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

[Lanzarotelady]

Genuinely interested in this, what makes one person more resilient than the next?
Two people go through the same, ie nurses working in covid ICU, what makes one person cope better than the other?
Can resilience be taught?
I am asking as we have a pot of money to use at work ( NHS ICU ) and people have asked for resilience training, but I can't help but think, you can't be taught it?

My dad used to say “You can’t go far wrong with the truth” and he was so right

How eloquent. Care to state which part you consider to be "rubbish"?

You asked why, I answered, you reacted in a rude and reactive way. I don't agree with everything people say but I don't do that.

Why do you think you you did that? What prompted you?

They haven't , it has been suggested, I used the scenario to generate discussion

Resilience isn't an identity, we mistake it for that, frequently. It's a set of behaviours - focussed on msinraining physical and emotional health, being able to problem solve, being able to persevere etc.

Maybe hire a reflective practice psychologist. Rather than resilience. It's a bit like supervision but with a neutral party so you can be a bit more open

Resilience is depleted when we have to go through difficult things alone and / or without sufficient opportunity to recover in between and / or with associated trauma. I understand trauma as something that significantly undermines beliefs that the world and society is basically (most of the time, as long as you follow accepted rules etc) safe, fair, consistent. Chronic work stress isn’t usually traumatic but definitely removes the recovery opportunity.

Resilience is built when we navigate difficult things successfully, with others, and without trauma. I have a suspicion that having social support while doing the hard thing is actually crucial to building long term resilience, but I don’t have a great theory why that should be. Maybe something about having the experience validated, or reinforcing the belief we can rely on others. Good relationships with supportive parents seems to be especially important.

I don’t think resilience is something that can be significantly improved with a work based training course. Often those can do more harm than good as they are experienced like gas lighting. No effort to change the stressors, attributing staff unhappiness to some kind of personal failing that they should be able to think their way out of. IF an individual is self motivated to improve their resilience I think this can be improved by intentionally focusing on life challenges with a trusted friend or therapist and basically building a self image from your own experiences that I am able to cope with many things, I was successful in that, I made good choices here, I can rely on the kindness of both friends and strangers during tough times. Trauma may have to be worked on first, if present.

For staff everyone could learn something they don’t know together over time to see failure and trying again etc
eg learning a language or skill. Plus has to show effort and trying over time when it gets hard or boring to learn resilience.

Agree with those that state NHS staff will likely not benefit from a resilience training course as the stressors are systematic.

I'm sure you mean well but if they work in the NHS- likely 12 hours shifts dealing with extremely stressful circumstance. Pretty sure they're learning all the time and don't want enforced learning to test their resilience when they're no doubt exhausted and burned out..

Such an interesting question and discussion.

I agree with PP that starting with the systemic issues within the NHS has to be a good plan (people seem increasingly unwilling/unable to take this approach these days). Not sure why.

However, here's another thought. What about inspiration? I've read plenty of fictional/factual books about people overcoming adversity and think these have helped my resilience throughout my life. One example for adults is Joe Simpson's 'Touching the Void':

www.waterstones.com/book/touching-the-void/joe-simpson/9780099771012

That's one hell of an example of resilience and the will to survive that's put some of my suffering into context. 😮

The budget won't stretch that far

Ask the staff what they would value most. Go with majority vote.

If they need guidance,offer some suggestions. I'd include as one possible option ' a day off' and also
' a group leisure activity of your choosing '.

I think resilience comes with an optimistic personality. I don’t think these qualities can be taught.

The problem with being resilient is that you keep going until you can’t, faced with challenge after challenge resilient people still burnout, it might take a little longer but as an outside observer you won’t see it until it happens.

Burnout is very different to lacking resilience.

Yes, you can teach resilience - it's been one of the foundations of sports psychology for years but it's known as mental toughness, of which resilience is one part.

Interesting article here: Mental toughnes for young athletes

Luckily Team GB didn't think it couldn't be trained back in the early 2000's otherwise London 2012 would've been a bit shite!

This is interesting.

For me it's a bit like common sense and having 'foresight' and I think it's naturally there or not - only so much can be taught.

Agree.

There's research into burnout and workplace resilience in emotionally challenging roles. Basically it's making sure you have whole supportive systems, not expecting individual resilience way above and beyond reasonable expectation. We are beginning to understand that resilience is a systemic property.

I think in this case, your staff have resilience in spades, or you would have lost them already. There's a large body of research into unintended consequences of interventions. Tokenistic resilience training risks being patronising and insulting to staff: counterproductive.

The idea that someone in the military will know what stressful situations are, and a nurse in NICU won't, is misogyny, pure and simple.

People have mentioned the lack of debrief and recovery time as absolutely killer in these stressful caring professions. No R and R, and the sense of moral responsibility is unimaginable.

The idea that they need to incrementally build up their stress (from what base level are you thinking, zero??) is also .... poorly directed.

Buy a big cake. Offer a slice to everyone and slice it up in the middle of the office. Then eat eve egg single slice yourself. Finish by shouting “get over it” through a small megaphone 📣 and walk out. Await the emails and invite everyone who shows poor resilience in for a mandatory PPT in your office. Pat yourself on the back and use the money for more cake for the office to celebrate.

The idea that someone in the military will know what stressful situations are, and a nurse in NICU won't, is misogyny, pure and simple.

So you think there are no women in the military who might know what stressful situations are, and no male nurses in ICU? That's pretty misogynist, isn't it? Not to mention outdated and ill-informed.

The idea that I am taking about MEN in the military is sexist and a stereotype.

Also, why are you saying that a Nurse in NICU won't know what stressful situations are?

That's just rude.

🙄 I didn't say you were only talking about men in the military. They're still gendered workforces, as is nursing. Doesn't mean they're made up of all men or all women.

You were saying someone from the military should be sent in to teach NICU nurses how to deal with stressful situations. Can you really not see how patronising that is?

I don't think it can be taught. Not truly. Maybe strategies to help, but I do believe some people just have it or it's developed in a different way. My two teens, both are highly highly resilient individuals, for different reasons. I always put that down to being much more like their Dad than me, but actually I think we are both pretty resilient people but in very different ways and this has passed on. My DH is public service and deals with things I could never imagine.

My younger DC has literally been resilient from almost day one it felt. Always had this completely chilled, self assured, water off a ducks back attitude that means they will just keep on swimming. They are just doing GSCEs and are moving in to healthcare (trauma nursing, midwifery or paramedic) and I'm not surprised!
My elder DC I would have said was much more sensitive and I didn't think they were naturally resilient in the same way. However, sadly they recently experienced a big trauma that forced them to sink or swim and they dealt it with it unbelievably and came out of it a different, highly resilient person. I wish they'd never had to experience it but they've managed to turn a negative in to a positive and find that inner strength that will set them up for life.

You can teach the 'theory' skills of resilience, but as with most things, life experience - whether that be nature or nurture - is totally different.

Prisons are full of ex-military. Almost no nurses though.

Maybe the nurses should teach the soldiers.

If resilience can be taught it won’t be taught in that setting at that budget.

Something that is similar to resilience or helps build resilience is stress management. That’s a hackneyed term now but would be more teachable in the situation you described. You could outline what resilience entails and focus on stress management as a corner stone of resilience.

I hope whatever you decide goes well and your team get some ongoing value from it