A Trip to the Theatre of Psychological Resilience: Heroic Tale or Melodrama?

Dr Richard A.C. Simpson is a lecturer in psychology at Leeds Trinity University. Dr Simpson’s research examines human flourishing (well-being) in sport and performance contexts. With our new strand, Young LIFI talking about bouncing back, we asked Richard to write about resilience. 

Resilience is one of the most contested, yet widely used, concepts that occupies our everyday conversations. The root of the word ‘resilience’ can be traced back to the 1600s and the idea of “rebounding or springing back” borrowed from the Latin word Resiliens. Similar meanings to resilience can be seen across cultures, through the Finnish word Sissu, the French word ténacité, and other English synonyms (e.g., resistance, mental toughness, grit). To complicate this further, we may hear the term used across many domains such as Physics, Geology, Biology, and the various contexts where psychology operates (e.g., business, education, clinical, media, and sport). Drawing on the latter, psychological resilience is often used to understand how individuals, their relationships and teams, and communities, are faring when faced with challenge and adversity.

Given how frequently we hear about psychological resilience in everyday life, it is unsurprising that it has become a glamorised, and perhaps, unattainable expectation. Researchers have previously defined psychological resilience in many ways: as a trait, a process or adaptation, or qualities and resources that protect well-being. How can one bounce back from adversity? Be robust in the face of disruption? Or sustain well-being over time? A lot of research has often focused on “the high-performers”, the heroes who operate in high-pressure contexts, and the learnings that you can take away to demonstrate in your own context too. Already, we can start to see why public expectations around psychological resilience may walk a thin line between being a heroic or a melodramatic (i.e., over-the-top) tale.

Common perceptions (e.g., seen within heroic tales), and misconceptions (e.g., that we supress rather than express emotions), around psychological resilience can lead to different ways in which stories about resilience are shaped, told, and celebrated. The iconic scene, for example, of Captain America facing Thanos and his army in Avengers Endgame. In the Wizard of Oz: the Scarecrow, Tinman, and the Lion go on a challenging quest to search for a brain, heart, and courage only to find they had it all along. Both stories are examples of heroic tales that can inspire audiences, and showcase themes of psychological resilience, but are we seeing limited depictions of what psychological resilience can look like? Rather than the heroism we are inspired by, does resilience risk becoming melodramatic?

Maybe the answer lies in broadening our expectations of what psychological resilience can look like and doing so in ways where unsung, everyday, relatable stories can be told. Better connecting to the ordinariness of day-to-day life and using newer words to map out experiential possibilities. Psychologists, for example, are starting to use words like ‘buoyancy’ (e.g., staying afloat in response to everyday challenges) and ‘anti-fragility’ (e.g., not just bouncing back but doing so in a way where you can grow and bounce back better).

Our experience of psychological resilience does not have to be heroic, visible or over the top, but should indeed be an attainable expectation that we can all develop and relate to in our day-to-day lives.