Abstract
Background: Exposure to demands is normally considered to drain resources and threaten wellbeing. However, studies have indicated a resilience-strengthening role for stressors.
Objectives: This paper introduces a unifying model, including five testable hypotheses regarding how resilience can be strengthened progressively via exposure to life-stressors.
Methods: We review and synthesize relevant scholarship that underpins the Systematic Self-Reflection model of resilience-strengthening.
Results: The model highlights the importance of a specific meta-cognitive skill (self-reflection on one’s initial stressor response) as a mechanism for strengthening resilience. The Systematic Self-Reflection model uniquely proposes five self-reflective practices critical in the on-going adaptation of three resilient capacities: (1) coping resources, (2) usage of coping and emotional regulatory repertoire, and (3) resilient beliefs. The self-reflective process is proposed to strengthen a person’s resilience by developing insight into their already-present capacities, the limitations of these capacities, and by stimulating the search for person-driven alternative approaches.
Conclusion: This model extends the existing scholarship by proposing how the experience of stressors and adversity may have resilience-strengthening opportunities. The implication of this model is that engaging with stressors can have positive consequences for longer-term healthy emotional development if scaffolded in adaptive reflective practices.
Objectives: This paper introduces a unifying model, including five testable hypotheses regarding how resilience can be strengthened progressively via exposure to life-stressors.
Methods: We review and synthesize relevant scholarship that underpins the Systematic Self-Reflection model of resilience-strengthening.
Results: The model highlights the importance of a specific meta-cognitive skill (self-reflection on one’s initial stressor response) as a mechanism for strengthening resilience. The Systematic Self-Reflection model uniquely proposes five self-reflective practices critical in the on-going adaptation of three resilient capacities: (1) coping resources, (2) usage of coping and emotional regulatory repertoire, and (3) resilient beliefs. The self-reflective process is proposed to strengthen a person’s resilience by developing insight into their already-present capacities, the limitations of these capacities, and by stimulating the search for person-driven alternative approaches.
Conclusion: This model extends the existing scholarship by proposing how the experience of stressors and adversity may have resilience-strengthening opportunities. The implication of this model is that engaging with stressors can have positive consequences for longer-term healthy emotional development if scaffolded in adaptive reflective practices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-17 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Anxiety, Stress and Coping |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2019 |
Keywords
- adversity
- stress appraisal
- coping strategies
- post-traumatic stress
- self-reflection
- Adversity