Can you teach resilience? What makes one person more resilient than the next?

I used to work at a charity (life limiting condition ) some staff were struggling and asked for resilliance training. I think samaritans ran it for us. As described by another poster you looked at your own resilience levels and possible tools that help people cope, plus things to introduce into the workplace that could help.
Reviews were mixed and in my experience increasing more relaxed oppertunities where colleagues can talk to each other and having an understanding manager made the most difference to having an emotionally stressful job.

Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that the only poster so far who thinks that you can teach resilience is someone who has been teaching courses in resilience?

I don’t necessarily believe the saying ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.

People that have had trauma in their childhood, such as losing a parent as a child, abusive parents, or adults who have have children with disabilities and have to live with constant stress and worry about their children etc…. Already have to deal with more stress than the average person. They can’t offload their stress as it’s part of their life. It’s chronic life long.

The above examples aren’t the same as losing a job etc…because these circumstances can change so it’s not lifelong.

When someone is dealing with chronic stress that can’t be taken away and it’s not just a period of time, then they often can’t cope with anymore everyday stress because their stress levels are already sky high.

When someone’s under constant stress their fight/flight mode stops working properly basically and they can’t take any more.

I think innate resilience comes out of (probably mostly early) life experiences. You can’t teach it as a skill the way you teach, say, project management.

BUT I do think people are more or less equipped to tap into their innate resilience and how to do this can be supported (not sure taught is the right word). I think the stress bucket analogy is helpful here. We all have our our stress buckets with whatever capacity they hold. We pile stuff into those buckets and eventually they overflow and we breakdown with complete overwhelm or we develop a chronic illness or we misuse substances to cope, whatever. This will happen at different points for different people. You can’t prevent things from being added to that bucket in life, but what you can do, is teach people skills for how to manage what’s in the bucket and their responses to it, before it all overflows.

I personally haven’t done resilience training, but I expect some of it works around that approach. That said, I know someone (Josh Connelly) who have taken classes with who does corporate resilience training and seems very highly regarded in that area.

In my experience, you cannot teach resilience, empathy or compassion. You either have it or you don’t. If you are working in a NHS ICU environment and you are asking for resilience training - I would suggest you may need to think about a career change.

My own biggest resilience builders were experiencing some awful situations at work and surviving them. But I had a therapist who helped me see that I hadn't been broken by the experiences but had grown. I still draw upon that 20 years later.

This is a really interesting point. I have also benefited from having been through difficult situations: I'm lucky enough to have been able to reframe them and learn from them but not everyone is able to do that. Sometimes people become "stuck" on something that's happened to them and never really come out of the other side. It's hard to know why one person will use adversity to build a positive experience in the future and another will experience it as a spiral which they can't recover from.

Therapy does help, for sure.

If you praise kids for effort rather than achievement, it makes them less likely to give up when they hit a barrier.

We've all seen the very able child who unaccountably gives up when their natural ability reaches its limits and they experience a setback: "I could do it, I just don't want to..."

That's a kind of resilience.

I believe it’s a skill learned from very early childhood and also partly a personality trait. Some nurses do well in high stress environments and some don’t. There are plenty of options for those who prefer a slower pace or more predictability.

In answer to your question ( I worked on the shop floor of the NHS for 30 years), the support staff receive from their seniors is derisory. They have to rely on colleagues in the same situation who are equally frazzled.

I volunteer with the Samaritans and after each shift it is compulsory to debrief on the phone with an experienced Samaritan. As well as briefly discussing the calls we have dealt with the emphasis is on more importantly, how are you. We leave feeling cared about and without feeling burdened by the sometimes very traumatic calls we have had. If we need more support it s freely available.

I think it’s a model the NHS could and should consider and I believe it could dramatically reduce the sickness rates and increase staff retention.

But what do I know?

I think learning some well researched CBT techniques can help. If work pressures or events are leading people into automatic negative thinking patterns for example, then learning to recognise that and some approaches to reframe them.

My own biggest resilience builders were experiencing some awful situations at work and surviving them. But I had a therapist who helped me see that I hadn't been broken by the experiences but had grown. I still draw upon that 20 years later.

I'm not sure if there's a standard way to teach resilience: there are too many variables and certainly it is a lot more complex than the standard responses you will get on here about young people being pampered and cossetted.

But it depends on so many factors: your underlying genetic disposition, your upbringing, your general mental health, what you have on your plate.

One variable is that people are so different in the way they respond to challenge. Some people embrace this and see it as an opportunity to step up whereas others regard it as terrifying. Look at the way people respond to stress at work: some people love it, others can't function with it. An incident which one person could perceive as an opportunity could trigger a near meltdown in another.

There's a golden mean between empathy and support on the one hand and making clear that you have to face difficult things on the other, but where you draw that line will still change massively from one person to another.

@KabukiNoh it was frequently requested by workplaces, lots of teachers and people in other high stress industries would readily come along and the feedback was always that they found it insightful and useful. Lots of self reflection and action planning involved, it was a good little course.

Cannot possibly see how resilience can be trained into people.

But I see resilience more as a survival thing- not giving up, determination, like out on the wild, At sea, on a Mountain,
It’s courage and bravery- people awarded MM and MC - and a British Survivor of the Estonia Disaster has resilience, both physical and mental- he helped others in atrocious conditions but it’s innate, it can’t be taught , I don’t think.

Resilience for something like ICU where one sees ghastly things- how can that be taught to anyone?
How can one unsee certain things?

I’d ask the staff at the coalface how they would like the money spent.

