We argue that studies on emerging psychopathology should focus on factors that contribute to both risk and resilience. Including social, cultural and family context in the evaluation of resilience is of great value, as this can identify targets for early and preventive interventions. When this happens, these people are able to be more productive members of the community and enhance community resilience. If you are someone blessed by having a significant amount of resources (money, property and even health and happiness), giving back is a way of keeping the energy of the community in flow.
Agile working and the impact on well-being and mental health: How to support digital resilience
Assessing a community’s current economy and developing its ability to sustain economic growth were also noted as important areas of concentration after a disaster67. A sense of community empowerment can be an additional output of public involvement in governance and leadership24, as can increased trust in risk and crisis communication stemming from local leaders. Additionally, public involvement may involve having local leaders who understand and represent a community’s uniqueness and aspirations. In terms of public involvement and support, having local participation and representation in strategic planning, response, and recovery were described as important by multiple publications13,19,22,48,52,72.
Good developmental functioning or competence in an individual or system is an indicator of positive adaptation (Masten & Cicchetti, 2016). According to this understanding, it is possible that each individual may show resilience across a number of situations/contexts with positive outcomes; however, the same attributes may not be protective for all risks. Resilience has earned support from multiple research studies when conceptualized as an aptitude for coping (Stratta et al., https://www.cdcfoundation.org/howrightnow 2015). It is conceived to operate along with the trauma and intercedes before the development of symptoms, so resilient individuals will have minimal or no symptoms. Resilience acts as a buffer against the development of any psychological problems (Van der Walt et al., 2014) and “immunity” to individuals against negative effects of adversities (Garmezy et al., 1984). Additionally, resilience trajectory might have brief periods of disequilibrium after a highly adverse event followed by healthy adaptive functioning.
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- Applying this practical model to the evidence highlights a number of interrelated implications for policy, research and practice.
- In doing so, the findings contribute to a growing body of work demonstrating the utility of the Social Cure approach (C. Haslam et al., 2018) for identifying specific pathways through which community‐based helping benefits volunteers’ well‐being (Bowe et al., 2020; Gray & Stevenson, 2020).
- A systematic review of literature published between January 1990 and February 2024 was undertaken following Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines.
- Since I began graduate school, the transformation in tools and technology available to study resilience is staggering.
- This general tendency to ignore the social vulnerabilities shaping pre-disaster conditions produces what we might refer to as an “equity gap” in the contemporary resilience literature.
For example, a high degree of maternal care and protection may be resilience-enhancing during infancy, but may interfere with individuation during adolescence or young adulthood. However, in reality, resilience more likely exists on a continuum that may be present to differing degrees across multiple domains of life (Pietrzak & Southwick, 2011). In defining resilience, it is important to specify whether resilience is being viewed as a trait, a process, or an outcome, and it is often tempting to take a binary approach in considering whether resilience is present or absent. Most of us think of resilience as the ability to bend but not break, bounce back, and perhaps even grow in the face of adverse life experiences. Dr. Southwick posed a series of questions about resilience to each of the panelists.
Social Capital and Community Resilience and Recovery
Recognition of each child’s or youth’s intersections of gender, lifestage, family resources within the context of their identity markers fits with a localized approach to resilience promotion and, at the same time, requires recognition of the broader determinants of population health. Although the contribution of resilience theory is its greater emphasis on adaptive capacities, we should not loose sight of the fundamental role of the stressor. This unpleasant conclusion is more palatable if one remembers that resilience is not an immutable characteristic that a community has or does not have but is instead a process that emerges from malleable resources.
Not always, but typically, a community is an entity that has geographic boundaries and shared fate. We return to the question of the meaning and definitions of resilience and related concepts in the next section of this paper. Its metaphorical origins notwithstanding, human resilience, we believe, must now be studied on its own terms without undue concern with how those meanings correspond to known physical properties or laws. Looking back, one wonders if perhaps the social and psychological sciences should have created their own language, free from inherited meanings, but the term is probably here to stay. As references to resilience have continued to increase, so too have criticisms that the concept may be inappropriate, imprecise, or “glittery” (e.g., Bodin and Winman 2004; Carpenter et al. 2001; Cowen 2001; Klein et al. 2003).
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