Often, people react negatively to circumstances that are aversive to us, such as the death of a family member, an illness, or, for that matter, being unemployed. However, the human capacity to respond optimally to these types of situations and changes is what is psychologically known as resilience.
According to scientist and psychologist Norman Garmezy, resilience is “the capacity to recover and maintain adaptive behavior after initial abandonment or incapacity at the onset of a stressful event” (Garmezy, 1991, p.459, cited in Becoña, 2006). In other words, it is a psychological trait inherent to the person that allows them to successfully face situations with high components of adversity and which, curiously, can be strengthened or diminished by this adversity.
Resilience is a capacity that we can develop from childhood and enhance during adolescence. In today’s society, many adolescents encounter situations of family divorce, abuse in schools, greater exposure to drugs in social settings, abandonment, or other problems during developmental stages. All these experiences we receive in adolescence have an empowering effect on us, as it is when we forge our personality and largely define ourselves based on our experiences.
Cyrulnik (2001, in Melillo, 2005) addresses resilience using the term oxymoron, which is used to describe the union of two opposing events that seek balance. In other words, each individual’s oxymoron is forged based on the interaction of protective factors (internal and external) and risk factors (also internal and external) present in their daily life.
In adolescents, a very important internal protective factor is self-esteem. In most cases, males show higher self-esteem in adolescence than females (Kling, Hyde, Showers, and Buswell, 1999; Robins et al., 2002, in Rodríguez and Caño, 2012). In this regard, they state that males show higher self-esteem due to their own self-attribution, and females show higher self-esteem the more their self-concept is accepted by others.
Likewise, following ideas from Hirsch and Dubois (1991, in Rodríguez and Caño, 2012), in early adolescence, self-esteem fluctuates much more depending on negative experiences received, such as academic difficulties or loss of peer support (support networks). Adolescents with low self-esteem are in turn more susceptible to suffering more from daily events than those with higher self-esteem (Campbell, Chew, and Scratchley, 1991).
This point is basic, since one of the most important protective factors in adolescence will also be the type of support network they have. By support network, we will understand all those positive emotional ties in the adolescent’s environment.
Let’s take the example of a 16-year-old girl who lives alone with her mother because her father abandoned them when she was little. In turn, this young girl is overweight and has a low socio-economic status. The mother does not work and attributes the causes of her misfortunes to her daughter. Finally, the school outlook is not very encouraging, as the young girl cannot pass any subjects.
Given this case, we must be clear about what type of intervention would be carried out with her, depending on how to enhance her resilience. With this environment, the young girl will probably not show very high self-esteem (internal risk factor) and the family support network is very broken (external risk factor). Therefore, we must investigate the protective factors she may have, such as school support networks (external protective factors), like friends or teachers who give her hope or can serve as a role model for her, as well as what personality style this young girl has to enhance her abilities (internal protective factor). In this way, the balance of the oxymoron is sought, and the person’s resilience can begin to be worked on.
Finally, it is important to highlight the importance of working on resilience in today’s adolescents, since low resilience can lead to worse physical and mental health, poorer career and economic prospects, and a higher probability of being involved in criminal acts in adulthood, compared to adults who showed high resilience when they were adolescents.