I teach children, and ‘developing resilience’ has been an LA goal for many years. It is totally possible, but challenging and long term. I can’t comment on the likelihood of learning resilience as adults.

However, we have a school counsellor who works with prioritised children. They are very good at their job and have positive relationships with all staff.

Over time they have added time before and after the teaching day for slots for staff - some one off, others more regular. It has been very successful in, I would say, ‘increasing resilience amongst school staff’.

It depends on your budget, but I think counselling services through the work place can be really effective.

Did people choose to come on your course of were they forced to do so as they were identified as lacking resilience?

I did personal development stuff in work and found it invaluable. If I learned nothing else from the session it was that you cannot change people. And unknowingly it was the source of all my frustration in work. I was trying to change people (clearly futile) and when I started focussing on my response it made my life so much better. I used to want to dance a jig of rage when people misuse blue badge parking and now I gently think "asshole" and move on with my life. It's so obvious in hindsight, but the cognitive dissonance between what I could reasonably do and what I wanted to do was massive. So I found that course amazing. It sounds so trite but also focussing on what goes right and what I have and gratitude has made a massive difference as well. It's not going to solve anyone's serious mental health problems but for someone who's doing ok and struggling from time to time it can have an impact so I'd defo go for it.

no I don’t think so, I always thought I was resilient but the two worst things that have happened in my life I turned into the type of person I was always proud I wasn’t. I think your surroundings, your people and your own personality totally dictate it. You could teach how to prepare for/ manage things better/ self care etc when you’re going through tough times but the bouncing back thing I think is inherent

Be able to compartmentalise, don’t think about what you’re not doing now.
Only aim to control the controllable things and learn what’s within your sphere of influence vs sphere of concern.
Learn to care enough but not too much.
You’ll deal with anything better if you slept well the night before.
If you’ve done your best, then the outcome will be what it’ll be.

Finally memorise the serenity prayer…
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two.”

I understand the sentiment, but essentially you are identifying and blaming some individuals for not being good enough. Maybe that’s true, but perhaps this is performance management rather than resilience training. Sometimes the systems cause failures not the individuals. Maybe those lacking resilience are actually refusing to do unpaid overtime as they have children or health issues they have been mindful of. And those pointing the finger are martyrs to the cause of whatever. Anyway it’s a can of worms that I would avoid. Invest the money on a more pragmatic quality improvement project. Or a nice coffee machine and biscuits - that will probably help build more team spirit and ‘resilience’ rather than any bullshit training course.

Resilience is usually something you learn as a child. Unfortunately, you usually learn it because you experience unpleasant situations. Bullying, grief, loss, illness. Not really a training method, I'd recommend implementing at a workplace.

As an adult maybe mindfulness will work.

As with all things, early years and childhood experiences are absolutely crucial, to answer your question as to why some people are innately more resilient than others.

Yes tbh I'd have thought resilience training was mostly about employing good coping mechanisms, alongside probably some cbt on processing bad thoughts / bad feelings.

It probably can't hurt but, would you be better off giving them all a gift voucher and a couple of hours off to go for a nice walk 😂

Resilience is absolutely a skill set and can be taught. There are a range of factors that affect it at a point in time including childhood experiences etc but ultimately, as an adult, we build resilience by a range of factors such as;

Staying physically strong and healthy
Not drinking too much
Investing in good relationships
Self reflection and development
Practicing mindfulness, gratitude and meditation
Achieving financial stability etc

There are good courses on resilience, I used to run one and people loved it. There's a tool you can use to get people to measure their own and how it's broken down in terms of the traits that build it. Good way to spend the money if you ask me!

I think you can teach elements of resilience.

learning how to put things perspective (is this a serious cut that needs stitching or it is this a minor cut that needs a wash and a plaster helps you to assess the seriousness of a scenario and to react / respond accordingly rather than catastrophically when not indicated. )

similarly learning things such as ‘reframing’ help your resilience - it you can assess the what where’s and why’s of situations snd respond to what is there not what could have been or might have been - you become a more balanced person and I think that is a form of resilience.

I don my think you can teach anyone to see a major car crash and go ‘oh ok - let’s go on’ but by helping people to understand risks and interpret correctly what is happening and also giving them relaxation and coping mechanisms such as talking through scenarios, work / life balance Etc I think you can help people to be balanced in their responses especially to adversity.

a bit like cbt for anxiety - when we ask ourselves - is this really the worse thing that has happened? More often than not - it is not the worse thing in the world - no one is dying, no one is about to get massively hurt - but anxiety tells you otherwise… usually you can get through things - when we learn to put them in perspective.

I'm more resilient when I feel well rested, when I've got time for exercise and when I've meditated and when I can share experiences with colleagues.
I think any training/space you can make for the above should be beneficial.

If you go on the Mind website, it has a section on resilience and things you can do to support it. This is more from a mental health perspective.

I would also add resilience isn't just inner grit/self reliance. It's bounce back ability. Lots of the things about resilience are external. Its Not just your own attitude, although this plays a role.

I also think it's not helpful to think of it as something you have or not.

People can be resilient to all sorts of things, but not others. A quick example is I am resilient to a car breaking down. I have AA cover, I have a mobile phone. I live in an area with great transport links, i have fruends willing to help, i have a garage i am on good teems with.. I can bounce back easy.

I am less resilient to a health issue. My company's sick policy is rubbish, my GP is fully booked. I can improve resilience here by getting rest, taking vitamins, having savings etc.

It's not all just am I a person with amazing self reliance.