Interdisciplinary Psychology:

“The Resilience Factor”                                                                                    Patricia Sims

by Karen Reivich, Ph.D.  &  Andrew Shatte, Ph.D.                                           02/17/08

            I’ve been called a “survivor” which in my mind implies victim.  I much prefer the term “resilient” which is defined in the introduction as “the ability to persevere and adapt when things go wrong”.  Surviving is living but resiliency is living a certain way.  On page 26 the authors say that “resilience is a mind-set that enables you to seek out new experiences and to view your life as a work in progress.”  While surviving may get you through to the next day, resilience allows you to “overcome, steer through, bounce back, and reach out”.

            I was enjoying the book, until I read “We have developed a resilience test that measure’s…..” (p 32)  I am leery of “tests”; all of my “thinking traps” leap into place at the very word.  I “jump to conclusions” – I’m probably going to fail.  I develop “tunnel vision” – I know I’m going to fail.  I start “magnifying and minimizing”- I’ll do worse than everybody else, oh well, the test doesn’t measure anything “real” anyway.  And, so on.  (I would like to know more about how they developed this test.)

            While I’m leery of tests, I’m also a sucker for taking them.  I can’t wait to see if I measure up.  Right off the bat, I’m in trouble.  The first category is “emotion regulation -the ability to stay calm under pressure”.  (p 36)  (They should have put the calming exercises before the tests.)   After taking all the tests, I guess I’m happy to learn that for the most part I’m “average”.  The two categories I thought I would not score well in, “impulse control” and “reaching out”; I scored “above average”.  I’m not sure what this means, perhaps I don’t need to read the book? 

            On to the “groundwork” – I’m happy to learn that people can “change positively and permanently”.  (p 50)  I’m pleased to learn that “thinking is key to boosting resiliency”; “cognitions cause emotions, and emotions matter in determining who remains resilient and who succumbs.” (p 51)  While “thinking is key”, there was some debate as to whether “accurate” thinking was necessary.  The book goes on to say that the best approach is probably “realistic optimism”.  Since all “reality” is filtered through our own individual perception of things, reality is always open to interpretation.  Resilience, however, is determined to be “the basic strength, underpinning all the positive characteristics in a person’s emotional and psychological makeup”. (p 59)

            The book mentioned that resilience does not have a genetic component.  I wonder if children growing up around people who exhibit that “basic strength” of resiliency and “realistic optimism” would be more prone to developing the skills necessary to be resilient?

            I began to have trouble with the book when the authors started using catch phrases:  “thinking traps”, “icebergs”, “ABC’s”, etc.  I find that kind of writing too cutesy and Dr. Philish – “it’s your canoe and you need to paddle it”.   I think we do need to examine our core beliefs and our cognitive styles if we want to change behaviors, but I think you can just say that, explain your theory on how to do that, and be done.

            I have a problem with this statement; “Resilience comes when you believe that you have the power to control the events in your life, the power to change what needs changing – and that belief is accurate.”  (p106)  I’m still trying to figure out exactly what the problem consists of – I’ll bring it up during seminar discussion and get some help.