Episode Details

Episode 20.  Resilience: Ten Factors

June 15, 2020

Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis:  Carpe Diem, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview.   We are going beyond mere resiliency, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before.  I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski your host and guide, with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me.  This is episode 20, where we are starting a multi-episode deep dive into resilience and discuss 10 elements that constitute resilience as defined by the general literature.  Today we are going to define resilience and cover 10 primary resilience factors – from a secular perspective.  This is episode 20 entitled Resilience: Ten Factors and it is released on June 15, 2020.  In the next episodes were are going to get much more into how to develop greater resilience.  In the next episode, we are also going to get into a Catholic understanding of resilience that incorporates what we know to be true by our faith.  

But for today, we are starting with how secular psychology defines resilience.  We are looking at the elements that secular psychology states are the factors of resilience.  We want a solid conceptual base, we are being catholic with a small c here, meaning universal.  I’m drawing from many sources here, but there’s one book that stands out, one book that I’m using in particular for this episode, because of how it’s based in research and its simple, effective organization.  It includes insights from neuroscience research, and it has great illustrative stories, so it’s more than readable, it’s engaging.  The book is “Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges by Steven Southwick and Dennis Charney.  The book is now in its second edition and I like their structure and their emphasis on looking for research-based evidence, not just their personal experience.  

So what is resilience?  What does secular psychology mean by resilience?  Let’s define resilience.   It’s definition time.  [Cue sound effect]

The American Psychological Association defines resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress— such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences.” 

Let’s break that down.   In the secular world, resilience is about adapting yourself to life’s demands, it’s about handling the challenges and curve balls that life throws at you with poise.  It’s about recovering previous levels.  It’s about getting up as many times as you are knocked down by dangers and misfortunes, it’s about journeying on under the load of troubles and difficulties that life brings us.  It’s about not succumbing to failure, not collapsing under stress, not being destabilized by hardships and tough situations.

The word resilience derives from the present participle of the Latin verb resilire, meaning "to jump back" or "to recoil."

The concept of psychological resilience draws from physics.  In physics, resilience is the ability of an elastic material (such as rubber) to absorb energy when it is deformed by some agent and release that energy as it springs back to its original shape.  

Imagine a racquetball flying back to the player, [cue sound] who strikes the ball with the racquet, squeezing the ball, flattening the rubber.  The ball absorbs the energy of the swing and then in its resilience, it launches off the racquet, discharging all that energy as it flies away.  

What resilience is not:  Misconceptions that people have.  Being resilient does not mean you won’t struggle, suf