Resilience and Healing Amidst Depressive Experiences: An Emerging Four-Factor Model from Emic/Etic Perspectives

Abstract

Resilience is generally understood as a pattern of positive adaptation following significant stress, adversity, or risk, and is often examined when looking to see why some individuals fall victim to despair while others seem to thrive. Previous studies highlight the biological, psychological, and sociological aspects of resilience. This article suggests these perspectives be extended by including spirituality in the current discourse on resilience. By examining etic (variable-centered or quantitative) and emic (person-centered or qualitative) perspectives within the context of individuals suffering from depressive disorders, a four-factor model of resilience is proposed, involving: (a) physical and biological strengths, (b) psychological resourcefulness, (c) interpersonal or emotional skills, and (d) spiritual capabilities. In the end, some clinical implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• resilience
• spirituality
• mental health
• depression
• healing

Notes

1. Within current research, risks or significant traumas are operationally defined in diverse ways, including socioeconomic status (SES), tabulations of the number of difficult life events that have occurred, massive community trauma, low birth weight, and divorce (Masten, 2001). In the foregoing discussion, significant traumas are understood as experiencing severe psychological distress or having a diagnosable mental disorder such as depression. However, the points put forward regarding resilience may be applicable to other contexts.

2. Although critiques of the DSM-IV have been issued (Mezzich et al., 1999), the stance taken in this article grants at minimum a “heuristic value” to categories espoused within the DSM as “provisional” etic formulations of mental disorders (Storch et al., 2000) that can, and perhaps should, be augmented with more emic dimensional approaches.

3. For the purposes of this article, these biological factors of resilience are only briefly mentioned. For a full review refer to the previously cited studies.

4. As we will see in later sections, this does not have to be a Freudian type of suppression, but can also involve the reinterpretation of negative stimuli in a positive light, such as finding a deeper purpose or meaning in suffering. As Frankl (1984) notes, suffering is only a problem if one cannot derive meaning (i.e., benefit) from it.

5. The perception of social support alone, Baruth and Carrol (1992) argue, can also be enough to foster resilience. In other words, whether or not individual's access their social network is not necessarily essential to resilience; it is often enough to perceive oneself as having support that can make the world of difference.

6. In the forgoing discussion, I take spirituality to reflect what Koenig (2008a, 2008b) refers to as the “modern version,” which includes organized religion as a subset but also expands beyond it.

7. Erich Fromm (1964) postulated five basic human needs: (a) relatedness, relationships with others, care, respect, knowledge; (b) transcendence, creativity, developing a loving and interesting life; (c) rootedness, a feeling of belonging; (d) sense of identity, to see ourselves as a unique person and part of a social group; (e) a frame of orientation, the need to understand the world and our place in it.

8. Although altruism arguably falls outside of the purview of spirituality, it is discussed here primarily because of its associations with a deeper meaning in life and higher purpose.