Psychological resilience is the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with crisis, change or danger or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.
Life is full of challenges and change that can have short-term or long term affects (losing a family member, losing your job, etc.). Every change affects people in a different way and brings on a whirlwind of thoughts, feelings and uncertainty. People, however, eventually adapt successfully in their new life conditions -partly due to psychological resilience.
To be psychologically resilient doesn’t mean that you have never endured stressful and trying situations. Experiencing difficulties possibly contributes to developing psychological resilience. Most research now states that resilience is the result of individuals being able to interact with their environments by promoting well-being or protecting them against the overwhelming influence of risk factors.
Resilience is best understood as a process. This process includes individual continuous coping strategies, utilizing our strong personality suits and our biopsychosocial protective factors, or may be aided by a protective family, community or school environment that makes resilience more likely to develop.
Being psychologically resilient helps us not only survive change, but also adapt successfully, strive towards continuous self-development and make our life better.