“The Individual”—A Framework for Understanding Personal Resilience

Abstract

To understand individual differences in resilience, we need to move beyond the working definition set out in the Introduction, and look at some of the other ways this complex concept has been defined and researched. Traditionally, resilience has been studied from the angle of providing therapeutic support for people who are experiencing difficulty in coping with crisis, bereavement, or life in general. In seeking to understand why some people cope better than others, much of this work has focused on the development of resilience in childhood and adolescence.