Defining Resilience

From my own personal study of the psychology of trauma in post-

genocidal societies, I have been impressed over and over again by the
resilience that people demonstrate. The woman in the photo is from
Nyamata, Rwanda. This little town saw the slaughter of roughly 10.000
Tutsis in the Catholic church which used to be the center of the
community. Bethea has moved on from that difficult time and
demonstrates a passion for working with young people. Instead of
giving into despair, she lives in the present, working for a better future.
I have met people like her everywhere - from Kosovo to Sarajevo; from
Kigali to Cambodia. People whose lives should be a psychological disaster, who appear to
have a healthier, more positive outlook on life than most people living in either New York or
Prague. Many go on to play an integral role in the rebuilding of communities - taking a
leadership role as a healer, conciliator or keeper of the memories. What is their "secret?"
Resilience is defined as an individual's tendency to cope with stress and adversity. This
coping may result in the individual's "bouncing back" to a previous state of normal
functioning, or simply not showing negative effects. This first activity is simply a way to get
students to think about the concept and develop some hypotheses about what factors may
play a role in resilience.
The Task
The following video clips each look at the topic of resilience. They cover a number of
different areas of life - from war to chronic disease. Watch each of these videos and try to
decide what factors may have played a role in the way that the individual coped/copes with
the crisis in his/her life. Is this a situational or a dispositional factor?
Is the definition of resilience adequate? What should we add to make the definition better
reflect what we see in these videos?
Video 1: Living with cancer
Video 2: Surviving solitary confinement as a POW in Vietnam
Video 3: The CorStone Program - teaching young girls to overcome poverty
Video 4: Art as resistance - a Holocaust survivor
Video 5: Megan McElheran on PTSD and recovery