Resilience? What does resilience have to do with me? I hear this question from friends, colleagues, and those whom I counsel. My answer is always the same: Everything.

It is all too common for us to doubt our abilities, to see nothing extraordinary or powerful about ourselves. And this holds as true for those of us who are in the helping professions as it does for our clients. Yet if we stop for a moment to consider how much we actually accomplish each day, the many roles we play, the distances we travel — both physically and emotionally, we may see quite another view of ourselves. This is what our resilience can give us, the ability to align ourselves with our strengths and to recognize our personal power.

The fact is, most of us underestimate the degree of strength and flexibility our lives require on a daily basis. And this is true both for ourselves and for those we serve. We focus instead on unfinished tasks and unfulfilled goals. We do not realize how much we ask of ourselves, having done so much and yet expecting ourselves to do more. We need to be reminded of this from time to time for ourselves, and we need to teach this to our clients, as then Governor Ann Richards of Texas did in her keynote address to the 1988 Democratic Convention. As a political leader, and a woman in recovery, she pointed out the irony that while Fred Astaire received top billing, “Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”

All of us, our clients and ourselves, have the potential to master the art of resilience. We all share a special ability to take charge of our lives and fend for ourselves the meaning, richness, and purpose we seek. Our inner resilience is the power to know what we need and the strength to act on that knowledge.

Many of us have relied on this inner compass for so long that we are not even aware of it. When we need to make a decision on what is right for us, our resilience is there to guide us. If we permit it, our resilience can inform and share our actions and responses to allow us to be the person that we want to be. For others of us, and for many of our clients, we need to learn about this part of ourselves.

What is “resilience”?
Resilience is a new term for a concept that has evolved slowly over the last few decades, and which is only now beginning to receive widespread attention (Masten, 2001). In psychological and sociological literature, resilience is used to describe people who lead normal, fulfilling lives despite having been subject to trauma, or who, because of their early home life, are at high risk for developing personal and social problems. The term has been used to described European Holocaust survivors and children growing up in abusive and difficult homes. These people are labeled resilient because they possess the ability to recover from the adversity they have experienced and retain a positive self-image and view of the world.

As a result of such clinical definitions, resilience is frequently thought of as a quality belonging only to those who have survived great hardship. Yet all healthy people are naturally resilient. Just as our body has the resilience to protect itself from disease and heal after injury, so we have psychological resilience. In the body, a certain amount of exposure to disease, such as childhood chicken pox, immunizes us against future illness; we build antibodies and become more resistant. With regular exercise, our bodies become stronger, more flexible and ready to respond to challenge and stress. Likewise, a certain amount of stress strengthens our psychological resilience and increases our ability to handle greater and greater challenges (Wolin & Wolin, 1993).

Psychological resilience draws on all aspects of the self: emotion, intellect, and spirit. As individuals, we develop our own coping with life, our own unique point of view. The exact nature and form of our resilience are as unique as our personality. How we experience our resilience and how it manifests itself depends upon who we are and what we have experienced in our lives. This is also true of our clients.

Frequently it is our clients who are in the process of tackling major challenges and desperately hoping to win against overwhelming odds. We work daily with people who have faced the deaths of family members from AIDS, face the prospect of losing their job, their marriage, and what feels like their sanity, and are simultaneously coping with an addiction. This is more than a full plate.

But being challenged does not mean we are not also resilient. All of us demonstrate resilience in big ways and in everyday small ways too: when we reach for the telephone to talk to a supportive friend, when we find the courage to end a destructive relationship, or make a new beginning, when we take a breath and try again when things don’t go as planned. In drawing upon our strengths, we draw upon our resilience. We may express it in any number of ways — through our intellectual abilities, creativity, good humor, or sheer tenacity. We each develop our own style and source of strength — whatever allows us to face our challenges and prevail.

Engendering resilience in clients
So, how do we engender resilience in our clients? The first part of the answer to the question of “What makes some clients bounce back better than others?” is a therapist who understands how to do this themselves in their own lives. For we cannot preach what we do not practice, nor can we just talk the talk, without walking the walk. Embracing resilience in our work is also to embrace it in our lives. While this has profound implications for our personal lives, it also has major implications for our work lives.

The journey to resilience is not unlike other journeys. It is not a destination on a map, it is a process that once understood becomes incorporated into our lives and becomes part of who we are, part of how we hold ourselves, part of not only how we hold our clients, but also an important part of what we teach them.

