequate mental health when they are injured (Qiao and
Yu, 2013).
The stronger the mental resilience of soldiers was, the more frequently they were to use
positive coping methods, which was basically consistent with the findings of previous
studies (Miao, 2006; Wu et al., 2015).
62. Mediating Role of Self-Comfort
psychological resilience significantly predicts self-comfort, which is consistent with
previous research conclusions (Xi et al., 2013).
Soldiers with strong mental resilience show more positive emotions & good emotional
regulation.
At the same time, they are more willing to use self-comfort as an emotional adjustment and
coping method, so that they can be in an optimal emotional state and can adapt better to
the environment (Wu et al., 2015).
63. The Moderating Effect of Social Support
The second half of the mediating process of social support regulation is discussed using
the ecosystem theory of psychological development.
The number of soldiers with more social support who used active coping increased more
quickly than those with less social support and use more positive coping methods.
A mediated model with moderation, focusing on the mechanism of independent variables
acting on dependent variables, namely, the mediating effect (Wen and Ye, 2014).
Individuals who actually feel a high degree of social support will be willing to develop
positive psychological qualities and have more positive resilience (Uchino et al., 1996).
71. Rescliance in Refuges
Females tended to have higher resilience as well as adolescents refuges.
Adolescents suffering from depressive symptoms or other emotional or behavioral
problems had lower resilience.
There was little evidence of an association between resilience scores and exposure to
trauma or service utilization.
73. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders in refugee children reported rates of 18% and 32%
for any psychiatric disorder.
The most commonly reported mental health problems in refugee children are
posttraumatic stress disorder and depression.
18% of Iranian refugee children in Sweden, 25% of Bosnian children, and 57% of Cuban
refugee children in the US were found to suffer from PTSD.
Rescliance in Refuges
74. Major depressive disorder were reported among 17% of Bosnian adolescents and 12.9%
Cambodian children exiled in the US while 11.5% Tibetan refugee children in India were
also diagnosed as suffering from both PTSD and major depression.
A recent Australian study demonstrated a rate of 7.2% for depression in refugee
children and adolescents.
Rescliance in Refuges
76. Resilience in The Context of Psychiatric Disorders
It has been established above that there is a strong interplay between resilience and
mental illness.
There is some evidence that resilience is lower among people who develop mental
disorder, high level of resilience may prevent the development of an illness or minimize
the severity of illness.
The number of traumatic events significantly decreases the level of resilience, and
people are more likely to develop psychiatric disorders such as depression and suicide.
77. Resilience in The Context of Psychiatric Disorders
People with an experience of trauma significantly differ, from those who have not had
such experiences, in terms of structural as well as functional changes in the brain.
Resilience helps to minimize the extent of pathogenesis in developmental process or
transition from health to disease, or wellness or illness by facilitating or arresting
conversion to illness.
78. Resilience in The Context of Psychiatric Disorders
Researchers have investigated the association of resilience in euthymic patients with bipolar
disorder.
High levels of resilience were shown to be related to low levels of impulsivity and
depressive episodes.
The reciprocal relationship between resilience and impulsivity illustrates that it is important
to enhance resilience in order to maintain mental stability in patients.
Where high levels of resilience correlated to low levels of PTSD.
Resilience has even been shown to play a mitigating role in the ideation of suicide in
depressive and anxious individuals.
79. Resilience in The Context of Psychiatric Disorders
Resilience has the potential to be used as a defensive measure toward specific mental
health conditions such as depression and anxiety.
Interestingly baseline resilience is found to be lower among those in the Ultra-high-risk
(UHR) people who converted to frank psychosis.
Treatment strategies for individuals at UHR for psychosis should include promoting
resilience while targeting the reduction of positive and negative symptoms in order to
foster social reintegration and recovery.
80. Resilience in The Context of Psychiatric Disorders
The notion of enhancing resilience through intervention has been studied with patients that had lived
through a high trauma situation.
The results indicated that significant intraparticipant mean increase in resilience at follow-up assessment,
and greater self-reported improvement in resilience processes for participants who experienced more
traumatic events.
Therefore, resilience can be modified and enhanced by metallization and cognitive training.
Other researchers have examined the effect of mindfulness training on resilience mechanisms in active-duty
marines preparing for deployment.
The resilience models offer a novel and more direct approach to drug discovery for schizophrenia and
neuropsychiatric disorders
82. Resilience requires the measurement of:
Internal (personal)
External (environmental) factors
Family and social environment
Evaluating the level of Resilience
83. Measurments and Tools
1. Resilience was negatively associated with neuroticism, and positively related to extraversion and
conscientiousness.
2. Coping styles also predicted variance in resilience above and beyond the contributions of these
personality traits.
3. Task-oriented coping was positively related to resilience, and mediated the relationship between
conscientiousness and resilience.
4. Emotion-oriented coping was associated with low resilience.
5. Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC)
84. 1. Connor–Davidson resilience scale
2. Neo five factor inventory
3. Coping inventory for stressful situations
4. Brief symptom inventory
Measurments and Tools
85. The family’s approach and response are crucial for the resilience of all members, from
young children to vulnerable adults (Walsh, 2016).
In eldercare, mobilizing a family caregiving team can reduce strains on the primary caregiver
as it strengthens family efforts to support the well-being of the elder member (Walsh,
2012a).
Key transactional processes enable the family to rally in highly stressful times:
take proactive steps, to buffer disruptions, to reduce the risk of dysfunction, and to support
positive adaptation and resourcefulness in meeting challenges.
Intervention Directions on Resilience
86. Intervention Directions on Resilience
Find the best way to increase resilient mechanisms is the chances of the individual going
through an extreme adverse life event.
Ongoing training of professionals who have direct contact with youth and adolescents (i.e.
school counselors, teachers, social workers, etc.) in strategies to assist with instilling resilient
qualities in youth.
In the study of the mental health of those in the military and the formulation of effective
intervention programs.
87. Environments For Application of Resilience
Health
Education
Social policy
Research and analysis with focus on resilience
88. Research Applications of The Relationship of
Resilience
Personality Traits
Coping Styles
Psychiatric
Refuges
Military
90. In conclusion
Finally, resilience was shown to moderate the relationship between a
form of childhood maltreatment (emotional neglect) and current
psychiatric symptoms.
These results augment the literature that seeks to better define resilience
and provide evidence for measurements.
Fostering resilience may be critical to efforts to prevent or reduce
mental health problems in refugee adolescents and military society.
92. Referances
Priyvadan Chandrakant Shastri: Resilience: Building immunity in psychiatry Indian J Psychiatry. 2013 Jul-Sep; 55(3):
224–234. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.117134.
Indian J Psychiatry. 2016 Jan-Mar; 58(1): 38–43. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.174365
PMID: 26985103, Resilience: A psychobiological construct for psychiatric disorders Amresh Shrivastava and Avinash
Desousa1, Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer
Family Resilience, A Dynamic Systemic Framework, Froma Walsh DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190095888.003.0015
SADGUNA ANASURI, Building Resilience during Life Stages: Current Status and Strategies, March 2016 ,International
Journal of Humanities and Social Science 6(3):1-9.
(6) (PDF) Building Resilience during Life Stages: Current Status and Strategies. Available from:
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