Domains of Resilience

We're back!

I apologize for my long delay in an update on this blog.  As I was writing my last entry, I felt as though I needed to spend a little more time thinking about and working with the ideas that I'd been writing about; I wanted to come up with my own formulation that could be immediately useful and clinically practical.  I don't think I'm entirely there yet, but I think I've got a good start.  In the next series of blog posts, I will outline this model, provide as much evidence as I can regarding the value of its components, outline a course of therapy using this model (both for prevention in healthy individuals and for treatment in individuals with deficits) and discuss potential opportunities for research.

Here goes:

There are 4 basic domains within a resilience model

1) Physiological Awareness and Modulation (PAM) or Self Awareness (SA) -- the ability of the individual to be aware of internal physiological states including basal physiological awareness, levels of autonomic arousal, muscle tension and pain and having the capacity to consciously modulate these states.

2) Cognitive Affective Control (CAC) or Self Connectedness (SC) -- the ability of the individual to be aware of cognitive and affective states including imaginative states,emotional states and spontaneous thoughts (automatic thoughts) and having the capacity to consciously modulate these states.

3) Interpersonal Relationship Quality (IRQ) or Interpersonal Connectedness (IC) -- the ability of the individual to be aware of interpersonal dynamics within the spheres of significant other, friend and family, conscious awareness of implicit protective mechanisms during times of stress, and the capacity to maintain healthy and supportive interpersonal connections over extended periods of time.

and

4) Capacity for Creative of Ecstatic Connection (CCEC) or Self Transcendence (ST) -- the ability of the individual to be aware of their own connection to societal moral, philosophical, religious, spiritual and other group beliefs and to develop a means of personal connection to these meta-individual concepts in a meaningful, powerful and creative way.

I've drawn these four categories from a variety of sources including, Maslow's Hierarchy or Needs, the spheres of identity model (James Griffith) and the work of Nathaniel Laor.  I've also tried to bring together a number of different psychological schools including psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, biofeedback, mindfulness meditation (Jon Kabat-Zinn) and mental imagery.

 Again, I will spend future blog entries discussing each of the domains .. etc.


Yay!