Family resilience: a developmental systems framework

Abstract

This article presents a brief overview of a family resilience conceptual framework, grounded in a multi-level developmental systems orientation. A family systems perspective broadens attention to resources for individual resilience throughout the family network of relationships. The concept of family resilience refers to the family as a functional system, impacted by highly stressful events and social contexts, and in turn, facilitating the positive adaptation of all members and strengthening the family unit. A research-informed map of key processes in family resilience is outlined, highlighting the recursive and synergistic influences of transactional processes within families and with their social environment. Varied process elements may be more or less useful, depending on different adverse situations over time, with a major crisis, trauma, or loss; disruptive transitions; or chronic multi-stress conditions. This perspective is attuned to the diversity of family cultures and structures, their resources and constraints, salient socio-cultural and developmental influences, and the viability of varied pathways in resilience.     

心理弹性与压力适应的关系:积极情绪中介效应的实验研究

Fredrickson的积极情绪的扩展—建构理论(broaden-and-build theory)认为积极情绪具有激活行动、扩展认知、建设资源和缓解压力的功能.但是积极情绪是否是心理弹性到压力适应的中介变量有待于进一步研究.该研究让37名女大学生先完成中国情感量表和Connor-Davidson心理弹性量表,然后进行压力情境实验,通过生理多导仪记录实验前后压力下的生理反应,以压力下的生理恢复时间作为压力适应的指标.最后通过中介检验程序分析积极情绪在心理弹性到压力适应的中介效应.结果表明:(1)压力下个体的心理弹性水平与生理恢复指标显著相关(r=-0.75,p<0.001);(2)当心理弹性和积极情绪同时进入回归方程时,积极情绪对压力适应的预测显著,心理弹性对生理恢复指标的预测下降,但是依然显著(r=-0.62,p<0.001).结论:积极情绪在心理弹性与压力适应间起部分中介作用.     

Relationships among perceived psychological growth,resilience and burnout in physicians

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived growth as a physician (i.e., positive psychological changes experienced as a result of the professional experience) and burnout after controlling for the effects of perceived family support, dispositional resilience, age, and marital status among physicians. Physicians (n = 289) rated perceived support from family and completed the short form of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, the Resilience Scale, and Maslach Burnout Inventory. Results of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the addition of perceived growth significantly improved prediction of resilience and perceived family support for burnout, showing that higher growth, resilience, and family support all were associated with lower levels of burnout. Moreover, the effects of growth on depersonalization, a domain of burnout, were stronger for physicians who perceived a lower level of family support, whereas the effects of growth on personal accomplishment, another domain of burnout, were stronger for physicians who showed a lower level of dispositional resilience. Current results have clinical implications for understanding protective factors for burnout, that is, a sense of personal growth may be a key factor for physicians who may be less resilient or may not perceive strong family support.     

Applying a Family Resilience Framework in Training,Practice, and Research: Mastering the Art of the Possible

With growing interest in systemic views of human resilience, this article updates and clarifies our understanding of the concept of resilience as involving multilevel dynamic processes over time. Family resilience refers to the functioning of the family system in dealing with adversity: Assessment and intervention focus on the family impact of stressful life challenges and the family processes that foster positive adaptation for the family unit and all members. The application of a family resilience framework is discussed and illustrated in clinical and community‐based training and practice. Use of the author's research‐informed map of core processes in family resilience is briefly noted, highlighting the recursive and synergistic influences of transactional processes within families and with their social environment. Given the inherently contextual nature of the construct of resilience, varied process elements may be more or less useful, depending on different adverse situations over time, with a major crisis; disruptive transitions; or chronic multistress conditions. This perspective is attuned to the diversity of family cultures and structures, their resources and constraints, socio‐cultural and developmental influences, and the viability of varied pathways in resilience.     

