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| Resilience, Personal Growth and Wisdom |
Resilience, Personal Growth and Wisdom
The process of finding benefit in a negative event, and learning from it, thus giving meaning to the experience, results in the acquisition of wisdom (Bluck and Glueck, 2004). Wisdom is the ability to use the lessons learned from past experiences in negotiating new challenges (Bluck and Glueck, 2004; J. Singer, 2004). The ability to appreciate what one has learned by successfully responding to a negative event can enhance a person’s sense of competence and self-efficacy (Bluck and Glueck, 2004).
The stories of recovered consumers reflect this notion of gaining wisdom by dealing with adversity. By tapping previously unrealized strengths in order to reclaim a meaningful life, the person gains an enhanced sense of self, which provides resilience in facing future challenges (Davidson et al., 2005). For example, ‘Hula’, a participant in Lapsley et al.’s (2002) study, demonstrated her optimistic outlook towards setbacks during recovery: ‘If I get a bit down, I don’t actually get right down anymore because I know there is hope, I know I’ve got power’ (Lapsley et al., 2002, p. 94). Her statement illustrates a sense of competence and personal empowerment. Deegan (1997) noted that her bid to grow involved risking relapse due to increased stress.
However, her attitude towards relapse has changed:
I have found that although my symptoms may look the same or even worse, relapsing while in recovery is not the same thing as ‘having a breakdown’. When I relapse in recovery I’m not breaking down, but rather I ambreaking out or breaking through . . ..
It means that I am growing, breaking out of old fears and breaking through into new worlds . . .. (p. 21)
The process of finding benefit in a negative event, and learning from it, thus giving meaning to the experience, results in the acquisition of wisdom (Bluck and Glueck, 2004). Wisdom is the ability to use the lessons learned from past experiences in negotiating new challenges (Bluck and Glueck, 2004; J. Singer, 2004). The ability to appreciate what one has learned by successfully responding to a negative event can enhance a person’s sense of competence and self-efficacy (Bluck and Glueck, 2004).
The stories of recovered consumers reflect this notion of gaining wisdom by dealing with adversity. By tapping previously unrealized strengths in order to reclaim a meaningful life, the person gains an enhanced sense of self, which provides resilience in facing future challenges (Davidson et al., 2005). For example, ‘Hula’, a participant in Lapsley et al.’s (2002) study, demonstrated her optimistic outlook towards setbacks during recovery: ‘If I get a bit down, I don’t actually get right down anymore because I know there is hope, I know I’ve got power’ (Lapsley et al., 2002, p. 94). Her statement illustrates a sense of competence and personal empowerment. Deegan (1997) noted that her bid to grow involved risking relapse due to increased stress.
However, her attitude towards relapse has changed:
I have found that although my symptoms may look the same or even worse, relapsing while in recovery is not the same thing as ‘having a breakdown’. When I relapse in recovery I’m not breaking down, but rather I ambreaking out or breaking through . . ..
It means that I am growing, breaking out of old fears and breaking through into new worlds . . .. (p. 21)
Deegan’s statement is a powerful illustration of resilience borne of wisdom. Resilience does not always entail the tenacious pursuit of long-held goals.
Brandtst€adter and colleagues (e.g. Brandtst€adter and Rothermund, 2002;
Brandtst€adter, 2009) have developed a dual-process model of adjustment in which the abandonment of unattainable goals can protect against loss of well-being.
Acceptance of one’s limitations is a core component of wisdom, and this can include finding benefit in the current state of affairs (Linley, 2003; Brandtst€adter, 2009). In later life, when personal resources are diminished, wisdom is reflected in a shift from extrinsically motivated goals to more intrinsically valuable goals, such as altruism, spirituality and intimacy (Brandtst€adter, 2009). We have seen many consumer quotes in which recovery features these types of self-transcendent goals. The key to resilience is in striking a balance between commitment to previous goals and adjusting goals while maintaining one’s valued directions in life.
After experiencing disruption to his or her life, a person may reintegrate dysfunctionally, reintegrate with loss, return to homeostasis, or achieve resilient reintegration, in which new insights or growth occurs (Richardson, 2002). Richardson claims that the energy for resilient reintegration is an innate force within all human beings that drives a person to seek self-actualization, altruism, wisdom and spiritual harmony. Personal growth rather than return to homeostasis has been referred to as ‘thriving’ within the fields of stress-related growth and posttraumatic growth (e.g. Carver, 1998; O’Leary, 1998). Losses that render important goals unattainable, causing confusion about the meaning of life, initially cause great emotional distress and rumination, a decline in the ability to cope and changes to the sense of identity (Calhoun and Tedeschi, 2001). However, some people manage to use the experience of trauma as a ‘springboard to further individual development or growth’ replacing lost goals and beliefs, and creating a new and better life than the one they had before (Tedeschi, Park andCalhoun, 1998, p. 1). Domains of growth outlined by Calhoun and Tedeschi (2001) include an enhanced sense of self, improved relationships and existential or spiritual growth.
