Personal Resilience: Presentation by
Personal Resilience: Presentation by
Personal Resilience: Presentation by
Dr Roz Gasper
Personal Resilience
February 2020
Today’s Session
• Definitions of resilience
• Scope of resilience
• Resilience as a complex construct
• How do personal experience impact our resilience?
• Reflecting on research: Can resilience be developed?
• Renewal cycles
Resilience and your Personal
and Professional
development
Learning about Individual Change Management through:
o Reflection on experience
o Developing knowledge and understanding of theory and literature
o Improving analytical capability to use theory to reflect on and learn
from experience
o Critically evaluating theory and experience to make appropriate
judgements
o Using insight and learning to plan for future professional and
career development
Resilience is…
• Oxford dictionary definition:
Wider definitions that see resilience as an on-going protective capability that enables not
only reactive recovery but also proactive learning and growth through conquering
challenges (Youssef and Luthans, 2007: 778)
3. Adaptability 4. Purposefulness
Flexibility and adapting to changing Having a clear sense of purpose, clear
situations which are beyond our control values, drive and direction help
and essential to maintaining resilience individuals to persist and achieve in the
face of set-backs
How does experience effect
resilience?
Stressful experiences
(Chicchetti, 2010)
Can Resilience be
developed?
Nature… Nurture…
Some suggest that resilience is related to Other research challenges the idea that
underlying individual differences e.g. resilience is a fixed personal characteristic
personality characteristics
Environmental factors play a role, as well as
Furnham, Crump and Whelan (1997) experience and personal characteristics
suggest that those who test more highly for (Cooper, Flint-Taylor and Pearn, 2014)
stability often have higher levels of
The growth of resilience training would
resilience
suggest that resilience is amenable to
The relationship between personality as a change e.g. resilience is developed in Police
nomothetic set of fixed traits would suggest training (Steensma et al., 2006) or is used in
that resilience is something we are born organizations to protect employees from
with and therefore cannot be developed. stress and burnout (Artnez et al., 2009)
Reflecting on Resilience:
Resilience and Renewal
‘Stress is a part of our lives and essential to our survival
and adaptation. But if stress becomes chronic , it causes
rifts in our awareness, and eventually erodes our
cognitive, perceptual, and emotional openness and
performance. Fortunately, the human body and mind have
a built in mechanism for renewal in the experiences of
hope , mindfulness , compassion and playfulness.’
• Hope
• “Enables us to believe that the future we envision is attainable, and to move toward our visions
and goals while inspiring others toward those goals as well.”
• The experience of hope causes changes in our brains and hormones that allow us to renew our
minds, bodies, and hearts.
• Hope engages and raises our spirit, mobilizes energy, and increases resiliency.
Compassionate relationships
• Being in tune with the people around us, understanding their wants and needs, and being
motivated to act on our feelings.
(Boyatzis and McKee, 2005)
References
Arntez, B, Nevedal, D, Lumley, M, Backman, L and Lublin, A. 2009. Trauma resilience training for police:
psychophysiological and performance effects. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology , 24: 1-9
Boyatzis, R. and McKee, A. 2005. Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through
Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion . Harvard Business School Press. Boston.
Boyatzis, R. and Smith, M. 2012. ‘Positive Renewal. Can you keep going?’ Leadership Excellence, March: 6
Cattell, H.E.P. & Schuerger, J.M. 2003. Essentials of 16PF Assessment, Wiley
Cicchetti, D. 2010. Resilience under conditions of extreme stress: a multilevel perspective. World Psychiatry, 9: 145-
154
Cooper, C, Flint-Taylor, J and Pearn, M. 2014. Building resilience for success. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Furnham, A, Crump, J and Whelan, J. 1997. Validating NEO personality inventory using assessor’s ratings. Personality
and Individual Differences, 22: 669-675
Haglund, M, Nestadt, P, Cooper, N, Southwick, S and Charney, D. 2007. Psychological mechanisms of resilience:
relevance to prevention and treatment of stress related psycho-pathology. Development and Psychology, 19: 889-
920
Khoshaba, D and Maddi, S. 1999. Early experiences in hardiness development. Consulting Psychology Journal , 51:
106-116
Steensma, H, Den Heijer, M and Stalen, V. 2006. Research note: effects of resilience training on the reduction of
stress and depression amongst Dutch workers . International Quarterly of Community Health Education. 27: 145-159
Youssef, C and Luthans, F. 2007. Positive Organisational Behaviour in the Workplace. Journal of Management, 33:
774-800