The Weaving Healthy Families program: Promoting parenting practices,family resilience,and communal mastery

Parenting quality, family resilience, and community resilience and support have been found to be primary protective factors for the disproportionate burden of anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorder (SUD), depression, and suicide that US Indigenous youth and adults tend to experience. The purpose of this research study was to examine pilot results for outcomes related to relational factors for Indigenous family members who participated in the Weaving Healthy Families (WHF) program (translated to Chukka Auchaffi’ Natana, in the Choctaw tribal language), a culturally grounded and empirically informed program geared toward promoting wellness, family resilience, parenting practices, and community resilience while also preventing SUD and violence. This nonrandomized pre-experimental pilot intervention followed a longitudinal design, which included pre-test, a post-test, and a 6-, 9-, and 12-month post-intervention follow-up surveys. Repeated-measures regressions were utilized with generalized estimating equations (GEE) to examine changes in parenting, family resilience, and communal mastery before and after the intervention for 24 adults and adolescents (12–17) across eight tribal families. Results indicate that the overall quality of parenting improved, as measured by improved parental monitoring and reductions in inconsistent discipline and corporal punishment. We identified sex differences in positive parenting, poor monitoring, and corporal punishment, with greater decreases in these measures among males over time. Family resilience and communal mastery improved for adolescent and adult participants after the WHF program. Our results indicate promising improvements across relational, familial, and community ecological, which provide clear clinical implications.     

Spirituality as a Resiliency Quality in Xhosa-speaking Families in South Africa

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore spirituality as a characteristic of family resilience in Xhosa-speaking families in South Africa. A parent, and in some cases an adolescent, represented each of the 51 families that participated. Participants were expected to respond to three open-ended questions regarding their family and identify factors or strengths that had recently helped their family. The results indicate that spirituality is an important coping resource. The core theme of spirituality consists of six related categories that facilitated the successful adaptation of the participating families after a crisis. These categories are Gifts from God; Guidance; God's Works; God's Plan; Prayer; and Faith.     

Adding ‘Flock’ to ‘Fight and Flight’: A Honeycomb of Resilience Where Supply of Relationships Meets Demand for Support

In this article I explain how solidarity can support positive adjustment, collective in nature, where people face chronic, cumulative stress and largely lack resources. I propose that when individuals use relationships as a way to access and mobilise resources, an enabling ecology is configured to foster positive adjustment. Applying a collectivist, transactional-ecological view of resilience I propose Relationship-Resourced Resilience (RRR) as a generative theory to explain how resilience occurs as collective, rather than individual and subjective processes. To do this, I draw on eight years of longitudinal case study data that were generated using a Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) approach with partnership schools (N = 12, primary = 9, secondary = 3; urban = 9, rural = 3) and teachers (N = 74, female = 63, male = 11). The RRR model posits that, when under threat of chronic stress in a poverty setting, a collective response is to flock (rather than fight or flight). Flock entails a process of alone-standing individuals, experiencing shared and persistent burdens, connecting to access, share, mobilise and sustain use of resources for positive adaptation. RRR extends current resilience views of subjective, individual adjustment to individually reported stress in the direction of resilience as collective experiences of continual stress with subsequent collective positive adaptation.     

Traumatic loss and major disasters: strengthening family and community resilience

This article presents the core principles and value of a family and community resilience-oriented approach to recovery from traumatic loss when catastrophic events occur. In contrast to individually based, symptom-focused approaches to trauma recovery, this multisystemic practice approach contextualizes the distress in the traumatic experience and taps strengths and resources in relational networks to foster healing and posttraumatic growth. The intertwining of trauma and traumatic losses is discussed. Key family and social processes in risk and resilience in traumatic loss situations are outlined. Case illustrations, model programs, and intervention guidelines are described in situations of community violence and major disasters to suggest ways to foster family and community resilience.     

心理复原的机制：来自特质性复原力个体的证据

心理复原(力)是指个体在经历对生命具有威胁的事件或严重的创伤后仍然能回复到良好适应状况的心理发展现象。基于能力取向的文献表明, 积极情绪性、情绪调节是特质性复原力机制研究的重要内容; 脑岛和前额叶(特别是vmPFC和OFC)是其敏感的脑区; 作用于杏仁核脑区的5-羟色胺转运蛋白与特质性复原力密切相关。基于这些研究结果, 提出积极情绪与(自动、有意)情绪调节交互作用的双重加工理论和根据实际需要调节情绪的情绪灵活性理论。未来的研究应该就情绪记忆、人格特质等在心理复原中的作用进行探讨。     

