Resilience as Adaptation in Older Women

ABSTRACT

This article discusses factors that contribute to resilience in older women. Face-to-face audio taped interviews with seventeen women between the ages of seventy and eighty were the primary data source. Open-ended questions related to the experience of advantage and adversity across the life span comprised the interview guide. Paths to resilience were variously affected depending on developmental, social-structural, historical, and individual life story influences. Among seven factors that emerged as salient to resilience in the sample are the external resource of social connectedness and internal resources, including a “head-on” approach to challenge and spiritual grounding. Pivotal in the women's lives were curiosity and extending self to others. Moving forward with life following adversity and “maverick” (nontraditional) behavior facilitated preservation of the self in these resilient women.

KEYWORDS:

• Older women
• challenge
• resilience
• adaptation