Understanding Resilience and Coping Strategies

Aug 5, 2024

Module 20: Stress Hardiness and Resilience

Reflective Activities

  • Relationship between coping and cultural belief
  • Define resilience and identify strengths underpinning it
  • Importance of resilience and how to develop it
  • Psychological and environmental factors contributing to resilience
  • Difference between coping and resilience
  • Teaching resilience to children and adolescents
  • Understanding hardiness and its components
  • Improving hardiness and examining resilience from an Islamic perspective
  • Transactional nature of coping and resilience
  • Culturally based aspects of coping and resilience
  • Coping strategies that increase resilience and hardiness for healthy living
  • Five keys to spiritual and emotional resilience

Summary of Module 19

  • Various ways to cope with stress
  • Coping effectiveness influenced by stressor type, individual personality, and context
  • Coping Definition (Fulman & Lazaro): Cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage demands; learned through experience.
  • Components of Coping:
    • Biological/Physiological: Fight or flight reactions
    • Cognitive: Mental processes and perceptions

Models of Coping

  1. Laus Model of Stress and Coping
  2. Response to Stress Model
  3. Motivational Model of Coping
  4. Community Stress Prevention Model

Coping Categories

  • Problem-Focused Coping: Managing the source of the problem.
  • Emotion-Focused Coping: Internal coping efforts to manage emotional response; includes denial, avoidance, etc.

Connection between Culture and Coping

  • Individualistic vs. Collectivistic Societies
    • Individualistic (e.g., Western cultures): Value independence, assertive coping strategies.
    • Collectivistic (e.g., African, Asian, Latin cultures): Relational coping strategies like seeking support from family.
  • Forbearance: Minimization of concerns to avoid burdening others; associated with spirituality.

Cultural Beliefs and Coping

  • Different worldviews influence coping strategies; some cultures emphasize perseverance and effort.
  • Religious beliefs can affect coping, e.g., interpreting trauma as a sin in some Muslim beliefs.

Collectivistic Coping Dimensions

  1. Family Support: Seeking help from family; cultural stigma around sharing personal problems.
  2. Respect for Authority: Elders seen as wise and a source of support.
  3. Intracultural Grouping: Using supportive networks of similar individuals.
  4. Relational Universality: Individuals rely on community support for coping.
  5. External Locus of Control: Accepting that control resides in the social context.

Understanding Resilience

  • Definition: Ability to adapt positively in the face of adversity, trauma, or stress.
  • Resilience is Ordinary: Not a super skill; common in many individuals facing challenges.
  • Key Factors of Resilience:
    • High frustration tolerance
    • Acceptance
    • Strong self-belief
    • Sense of humor
    • Adaptability and flexibility
    • Seeking meaning in experiences

Strengths Underpinning Resilience

  1. Confidence: Knowing one's skills and having problem-solving capabilities.
  2. Adaptability: Ability to view situations from multiple perspectives and learn new skills.
  3. Relationships: Productive relationships with colleagues and family; importance of trust.
  4. Purposefulness: Having clear goals and understanding one’s contribution to work.

Building Resilience

  • These strengths interact positively, enhancing personal, professional, and organizational resilience.