Dr. Laurence van Hanswijck de Jonge, MSc, PhD
Child Clinical Psychology & Neuropsychology-Cayman Islands
UK: BPS CPsychol #384886; HCPC License # PYL33486
Cayman Islands: Council for Professions Allied with Medicine- registration # CPAM/PL/PSY-D/012
Switzerland: FSP Psychologist #109634; Droit de Pratique Independent; ASCA Accredited # RCC: J483862
What is Resilience?
"Resilience is the ability of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically, and release that energy upon unloading"
In human terms resilience is that ineffable quality that allows someone to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise back up higher and stronger. Psychologists have identified some of the factors that make someone resilient, among them a positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, and the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback. Even after a misfortune, blessed with such an outlook, resilient people are able to change course and soldier on.
Recently there has been a strong theoretical shift identifying the need for systematically building competence to offset the prevailing focus on pathology. Major strides in prevention have come from a perspective of building this competence, strengthening resilience and not correcting weakness. This approach is based partly in cognitive theory and provides structured intervention designed to build resilient attitudes, an internal buffer so to speak, which protects in times of greater uncertainty and exposure.
Anyone can be cool, but "Awesome" takes practice.
Who is Resilience Training for:
Any child, it is an asset which maintains them through life. It is seen as a preventative skill. However, those that can particularly benefit are:
Children with developmental problems
Children with turbulent home situations
Children with signs of anxiety and depression
Children with problems in the social realm
Children going through a large amount of change
The so called "third culture kid". This is the child who has been taken out of their environment (e.g. "ex-pat" families), removed from their network of family and friends and placed into a new world. This can be extremely challenging for many young children. The stress of cultural change (aka acculturation stress) for children has been seen to bring with it a greater level of stress and an increased prevalence of mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, drug and alcohol use and eating disorders.