The Resilience Journal: Exploring the Potential of Journal Interventions to Promote Resilience in University Students

Given the prevalence of mental health issues among university students, they must be regarded as a vulnerable population. Resilience interventions offer one potential means of strengthening students’ capacity to overcome academic challenges and external threats. This is all the more urgent in light of the additional difficulties caused by the current COVID-19 pandemic, such as the demands of remote learning. The present study is a first step toward designing and evaluating an appropriate dynamic resilience intervention for students. The design of the Resilience Journal intervention draws on insights from expressive writing and positive writing research and focuses on reflection on daily challenges. In this online intervention, 100 business school students (66% female, Mage = 23.74) at a German university were randomly assigned to two groups and completed two different versions of the Resilience Journal for 5 days. The two versions focused, respectively on broadening attention to challenges and priming attention to mastered challenges. In a pre-post design, two resilience measures and one measure of life satisfaction were used to assess intervention outcomes. Additionally, a newly developed rating scale was used for daily monitoring of dynamic resilience. While both groups showed a significant increase in resilience as measured by the Brief Resilience Scale, that increase could not be attributed directly to the intervention, as there were no group differences, and the design did not include a control group. The other resilience and life satisfaction measures showed no significant change. This first implementation confirms the potential of the Resilience Journal and indicates directions for the development of dynamic resilience interventions and measures in future studies. To further study the potential of such a positive psychology intervention, future research necessitates the inclusion of control groups.

Resilience as a Mainstream Clinical Consideration for Speech-Language Pathologists Providing Post–Acquired Brain Injury Neurorehabilitation

Purpose While resilience is seen as fundamental to recovery and rehabilitation processes within the psychology discipline, (Bonanno, 2004), it has received little acknowledgement throughout speech pathology literature. Research suggests that targeting the malleable components associated with the recruitment and development of resilience has the potential to optimize acquired brain injury (ABI) rehabilitation outcomes. This article examines key constructs fundamental to understanding resilience and provides examples of existing evidence-based practices that can be feasibly incorporated into existing neurorehabilitation practices to drive the establishment of resilience. Method Articles describing resilience models and frameworks were examined to identify resilience factors that could be fostered during neurorehabilitation therapy sessions. Results The literature supports a series of common traits across resilience intervention models that enhance the development of resilience including the promotion of optimism, motivation, self-efficacy, and interpersonal connectedness. We describe a number of established communication strategies and counseling techniques that promote these resilience factors and can be integrated into rehabilitation therapy sessions. Conclusions Speech pathologists should consider resilience as a primary and essential clinical ingredient in their rehabilitation interventions. It is important that clinicians are trained in the communication and counseling skills that comprise these ingredients. Bolstering resilience while addressing rehabilitation targets can optimize clinical outcomes.

Adaptive Homeostatic Strategies of Resilient Intrinsic Self-Regulation in Extremes (RISE): A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Novel Behavioral Treatment for Chronic Pain

Current treatments for chronic pain have limited benefit. We describe a resilience intervention for individuals with chronic pain which is based on a model of viewing chronic pain as dysregulated homeostasis and which seeks to restore homeostatic self-regulation using strategies exemplified by survivors of extreme environments. The intervention is expected to have broad effects on well-being and positive emotional health, to improve cognitive functions, and to reduce pain symptoms thus helping to transform the suffering of pain into self-growth. A total of 88 Veterans completed the pre-assessment and were randomly assigned to either the treatment intervention (n = 38) or control (n = 37). Fifty-eight Veterans completed pre- and post-testing (intervention n = 31, control = 27). The intervention covered resilience strengths organized into four modules: (1) engagement, (2) social relatedness, (3) transformation of pain and (4) building a good life. A broad set of standardized, well validated measures were used to assess three domains of functioning: health and well-being, symptoms, and cognitive functions. Two-way Analysis of Variance was used to detect group and time differences. Broadly, results indicated significant intervention and time effects across multiple domains: (1) Pain decreased in present severity [F(1, 56) = 5.02, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.08], total pain over six domains [F(1, 56) = 14.52, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.21], and pain interference [F(1, 56) = 6.82, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.11]; (2) Affect improved in pain-related negative affect [F(1, 56) = 7.44, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.12], fear [F(1, 56) = 7.70, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.12], and distress [F(1, 56) = 10.87, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.16]; (3) Well-being increased in pain mobility [F(1, 56) = 5.45, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.09], vitality [F(1, 56) = 4.54, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.07], and emotional well-being [F(1, 56) = 5.53, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.09] Mental health symptoms and the cognitive functioning domain did not reveal significant effects. This resilience intervention based on homeostatic self-regulation and survival strategies of survivors of extreme external environments may provide additional sociopsychobiological tools for treating individuals with chronic pain that may extend beyond treating pain symptoms to improving emotional well-being and self-growth.Clinical Trial Registration: Registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04693728).

Indigenous Education, Well-Being, and Resilience— A Systemic Approach

Schools and other educational institutions are embraced as ideal sites for resilience intervention research because they are places where students spend so much time, and thus provide practicable intervention points to shape their opportunities and influence quality of life into the future. But schools commonly focus resilience efforts on enhancing the ability of individual students to cope and “bounce back” after encountering a negative life event; these expectations can do more harm than good. Rather, schools need to take account of the need to prepare their cultures and broader environments and educators for students. Resilience interventions must be context-dependent, accounting for individuals’ attributes and the cultural, social, environmental and historical contexts in which they developed and exist. They also must ascribe significance to ethics and a power analysis as a context-sensitive point of departure. This chapter examines the concept of how resilience can be built systemically, using the case example of the transitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through the Australian education system.

UNDERSTANDING THE NEED TO BUILD A RESILIENT-MINDFULNESS MODULE IN HELPING INCREASE THE RESILIENCE OF B-40 SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

This study aims to understand the awareness of Guidance and Counseling Teachers on the resilience of B40 students, the mindfulness approach, and the need for the construction of Resilience-Mindfulness Module to increase the resilience of students from B40 families. The approach of the study is qualitative by using a semi-structured interview protocol on four Guidance and Counselling teachers selected purposefully. Interviews were conducted to gather information on the resilience of B40 students, an understanding of the mindfulness approach, and the need to develop a Resilience Module. Interview data were transcribed and analyzed using Atlas. ti 8. The findings of the study resulted in three themes that have been identified. The themes are (1) Resilience (2) Mindfulness, (3) Module Needs. Significantly, the findings of this need analysis can provide an overview of the issues that occur among B40 students as well as the need to build a resilience intervention for them.