A shared universe › Blog › What resilience really is · Español
The word resilience is everywhere, and it is sometimes used as if it were an obligation to be tough. What the people who study it have found is considerably kinder.
Resilience comes from the Latin “resilire”, meaning to spring back. In physics it describes a material’s ability to regain its shape after a force has deformed it. From the 1960s, psychology began using it to talk about people who come through something very difficult.
Today it appears in adverts, speeches and self-help books, often with a meaning researchers wouldn’t recognise: never breaking down, never needing anyone, finding something good in everything. Nor is it the same as growing after a blow. Being resilient doesn’t require coming out changed or improved; it is enough to be able to carry on with life, sadly, without going under completely.
In 2004, the psychologist George Bonanno, of Columbia University in New York, published a hugely influential article. Until then, many specialists in grief and trauma viewed anyone who didn’t fall apart after a loss with suspicion: either something was odd, or it was a sign they were denying the pain. Bonanno gathered data that said otherwise. Staying on your feet is more common than was believed, and it is different from recovering gradually.
One of his best-known studies involved 205 older people who had lost their partner. What made it special is that they had been interviewed years before the death, and then again at six and eighteen months afterwards. Almost half, 46%, showed a resilient pattern: their mood barely suffered. They were not cold or distant people. Before the loss they were no less warm or attached than those who went on to have a long period of grief, and they too felt some sorrow and longing. The pain did not stop them from going on living.
In 2018, Bonanno and two colleagues reviewed 54 studies of people who had been through very hard situations. On average, around two in three followed the resilient path; about one in five recovered over time; and one in ten stayed unwell for a long time.
Not all researchers agree with those percentages. In 2016, Frank Infurna and Suniya Luthar, of Arizona State University, analysed a German survey that has followed the same people since 1984. Using a different way of doing the calculations, they found that after being widowed, divorced or losing a job, the usual outcome was a clear drop in wellbeing that could last several years.
Bonanno and his team replied, and the debate remains open: the result changes a great deal depending on what is measured and how. For someone going through something difficult, the practical conclusion is simpler. If you take longer than other people, there is nothing wrong with you. There are many ways of getting through a loss, and none of them is an exam.
Ann Masten, of the University of Minnesota, spent decades studying children and young people growing up amid many difficulties. In 2001 she summed up what she had learned in an article whose title has become famous: “Ordinary Magic”. What surprised her most was how commonplace resilience is. It doesn’t come from exceptional gifts but from adaptive abilities that almost all of us have, and the greatest danger is whatever damages them.
In Masten’s list of what protects most, very everyday things appear:
That is why Masten insists it is not a trait you either have or don’t have. It is an ability that changes, because everything that supports it changes.
Someone who breaks down is no less strong than someone who holds out. They may have been handed a heavier load, or have fewer supports around them.
In more recent work, Bonanno argues that what helps most is not one fixed way of coping but being able to change approach according to what each moment asks. Together with Charles Burton, he described it in three steps, which can be turned into simple questions:
Sometimes what’s needed is to talk about what happened; at other times, not to think about it for a while. Neither is always better.
Some people stay unwell for a long time after a blow. It isn’t a lack of strength or willpower. If months go by and the sadness, fear or sleeplessness don’t ease, or they stop you getting on with your life, it is worth talking to your doctor. Asking for help is part of coming through, too. In Spain you can talk to a person at the Teléfono de la Esperanza, 717 003 717, at any time. If you are thinking of ending your life, call 024: it is free and answered 24 hours a day. If you are in another country, call your local emergency number or a helpline there.
On Masten’s list, people came first. In A shared universe you can light a star with “What weighs on me” or “What I hope for” and receive a little of that company, from people who don’t know who you are.