Schmook (1996) demonstrates the progression from loss to thriving in recovery from schizophrenia:
Recovery happens in small ways, starting moment by moment, hour by hour, leading to one day at a time. Lives are rebuilt that way until one fully realizes that survival is possible. . . . The process of recovery then moves from survival to realizing individual potential with its transforming power of personal growth. (p. 12)
The preceding models of wisdom, resilience and post-traumatic growth echo the views of Frankl (1984). Inspired by his personal experiences and observations of survival in Nazi concentration camps, Frankl criticized theories of mental health that were based on the need for homeostasis, or absence of tension. He stated ‘What man actually needs is rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is . . . the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him’ (Frankl, 1984, p. 127). Furthermore, Frankl asserted that one can only find true fulfilment by self-transcendence, that is, in the service of some thing or somebody outside oneself. This view has been supported by empirical research: people with spiritual or self-development goals have been found to be more likely to consider themselves recovered from loss, and to have found meaning in it, than those with extrinsic goals (Emmons, Colby and Kaiser, 1998).
Brandtst€adter and colleagues (e.g. Brandtst€adter and Rothermund, 2002;
Brandtst€adter, 2009) have developed a dual-process model of adjustment in which the abandonment of unattainable goals can protect against loss of well-being.
Acceptance of one’s limitations is a core component of wisdom, and this can include finding benefit in the current state of affairs (Linley, 2003; Brandtst€adter, 2009). In later life, when personal resources are diminished, wisdom is reflected in a shift from extrinsically motivated goals to more intrinsically valuable goals, such as altruism, spirituality and intimacy (Brandtst€adter, 2009). We have seen many consumer quotes in which recovery features these types of self-transcendent goals. The key to resilience is in striking a balance between commitment to previous goals and adjusting goals while maintaining one’s valued directions in life.
After experiencing disruption to his or her life, a person may reintegrate dysfunctionally, reintegrate with loss, return to homeostasis, or achieve resilient reintegration, in which new insights or growth occurs (Richardson, 2002). Richardson claims that the energy for resilient reintegration is an innate force within all human beings that drives a person to seek self-actualization, altruism, wisdom and spiritual harmony. Personal growth rather than return to homeostasis has been referred to as ‘thriving’ within the fields of stress-related growth and posttraumatic growth (e.g. Carver, 1998; O’Leary, 1998). Losses that render important goals unattainable, causing confusion about the meaning of life, initially cause great emotional distress and rumination, a decline in the ability to cope and changes to the sense of identity (Calhoun and Tedeschi, 2001). However, some people manage to use the experience of trauma as a ‘springboard to further individual development or growth’ replacing lost goals and beliefs, and creating a new and better life than the one they had before (Tedeschi, Park andCalhoun, 1998, p. 1). Domains of growth outlined by Calhoun and Tedeschi (2001) include an enhanced sense of self, improved relationships and existential or spiritual growth.
Schmook (1996) demonstrates the progression from loss to thriving in recovery from schizophrenia:
Recovery happens in small ways, starting moment by moment, hour by hour, leading to one day at a time. Lives are rebuilt that way until one fully realizes that survival is possible. . . . The process of recovery then moves from survival to realizing individual potential with its transforming power of personal growth. (p. 12)
The preceding models of wisdom, resilience and post-traumatic growth echo the views of Frankl (1984). Inspired by his personal experiences and observations of survival in Nazi concentration camps, Frankl criticized theories of mental health that were based on the need for homeostasis, or absence of tension. He stated ‘What man actually needs is rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is . . . the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him’ (Frankl, 1984, p. 127). Furthermore, Frankl asserted that one can only find true fulfilment by self-transcendence, that is, in the service of some thing or somebody outside oneself. This view has been supported by empirical research: people with spiritual or self-development goals have been found to be more likely to consider themselves recovered from loss, and to have found meaning in it, than those with extrinsic goals (Emmons, Colby and Kaiser, 1998).