A new paradigm of practice
Becoming conscious of our strengths makes us stronger. Our resilience increases as we recognize the magnitude of what we have already accomplished, for we came to believe we can do as much and more again. This represents a new, more positive, even dynamic view of how people can live a successful, satisfying life. It replaces the myopic focus on obstacles and problems by widening the perspective to look past the problems and focus on their solutions.

We already have considered the personal process of seeing ourselves as resilient, but a moment is needed to discuss about how in doing this, we are shifting what is for many, their practice paradigm. Because it is not enough just to begin to see ourselves and others as resilient. Doing this begins to shift where we put our attention, and what we feel is the solution, to the problems that we counsel about daily.

Let’s face it: most of our training involves assessing and treating pathology. Indeed one could argue that this is part of what we are paid to do, as every insurance company requests a DSM-IV diagnosis of what is “wrong” with our client. The other part of what we are required to do is to develop a treatment plan. Treatment plans are needed by all agencies, and in some one can find a refreshing trend, particularly in child welfare agencies, that is requiring the identification of strengths as part of the plan. However, treatment plans are also requested by many managed care companies. And it is interesting to note that they involve the identification of specific problems, identification of symptoms, but nowhere is there a request to identify strengths and coping mechanisms that could be useful, given the current presenting problem.

Thus, the identification and use of strengths in doing treatment, while crucial and for some cutting-edge, may require the rethinking of how to go about the very fabric of addiction treatment. In this way, focusing on resilience can lead to a new treatment structure.

The type of treatment that results from a focus on strengths is in itself empowering. It results in clients who come in realizing that while they may have a problem, they also have resources, abilities that they use, strengths that others notice. This gives them a starting place that is positive, a place where they have personal efficacy, a place where they can search for the solutions to the issue that is troubling them.

Teaching resilience
Resilience is an essential piece of psychological functioning. Unfortunately many people have never consciously discovered their resilience and remain cut off from actively developing this part of themselves. One goal therefore of counseling needs to be to help your clients understand their own resilience. This begins by your wanting your clients to be resilient, and by teaching your clients about their own resilient qualities.

Teaching resilience is a four-fold pro-cess consisting of:

1. Helping your clients develop a vocabulary of their own unique personal strengths
2. Demonstrating that they already rely on their resilience
3. Finding examples of when they used their resilience in the past, and
4. Assisting them in consciously using their resilience to deal with the challenge that they are currently facing.

Develop a vocabulary of strengths
When your goal is the development of resiliency, then developing a “vocabulary of strengths” becomes part of the work of therapy. It occurs during the narrative that goes on during any assessment or treatment process. It begins with the therapist being naturally curious about the client and asking questions that are the result of the answer the client has just given — not being limited to filling in all of the information that is required on, for example, an intake form.

This “curiosity” takes the form of noticing the strengths your client uses daily, and helping them to notice this as well. Take for example, the story of Naomi, a 35-year-old, single mother of four boys all under age six, who came to a clinic due to drunk driving. Naomi arrived looking downcast. She spoke in a very soft voice, and did not make eye contact.

When beginning with some general questions, more to get to know her than anything else, the intake counselor found out that she had great pride in the fact that her children never went around in dirty clothes, and only wore their clothes once. Her own curiosity was peaked. Being a single mother herself, the counselor asked her the all-important question of “How do you do that?”

Without knowing it, the intake counselor was asking her — how did she do something that was difficult, something that required resilience. The answer she received — “I don’t know, I just do it” — said much about her strengths. It spoke to her ability to persist in pursuit of a difficult goal — having clean clothes for her sons, even against obstacles — having four sons under six and being single. It hinted at other strengths, such as being organized, and spoke to a value system that could be explored and built upon — even though she had four sons under six, she wanted to be proud of them, and for them to look good. It was clear she cared about her children and how the community viewed them, and her, as a mother.

This could have been the beginning of an inquiry into an identification of her strengths in the hands of a counselor who had this focus. Just think what could have happened if the counselor helped her see that she must be “organized,” that she devoted so much time to her children that she “must be a good mother, who cared about how her children, how they looked, and what others thought of her abilities.” Beginning here would have moved the intake in a whole new direction with Naomi feeling empowered, and realizing her worth instead of feeling just ashamed.

Frequently people do not notice their resiliency. If you ask what someone’s strengths are, most likely you will be greeted with a shrug. Most people take as commonplace a behavior or characteristic they are used to using, a behavior that the rest of us may find extraordinary, or at least unusual. And given that they do not notice this special characteristic, they may not even have a word for it. This noticing, questioning, highlighting, and naming of the strength is the beginning of a counselor’s work in developing resiliency.

