Family Resilience
Resilience has been described as a process that signifies relatively positive adaptation when confronted with significant adversity or trauma (Luthar et al., 2015). From a relational developmental systems perspective, resilience is viewed as involving mutually adaptive person ↔ context relations that take into account individual characteristics and features of the environment that promote healthy development in challenging contexts (Lerner et al., 2012). Aligned with this perspective, family resilience can be viewed as a reflection of dynamic, mutually-influencing family relations situated within a particular context that promote adaptation and growth for the family system.
Family resilience calls our attention to the capacity of the family to rebound from adversity and become stronger, more resourceful, and more purposeful than before (Walsh, 2003). Since the concept of family resilience is systemic and holistic in its approach and is sensitive to context, it takes into account both the family’s strengths and vulnerabilities to strengthen relationships and resources to promote adaptation and growth (Walsh, 2003). There is not a specific gene that accounts for resilience, rather resilience emerges from dynamic, interactive processes that involve supportive relationships, gene expression, and adaptive biological systems. As such, the focus is shifted away from individualism to building resilient families and communities across diverse contexts (Cicchetti, 2010; Lerner & Yehuda, 2018; Russo et al., 2012; Walsh, 2016).
Building family resilience involves key family processes that can be nurtured to buffer and protect families in the face of stress, adversity, or calamity (Walsh, 2016). Key processes identified in building family resilience include communication patterns characterized by clarity, open emotional expression, and collaborative problem-solving; shared beliefs that create meaning out of adversity and foster optimism; and organizational patterns of connectedness and flexibility (Walsh 2007). Additionally, affirming faith or cultural traditions has been found to foster resilience, including family resilience in the context of adversity, war trauma, and beginning again in a new country (Kasen et al., 2012; Masten, 2014; Rush, 2021).
References
Cicchetti, D. (2010). Resilience under conditions of extreme stress: A multilevel perspective. World Psychiatry: Official Journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 9(3), 145–154. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2051-5545.2010.tb00297.x
Kasen, S., Wickramaratne, P., Gameroff, M. J., & Weissman, M. M. (2012). Religiosity and resilience in persons at high risk for major depression. Psychological Medicine, 42(3), 509–519. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291711001516
Lerner, R. M., Weiner, M. B., Arbeit, M. R., Chase, P. A., Agans, J. P., Schmid, K. L., & Warren, A. E. A. (2012). Resilience across the lifespan. In B. Hayslip, Jr. & G. C. Smith (Eds.), Annual review of gerontology and geriatrics, Vol. 32. Emerging perspectives on resilience in adulthood and later life (pp. 275–299). Springer Publishing Company.
Luthar, S. S., Grossman, E. J., & Small, P. J. (2015). Resilience and adversity. In M. E. Lamb & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Socioemotional processes (7th ed., pp. 247–286). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118963418.childpsy307
Masten A. S. (2014). Global perspectives on resilience in children and youth. Child Development, 85(1), 6–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12205
Rush, Alexandra, “Exploring Trauma, Loss, and Posttraumatic Growth in Poles Who Survived the Second World War and Their Descendants” (2021). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 758. https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/758
Russo, S. J., Murrough, J. W., Han, M.-H., Charney, D. S., & Nestler, E. J. (2012). Neurobiology of resilience. Nature Neuroscience, 15(11), 1475–1484. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3234
Walsh F. (2003). Family resilience: A framework for clinical practice. Family Process, 42(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2003.00001.x
Walsh, F. (2007). Traumatic loss and major disasters: Strengthening family and community resilience. Family Process, 46(2), 207–227. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2007.00205.x
Walsh F. (2016). Applying a family resilience framework in training, practice, and research: Mastering the art of the possible. Family Process, 55(4), 616–632. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12260
