Alston Yan

Social work theory · Volume E: Strengths, Agency & Meaning

Resilience as agency

Resilience refers to positive adaptation, or the maintenance and recovery of wellbeing, in the context of significant adversity. Read from a strengths angle, resilience is something people do as well as something they have.

Type: developmental and psychosocial theory applied as a strengths-based practice orientation. The research base on risk, protection and social ecology is covered in C6; this entry focuses on agency, hope and practice.

1. What it is

Resilience refers to positive adaptation, or the maintenance and recovery of wellbeing, in the context of significant adversity (Luthar et al., 2000). Read from a strengths angle, resilience is something people do as well as something they have. People act to protect themselves and others, seek out supports, find meaning in hardship and use their abilities to keep going. Masten (2001) described resilience as “ordinary magic” (p. 227), arising from common human adaptive systems such as relationships, problem-solving skills and self-regulation. This view fits closely with the strengths perspective (E1), which treats survival of adversity as evidence of capacity (Saleebey, 2013). Entry C6 sets out the ecological and developmental research base; here the emphasis is on how practitioners recognise and strengthen the agency involved in resilient adaptation.

Protective processes. Protective processes are the mechanisms through which adversity is buffered or its effects reduced. Rutter (1987) argued for a focus on protective mechanisms and identified four: reducing the impact of risk, reducing negative chain reactions, building self-esteem and self-efficacy, and opening up new opportunities. Several of these depend on what people actively do, for example choosing a new peer group, taking up education or forming a supportive relationship. Werner and Smith’s (1992) Kauai longitudinal study found that many high-risk children who did well had sought out supportive adults outside the family and made use of later opportunities such as education and military service.

Adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity is the ability of a person, family or community to adjust to changing and difficult circumstances. It includes self-regulation, problem-solving, flexible thinking, a sense of purpose and the capacity to form relationships (Masten, 2014). Walsh (2016) described family resilience in terms of belief systems (making meaning of adversity, a positive outlook, and transcendence and spirituality), organisational patterns (flexibility, connectedness and resources) and communication processes (clarity, open emotional expression and collaborative problem-solving). Adaptive capacity can be built through experience, which makes it a target for intervention.

Agency, navigation and negotiation. Ungar (2008, 2011) defined resilience as the capacity of individuals to find their way to the resources that sustain wellbeing, and the capacity of their social ecologies to provide those resources in culturally meaningful ways. This idea, which Ungar terms navigation, highlights agency: people seek out and use resources. The idea of negotiation highlights meaning: people and communities define what counts as a resource and a good outcome.

Hope and meaning. Resilient adaptation is closely linked to hope (E5) and to meaning-making. Walsh (2016) placed belief systems at the centre of family resilience, and Wolin and Wolin (1993) identified resiliencies such as insight, independence, relationships, initiative, creativity, humour and morality among adults who had grown up in troubled families. These accounts treat the way people interpret adversity as part of their capacity to overcome it.

2. Historical development

Period Development
1955–1990s Werner and Smith’s Kauai longitudinal study follows high-risk children into adulthood
1970s–1980s Garmezy and Rutter study children who adapt well despite parental mental illness and disadvantage
1987 Rutter distinguishes protective mechanisms from protective factors
1993 Wolin and Wolin’s The Resilient Self frames resilience as a set of active capacities
1998 First edition of Walsh’s Strengthening Family Resilience
2000–2001 Luthar et al. clarify the construct; Masten describes resilience as “ordinary magic”
2004 Bonanno shows resilience is a common response to loss and trauma
2008–2011 Ungar defines resilience as navigation and negotiation across cultures
2010s Critiques of resilience as a neoliberal policy discourse (Garrett, 2016)

Resilience research emerged from developmental psychopathology. Researchers studying children at risk noticed that many developed well despite adversity, and shifted their attention to what made this possible (Masten, 2001). Early studies tended to describe resilient children as unusually invulnerable. Later work showed that resilience is common, depends on relationships and environments, and changes across time and context. Bonanno (2004) found that most adults exposed to loss or potentially traumatic events show a stable pattern of healthy functioning.

Resilience entered social work in the 1990s alongside the strengths perspective. Saleebey (2013) and Walsh (2016) presented it as evidence that people and families have capacities practitioners often overlook. Resilience-based frameworks were adopted in child and family welfare, youth work and disaster recovery. Social work writers have used it as a bridge between developmental research and strengths-based practice, while also cautioning about its misuse (Garrett, 2016; Hart et al., 2007).

3. Practical guidance

A resilience-as-agency orientation asks workers to recognise and strengthen what people are already doing to cope and adapt.

4. Critical evaluation

Strengths. Resilience offers an empirically grounded basis for strengths-based practice. Longitudinal studies show that positive outcomes after adversity are common and that protective processes can be strengthened (Masten, 2014). The concept supports hope in practitioners and clients, and it offers a common language across psychology, education, health and social work. Ungar’s social-ecological model keeps both agency and environment in view.

Limitations. The concept is defined in varied ways, which complicates measurement and comparison (Luthar et al., 2000). An emphasis on individual agency can imply that people who struggle lack resilience, which risks blaming them for outcomes shaped by poverty, racism or violence. Garrett (2016) argued that resilience has been taken up in policy as a way of asking people to adapt to hardship while its causes remain unaddressed. Definitions of a “good outcome” may also reflect dominant cultural norms.

Overall importance. Read through a strengths lens, resilience draws attention to the active ways people survive and adapt, and gives practitioners concrete targets for support. It is most useful when combined with the contextual analysis described in C6 and with advocacy for the resources that make resilience possible.

5. References

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