初中生心理弹性与学校适应的关系

采用追踪研究设计考察了初中生的心理弹性与其学校适应之间的相互作用。通过整群取样的方法,对江苏省苏州市三所初中的470名初中生进行了为期一年的追踪。由初中生报告自己的心理弹性,由教师和家长分别报告初中生在学校的适应情况。结果表明：（1）在第一年和第二年,心理弹性和学校适应能力之间存在显著的正相关,与外显问题、内隐问题和学习问题存在显著的负相关;（2）在控制了变量自身的稳定性之后,第一年心理弹性能显著预测第二年学校适应,第一年学校适应无法预测第二年心理弹性。本研究的结果表明,心理弹性与学校适应之间存在单向作用关系。     

Community Resilience as a Metaphor, Theory, Set of Capacities, and Strategy for Disaster Readiness

Communities have the potential to function effectively and adapt successfully in the aftermath of disasters. Drawing upon literatures in several disciplines, we present a theory of resilience that encompasses contemporary understandings of stress, adaptation, wellness, and resource dynamics. Community resilience is a process linking a network of adaptive capacities (resources with dynamic attributes) to adaptation after a disturbance or adversity. Community adaptation is manifest in population wellness, defined as high and non-disparate levels of mental and behavioral health, functioning, and quality of life. Community resilience emerges from four primary sets of adaptive capacities--Economic Development, Social Capital, Information and Communication, and Community Competence--that together provide a strategy for disaster readiness. To build collective resilience, communities must reduce risk and resource inequities, engage local people in mitigation, create organizational linkages, boost and protect social supports, and plan for not having a plan, which requires flexibility, decision-making skills, and trusted sources of information that function in the face of unknowns.     

Positive affectivity predicts successful and unsuccessful adaptation to stress

This study examined adaptation to work stress among public school teachers (n = 267). Regression analyses tested whether positive affect predicted successful and unsuccessful adaptation to stress (viz., resilience and burnout, respectively) after controlling for demographic characteristics and work stress. Positive affect was largely correlated with resilience (r = .65, p < .001) and burnout (r = ?.57, p < .001). The regression of resilience showed that positive affect had a direct effect (β = .66, p < .001) and the total model explained 44 % of the variance (R ² Change = 37 %). In the regression of burnout, positive affect also had a direct effect (β = ?.41, p < .001) and the total model explained 52 % of the variance (R ² Change = 14 %). Further analyses found no significant interaction between work stress and positive affect, but revealed that positive affect completely mediated the effect of work stress on resilience. Results provide support for the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, particularly the theory’s building and undoing effects.     

Breathing life into family processes: introduction to the special issue on families and asthma

This introduction to the special issue dedicated to families and asthma proposes that the study of asthma highlights general systems topics such as integration of individual needs into the group, developmental trajectories of risk and resilience, supportive and destructive patterns of interaction, and the cultural adaptation of family therapy. It briefly introduces papers in the special issue and concludes that asthma can serve as an exemplar in the study of family health due to its comorbidity with mental health problems, potential to affect multiple members of the family, disproportionate influence on low-income and minority families, and multiple avenues for intervention.     

青少年调节聚焦对心理复原力的影响：元情绪和应对方式的链式中介

研究旨在考察应对方式、元情绪在不同类型调节聚焦与心理复原力关系中的中介效应。使用简易应对方式量表、调节聚焦量表、特质性元情绪量表和心理复原力量表对随机抽取的安徽省四所初高中899名青少年进行调查。结果发现：（1）调节聚焦、应对方式和元情绪能显著预测心理复原力。（2）促进聚焦不仅能够直接正向预测心理复原力,还能够通过元情绪、积极应对以及消极应对间接预测心理复原力。（3）防御聚焦能够通过消极应对、元情绪以及积极应对间接预测心理复原力。本研究结果显示,元情绪与应对方式能够解释青少年调节聚焦与心理复原力关系的内在机制。     

Conceptualizing Trauma and Resilience Across Diverse Contexts

Abstract

This paper offers a multicultural understanding of trauma and resilience as experienced in the lives of individuals from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds. The research and clinical literature on resilience has focused largely if not exclusively on individual personality traits and coping styles, and has neglected to explore all possible sources and expressions of resilience in individuals and groups. For many ethnic minorities, traditional notions of resilience, shaped largely by middle class European and North American values, may not capture culturally more familiar modes of positive adaptation to adverse and traumatic experience. This paper explores the concept of resilience as a multidetermined phenomenon, and considers the implications of this perspective for clinical research and intervention with ethnic minorities.     

