As our awareness of trauma increases, so does our longing for resilience. What is resilience? I like Dr. Rachel Yehuda’s definition: “…a reintegration of self that includes a conscious effort to move forward in an insightful integrated positive manner as a result of lessons learned from an adverse experience.” I am a social worker, and my education emphasized systems thinking: understanding a person’s environment first is important to creating lasting change. This means I am often frustrated with the conversation around resilience for the assumption that it is the individual’s exclusive responsibility to deal with the consequences of broken systems. Abuse, discrimination, and poverty are issues we can work to address through education, policy, and legislative action. When we make superheroes out of individuals who overcome these issues through “resilience” we also blame the victims of systemic issues for continuing to struggle. Both glorifying resilience and blaming victims falsely absolves us of the responsibility to create change.
I believe the reintegration of ourselves after adverse experiences is the first step towards creating societal change. Dialectical behavior therapy calls it “Wise Mind”, Internal Family Systems calls it “Self-energy”, Attachment work calls it “Reparenting our inner child”, Bowen calls it “Self-differentiation”, whatever the approach, re-integration of self is at the core of all growth and healing. Resilience as individuals gives us strength for the battle of systemic change.
Doing your own deep healing is a radical step towards creating the change you want to see in the world. When someone chooses to go to therapy they are not accepting responsibility for “being the problem”. They are saying that the problem stops with me. That I choose to face my emotional discomfort head on to live aligned with my values. What this looks like depends on your life. Do you need to: set new family norms, get politically active, or let go of other people’s expectations? In therapy we keep ourselves accountable to the beautiful and hard work of changing how we see ourselves and the world.
How do you see yourself and the world?
Stay curious,
Laura Danese
PS. Here’s a list of common core beliefs from CBT. If you find yourself resonating with many on the negative side of the list, therapy could be a good support for you in increasing your resilience. Follow along to learn more tools to change your thoughts and your world.
Photo Credits: Théodore Gudin Lighthouse Théodore Gudin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 1845
Southwick, Steven M et al. “Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges: interdisciplinary perspectives.” European journal of psychotraumatology vol. 5 10.3402/ejpt.v5.25338. 1 Oct. 2014, doi:10.3402/ejpt.v5.25338
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