User:Isabella De Marchena/sandbox

Psychological Resilience (Improvements)

[Original Version]

Psychological resilience is defined as an individual's ability to successfully cope with adversity. Adversity and stress can come in the shape of family or relationship problems, health problems, or workplace and financial worries, among others. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a negative experience with "competent functioning". Resilience is not a rare ability; in reality, it is found in the average individual and it can be learned and developed by virtually anyone. Resilience is the result of successfully coping with distress, rather than a personality trait. It is a process of individuation through a structured system with gradual discovery of personal and unique abilities.

A common misconception is that resilient people are free from unpleasant emotions or thoughts, and are always happy. To the contrary, resilient individuals have, through time, developed healthy coping techniques that allow them to effectively and relatively easily navigate around or through crises. In other words, people who demonstrate resilience are people with optimistic attitudes and positive emotionality; they are, in practice, able to effectively counter negative emotions with positive emotions.

[Revised Introduction - My Version]

Psychological resilience is the ability to successfully cope with a crisis and to return to pre-crisis status quickly. Resilience exist when the person uses “mental processes and behaviors in promoting personal assets and protecting an individual from the potential negative effects of stressors.” In simpler terms, psychological resilience exists in people who develop psychological and behavioral capabilities that allow them to remain calm during crises/chaos and to move on from the incident without long-term negative consequences. While psychological resilience is often framed as an extraordinary trait, it is an evolutionary advantage that most people have and use to manage normal stressors, such as disappointments, work stress, family stress, and stress associated with living in a society. However, while a common trait, it is important to understand that additional resilience is needed to handle larger crises, such as natural disasters, medical emergency, and family tragedies.

To understand psychological resilience, several topics need to be covered. First, it is helpful to review the background and history of psychological resilience to gain a theoretical understanding of the concept. Second, it is useful to review how psychological resilience is developed. Third, to understand why and how psychological resilience is beneficial, it is important to read how this concept benefits specific groups of people, such as children, workers, people in the military, and athletes. Finally, reviewing the criticisms of psychological resilience helps to create a point of balance about the concept, its utilization, and what research is still needed to justify its use. In the following discussion, each of these topics is reviewed in detail.

[New Section Added]

Building Resilience

in building resilience is to change the nature of self-talk. Self-talk is the internal monologue people have that reinforce beliefs about the person’s self-efficacy and self-value. To build resilience, the person needs to eliminated negative self-talk, such as “I can’t do this” and “I can handle this,” and to replace it with positive self-talk, such as “I can do this” and “I can handle this.” This small change in thought patterns helps to reduce psychological stress when a person if faced with a difficult challenge.

The second step a person can take to build resilience is to be prepared for challenges, crises, and emergencies. In business, preparedness is created by creating emergency response plans, business continuity plans, and contingency plans. For personal preparedness, the individual can create a financial cushion to help with economic crises, he/she can develop social networks to help him/her through trying personal crises, and he/she can develop emergency response plans for his/her household.

Resilience is also enhanced by developing effective coping skills for stress. Coping skills help the individual to reduce stress levels, so they remain functional. Coping skills include using meditation, exercise, socialization, and self-care practices to maintain a healthy level of stress.