Unprecedented times such as these pose unprecedented difficulties. For instance, struggling to perform daily chores was considered to be a potential marker of latent psychological conditions like depression, etc. But looks like that is not the case anymore. Ever since the pandemic, many feel burdened to do the things they once did without much effort. Realizing this newly found inertia is a result of uncertain and sedentary lives, people today are trying out different lifestyle changes to be more productive. The goal is to find a regime that beats this inertia and brings out the best in them. However, it is seen that the fruition of these efforts is not uniform. While some have managed to keep themselves afloat despite all the chaos and some have managed to thrive. But there are others too who are entering to lasting inertia. Why this difference? How are some able to thrive? Managements in various settings are trying to help their employees break this inertia. This is evidenced by numerous studies that found improved lifestyle choices since the pandemic.
Psychologists reason that some are better able to cope than others because they are more resilient. Gill Windle defines resilience as “the ability to bounce back after an or during an experience of distress.” With the recent emphasis on practicing resilient lifestyles, one wonders if resilience is a necessary 21st-century skill or a product of commercial science. However, resilience research in psychology is older than one can imagine. Here is a brief account of when resilience was introduced into the psychological lexicon and the social events that co-occurred.
(Fig.1: Distribution of resilience research in the last seven and half decades in What is Resilience? [Master thesis] 2021. Source: Google Scholar database (1945-2020). Graph by - Rajita.P)
Within psychology, resilience has always been a topic of interest. However, it was only studied implicitly, either as a personality trait or human ability, until the late 20th century. American Psychological Association (APA) incorporated this term into the psychological lexicon only in 2003. Earlier to that, most of the investigation on resilience was through ego resilience and hardiness. Moreover, extensive resilience research began only after the 1990s. As per the Google Scholar database, the number of publications with resilience in title quadrupled from the 80s to 90s. Fig.1 gives an overview of the frequency of resilience research over the past five decades. This sudden increase is usually attributed to a paradigm shift in health care—from pathogenesis to salutogenesis, as suggested by David Fletcher. The pathogenic approach focuses on the cause of disease while the salutogenic approach focuses on the factors that promote well-being. Resilience, a term imbibed from physical sciences broadly denotes the human ability to bounce back from traumatic experiences. But did this paradigm shift in health science also inspire the emergence of resilience research in psychology? Or, did the emergence of resilience research in psychology inspire this paradigm shift in health science?
Fig.2: Distribution of resilience research across different sub-disciplines within psychology as per PsychInfo database. Graphic created by- Rajita.P
Answers to such questions can be found in retrospective introspection of the history of these disciplines. Figure 2 indicates that most research on resilience has been conducted in health care practices and military psychology. These observations can be linked with the reflexive nature of the discipline (psychology). World wars and global revolutions have greatly influenced the making of this discipline. Therefore, reviewing social events during the 80s is crucial in understanding the rise of resilience.
During these times, major wars (the world wars and the Vietnam war) were coming to an end and people, particularly those in the US, were beginning to face their consequences. Americans expressed distress and difficulties in coping with war trauma. As a result, in 1980, the American Psychiatric Association identified Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a clinical disorder and added it to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder-III (DSM: this is the holy grail for diagnosing psychological disorders). Consequently, psychological studies on PTSD, trauma, coping styles, and recovery were on a rise. An epidemiological survey 15 years after the Vietnam War in the USA revealed some striking insights. It was found that war veterans suffered mental trauma even after many years of the war. It was also found that some people coped with trauma exceptionally well which was evident through their positive assessment of a stressor, constructive ego defenses, determination, changes in ideology, beliefs, or world views etc. These individual differences became the basis for adopting a salutogenic approach to understanding coping from PTSD. By the 90s, alternative medical care, rebuilding infrastructure, communal healing, and social support were shown to be promising strategies to help people cope better. In order to help communities heal, APA came up with a series of campaigns in 1996, such as a public education campaign called ‘talk to someone who can help.’
These attempts by APA were followed by the most destructive terrorist attack in American history — the 9/11 attack. This event changed the pace of resilience research in the USA. A survey to grasp the pulse of people revealed that Americans reported chronic trauma instead of additional stress. They expressed a need to ‘bounce back, as Newman, the then executive director of APA, pointed. After this, a series of brochures and documentaries were released, and presentations, workshops were conducted throughout the country. A series of campaigns were organized such as the ‘Road to Resilience’ (2002), ‘Resilience in a time of war’ (2003), and ‘Homecoming: Resilience After Wartime’. The same year, in 2003, APA had replaced the word hardiness with ‘resilience’ thereby officially adding a psychological meaning to the word.
From this brief history, it is visible that all these events together led to the rise of resilience research. Therefore signifying one single causal relation to its rise is not fair. However, the exponential rise in resilience research has been consistent since then. Today, social media has successfully publicized this academic enthusiasm and brought public attention to the topic. Such popularity poses a notion of familiarity and negligence to the details of the concept. Therefore, instead of getting into a chicken or the egg dilemma regarding paradigm shift and the emergence of resilience research, it is reasonable to accept their concurrency. Although the rise of resilience is associated with war trauma, it is not restricted to wars. Over the years, it has extended to various aspects like disasters, famines, gender, identity and culture, and everyday hassles as well as to other nations. Thereby, becoming a topic of global interest.
As a result, there is a huge diversification in the contexts of approaching resilience psychologically. Currently, resilience among children, the elderly, women, sportspersons, refugees, patients, and caregivers are some more popular themes. Broadly, resilience research is understood through two themes: crisis and protective factors. An event that threatens an individuals’ state of peace qualifies as a crisis. Protective factors, on the other hand, are all characteristics that can lower the impact of a crisis. Practically in different cultures, different events qualify as crises. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the cultural contexts of resilience. Histories of resilience in different nations could potentially give us a better understanding of the cultural relevance of resilience.
Nevertheless, cultural resilience is a topic that is gaining momentum only recently. Histories of evolution of resilience studies are fewer as of this day. This article presents the evolution of resilience in psychology and therefore is American-centric. Integrating sources of resilience from various cultures will empower science to decrypt why some individuals are more resilient than others. Eventually, such insights will enable designing effective training modules and substantial enhancement in quality of life.
For now, here is a broad, simple, and employable conceptualization of resilience proposed by Agaibi, a resilience scholar and therapist. This can be used to implement resilience in everyday life:
Reflect, Reframe, Renew
Evaluate your barriers and your strengths
Surmountable
Innovative
Laugh
Intentional and Introspective
Endure and Evolve
Navigate
Community
Empowered
Rajitha Panditharadhyula
