Hi everyone, and Happy New Year! I’m back after having a few weeks off blogging, and plan to stick to my schedule of 1 post a week in 2018 (usually posted on Thursdays, 4pm GMT).
To start off this year, I thought I’d talk about a concept in psychology which is being applied more to mental health – resilience. Whilst the idea of something being resilient probably isn’t new to you, you may not be aware of how people can be resilient, and what the benefits are of this personality trait.
In psychology, resilience means that someone is able to cope and adapt to difficult life events or stressful situations such as serious health problems or losing their job. It is therefore able to protect against negative outcomes of the stressful event and enable individuals to ‘bounce back’ quicker.
The protective factor model of resilience states that a protective factor such as social support, or self-esteem, interacts with the stressor to reduce negative outcomes such as anxiety or depression (O’Leary et al, 1998). People who have higher levels of social support are more likely to cope with stressful situations, with one study showing that social support moderated the effect of stress on depression scores (Pengilly & Dowd, 2000). Another well-studied protective factor is hardiness, which was identified by Kobasa in 1979. He compared personality traits in executives, and compared who did or did not get ill after stressful life events. He found that those who did not get ill showed more hardiness, which he defined as having a ‘commitment to self’ – an active participation in activities and the outside world; an ‘internal locus of control’ – the idea that you are in control of events that happen to you; and a sense of meaningfulness.
As resilience has been shown to have several protective factors on stressful life events, there has been some debate about whether resilience can be taught to improve how people cope, and therefore improve their mental health. One study carried out in college students compared scores on stress levels between a control group and a group who received a resilience intervention (Steinhardt & Dolbier, 2008). The intervention focused on teaching problem solving, coping strategies and awareness of the different responses to stress. Participants in this group were also encouraged to take responsibility and self-leadership (actions coming from the self). Results showed that the group that took part in resilience training had higher resilience scores and scores of protective factors such as self-esteem. They also showed more effective coping strategies and lower scores on tests assessing depression and stress than the control group who did not receive the intervention. This effect was found with only 4 2-hour teaching sessions, showing that resilience can be taught in a relatively short space of time.
Several other studies have shown that resilience can be taught, something which is now gaining in popularity and can be applied to several populations from students to soldiers. Healthcare professionals are also taught resilience techniques as a way of coping with long term stress in emergency situations (McAllister & McKinnon, 2009).
There are some things you can try if you want to improve your resilience. Taking a break, using your support network, and looking after your physical health are all things which could improve how you cope with pressure or stressful situations. For more information on these tips and more, check out Mind.org’s advice here.
References:
O’Leary, V.E., 1998. Strength in the face of adversity: Individual and social thriving. Journal of Social issues, 54(2), pp.425-446.
Pengilly, J.W. and Dowd, E.T., 2000. Hardiness and social support as moderators of stress. Journal of clinical psychology, 56(6), pp.813-820.
Kobasa, S.C., 1979. Stressful life events, personality, and health: an inquiry into hardiness. Journal of personality and social psychology, 37(1), p.1.
Steinhardt, M. and Dolbier, C., 2008. Evaluation of a resilience intervention to enhance coping strategies and protective factors and decrease symptomatology. Journal of American college health, 56(4), pp.445-453.
McAllister, M. and McKinnon, J., 2009. The importance of teaching and learning resilience in the health disciplines: a critical review of the literature. Nurse education today, 29(4), pp.371-379.