Indicate they’re using resilience
Noticing themes that speak to resilience is very helpful in having a client understand their strengths. Naomi entered therapy with a therapist who was strength-based and he quickly began to hear, in her stories, examples of her tenacity and dedication. He realized that part of his goal was to have her understand these.

One of her strengths, her organization, became apparent, as she needed to plan to come to treatment. Her counselor was concerned that she would not be able to find a baby-sitter, but she did. Naomi, it turns out, had previously formed a baby-sitting co-op. This is what allowed her to go out at night, and what now allowed her to come to treatment.

Her counselor reflected on her planning and her ingenuity. At first she dismissed his comments, but the sheer frequency of his being able to notice obstacles and highlight how she was overcoming obstacles — obstacles that she had since dismissed — began to sink in. Very slowly Naomi not only had a new vocabulary to use as part of her descriptions of herself — tenacious, a planner, a good mother — something that began to be noticed in group, She also began to think of herself as a stronger person who acted and planned.

Gradually this self-image began to replace Naomi’s perception of herself as a victim. She began to see herself no longer as someone who needed to escape a husband who abandoned her while she was pregnant with their fourth child, someone who was pitiful, unlovable, and undesirable. Naomi began to feel good about herself and this helped her in treatment. In fact, the more she understood that she was capable of dealing with challenges in the past, the better she felt able to deal with the challenge in front of her — recovery.

Locate family stories of resilience
While all experience teaches us, our childhood experiences remain the most influential in the formation of our identity and resilience. As children we absorb and learn not only from our own experiences, but also from the experiences of our parents, and other significant adults in our lives. Positive patterns of coping can be found by taking a careful family history and being curious concerning how the client, and their family members, dealt with the inevitable problems that abound in all types of families.

Inquire how they coped. Under stress did they argue, drink, or laugh? Ask what types of problems caused them to separate and blame, and what types of problems allowed them to join resources and conquer the challenge at hand. And find out what solutions worked best for the family, and best for your client.

Stories of Naomi’s childhood spoke of the same tenacity that she showed as an adult. Under stress she kept on pushing. Whether this was a teacher who gave her an unfair grade, a boss in her job after school who tried to short her hours, she always told stories of fighting back and not backing down. She also spoke of her mother, now several years passed, due to cancer, and how her mother fought. “My mother had the same stubbornness as me,” she said one day. “If she fixed on a goal, she’d fight for it.”

Her counselor was able to help her begin to see that she had many of her mother’s positive qualities, and that she could draw upon the example of her mother, even though her mother was no longer alive. Naomi began to speak in group of family traditions involving strength and perseverance. More and more she spoke of herself as a fighter, just like her mother.

Consciously using resilience
The goal of using resilience as a construct in therapy is to enable your clients to consciously access their resilience, to be able to notice that they are in a challenging situation, and to plan what they will do that will enhance them and resolve the problem.

When we consciously use a skill, we deepen it with every use and increase our overall mastery. It is no different with resilience. Once your clients realize that they have it, they will want to use it and they will continue to use it, because despite everything else, knowing that you have resilience just makes you keep feeling better about yourself, more competent, and better able to go forward.

One of the most wonderful parts of work in the field of alcohol and substance abuse is that we are naturally strength-based. We naturally focus on strengths, we applaud success, but unfortunately, we do not do this very consciously.

So if we decide to focus on resiliency, we really do not have far to go. Where to begin? — with yourself. Using resiliency in your personal life, embracing this part of who you are will increase your ability to see this in your clients. Teaching your clients the names for those wonderful qualities they have is the beginning, catching them being resilient is the next step. Normalizing resilience as a part of their life in the past, and as part of their current family life will help them see that they and their family have behaved in this way in the past, and that by virtue of doing this, they have a path, an inner force, that can lead them where they want to go now. Doing all of this will allow them to become consciously resilient.

Dr. O’Gorman, a psychologist in E. Chatham, NY, is the Clinical Director of Berkshire Farm Center in Canaan, NY, a statewide child welfare agency, and a noted lecturer and consultant, known for her warm, funny and information-packed seminars. She may be reached at http://www.ogormandiaz.com/.

This article was adapted from Dancing Backwards in High Heels: How Women Master the Art of Resilience (Center City, Minn: Hazelden, 1994).

References
Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3) 227-238.
Wolin, S. and Wolin.S. (1994). The resilient self. New York, NY: Villard Books.

This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, February 2004, v.5, n.1, pp. 14-17.

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