Resilience and Thinking Perpendicularly: A Meditation or Morning Jog

ABSTRACT

In this article, we explore the topic of resilience. We consider some of the ways that resilience relates to managing stress levels, with the intention of developing a capacity to “keep going.” However, we find that this model does not match our clinical experience and propose instead that resilience is about the ability to think perpendicularly. We define this as the developmental capacity to take perspective and alter one’s coordinates to think and feel about things in new lights. We locate this achievement in a developmental model originating with Object Relations, and relate it to achieving the “depressive position,” which recognizes the substantial gray areas in life. Finally, we use Plato’s allegory of the Cave to underscore our thinking.

KEYWORDS:

• Depressive position
• object relations
• paranoid-schizoid position
• perpendicular thinking
• plato’s cave
• resilience

Notes

1. It should be noted, that these authors draw from (Masten, 2001), for much of their definition. However, this comprehensive definition is reasonably common in our reading of the literature.

2. We believe this is attributed to Carl Whitaker but could not find a citation.