Post-combat adaptation: improving social support and reaching constructive growth

Background and Objectives: Posttraumatic stress disorder, a commonly researched mental health outcome associated with trauma, does not develop in the majority of survivors. More common trajectories of adaptation include resilience, and posttraumatic growth (PTG). The objectives of the current study were to: (1) describe posttrauma adaptation profiles in a sample of Israeli male military veterans (N?=?448); and (2) to explore the protective factors that promote constructive PTG within two profiles of posttrauma adaptation.

Methods: The study used secondary data to estimate latent profile mixture models and a series of logistic regression analyses.

Results: Demographic controls, combat related variables, endorsement of coping strategies, and reports of improvement in social support were not significant predictors of constructive growth in the resilient class. However, those in the struggling growth subset of the sample who reported improvement in perceived social support increased the odds of reaching constructive growth.

Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of tailored clinical interventions that account for more complex profiles of posttrauma adaptation; and further, provide evidence that adaptation takes place over time. Finally, these findings call for future research to continue to explore the quality of PTG and the contexts in which protective factors promote positive adaptation.     

Human‐Animal Bonds II: The Role of Pets in Family Systems and Family Therapy

The vast majority of pet owners regard their companion animals as family members, yet the role of pets in family systems and family therapy has received little attention in research, training, and practice. This article first notes the benefits of family pets and their importance for resilience. It then examines their role in couple and family processes and their involvement in relational dynamics and tensions. Next, it addresses bereavement in the loss of a cherished pet, influences complicating grief, and facilitation of mourning and adaptation. Finally, it explores the ways that clients' pets and the use of therapists' companion animals in animal‐assisted therapy can inform and enrich couple and family therapy as valuable resources in healing.     

Character strengths predict resilience over and above positive affect,self-efficacy,optimism, social support,self-esteem,and life satisfaction

The incremental value of character strengths in the prediction of resilience, after the effects of other well-known resilience-related factors (i.e. positive affect, self-efficacy, optimism, social support, self-esteem, life satisfaction) and sociodemographic variables are accounted for, is examined. Using a cross-sectional design, participants (N = 363 adults) completed online measures of character strengths, resilience, and resilience-related factors. A principal component analysis of character strengths was conducted and five factors were extracted, which could be interpreted as emotional, interpersonal, intellectual, restraint, and theological strengths. All strengths factors, except theological strengths, yielded significant positive correlations with resilience. A hierarchical regression showed that strengths predicted an additional 3% of the variance in resilience over and above sociodemographic variables, positive affect, self-efficacy, optimism, social support, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Emotional strengths and strengths of restraint were significant positive predictors. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.     

Predictors of Growth and Distress Following Childhood Parentification: A Retrospective Exploratory Study

While most of the existing literature has focused on the risks associated with parentification, we examined the potential benefits (i.e., posttraumatic growth) associated with parentification. Predictors of posttraumatic growth explored in our study included: attachment, differentiation of self, parentification, and resiliency. Partial support was found for the predictor variables leading to posttraumatic growth, with resilience emerging as the strongest predictor; resilience explained 14% of the variance in posttraumatic growth. These findings suggest that future research might explore additional resiliency factors that explain positive psychological outcomes related to childhood parentification.     

Family socioeconomic status and emotional adaptation among rural‐to‐urban migrant adolescents in China: The moderating roles of adolescent's resilience and parental positive emotion

Low family socioeconomic status (SES) is closely related to increased risk of emotional maladaptation among adolescents. Although previous studies have found that low family SES is a significant and common experience for most rural‐to‐urban migrant adolescents in China, little research has examined the association between family SES and emotional adaptation or identified the protective factors that may minimise emotional maladaptation among these adolescents. The present study examined the associations between family SES and three indices of emotional adaptation (emotion regulation, life satisfaction and depression) and the moderating effects of adolescents' resilience and parental positive emotion (PE) among 486 Chinese rural‐to‐urban migrant adolescents. The results suggest that family SES was significantly associated with migrant adolescents' emotional outcomes, to varying degrees. Moreover, both adolescents' resilience and PE moderated the associations between family SES and emotional outcomes, although the protective effects of the two moderators differed on the three emotional outcomes. These findings shed light into designing intervention and prevention programs to reduce emotional maladaptation among migrant adolescents.