Resilience, Meaning, and Well-Being

Abstract

In this issue of The Counseling Psychologist, Smith presents an array of important strength-related literature and offers propositions, stages, and counseling recommendations to foster resilience among youth. This article argues, however, that the strengthbased counseling model is not sufficiently operational or clearly distinguishable from other models and that more inclusion of the adult well-being literature could help to clarify key constructs and relationships among variables. The author proffers a focal operationalization of psychological resilience as generalized self-efficacy and discusses the importance of cultural moderators of resilience effects and meaning in life as a predictor of well-being. He recommends studying the incremental therapeutic benefits of strength-focused interventions.Smith (2006 [this issue]) presents a strength-based counseling model to rectify the overemphasis on pathology in many systems of counseling. Although most of the article concentrates on youth, the author intends her model to be applicable to clients of all ages.Let me first say that I am most familiar with the adult literature on wellness and psychological strengths and that I have conducted clinical work primarily with adults. For the most part, therefore, my comments will reflect knowledge of wellness as it pertains to adults.Smith (2006) has provided a compelling overview of some critical problems that youth face, a good summary of several historical roots of a focus on strengths, and solid arguments for focusing on positive features of clients and environments. One contribution of this article, then, is its stance that counselors should pay attention to client strengths as well as weaknesses and should be systematic in assessing and augmenting client strengths in counseling. The proposal to create strength categories of internal and external assets and the idea of including identifying strengths and strength and competence building as explicit counseling stages could also aid counseling by helping to ensure that counselors do not neglect important, clinically relevant strengths. The author has forwarded several helpful counseling recommendations and

Investigation of the Relationship between Resilience, Mindfulness, and Academic Self-Efficacy

“…In recent years, resilience has been recognized as a developmental process, reflecting the capacity for positive adjustment in difficult life circumstances as opposed to a trait (Lightsey, 2006). For the purpose of the present study, resilience will be defined as the ability an individual has to recover from distressing and challenging life events with increased knowledge to adaptively cope with similar adverse situations in the future.…”

“…Recently, research indicates that many of these traits associated with resilience, are also associated with mindfulness (Van Breda, 2001) and self-efficacy (Lightsey, 2006).…”

“…Lightsey (2006) postulates that resilience can be taught through psychological interventions, and Van Breda (2001) postulates that mindfulness-based training may be an efficacious intervention for increasing resilience. A study by Jha, Stanley, Kiyonaga, Wong, and Gelfand (2010) supported the notion of a relationship between mindfulness and resilience.…”

“…For example, Lightsey's (2006) theory, which proposes that individual's self-efficacy is central to their level of resilience. This theory has been supported empirically, by a study conducted by Speight (2009) who found a positive relationship between self-efficacy and resilience in high school students.…”

Análisis de los factores de la deserción estudiantil en una facultad de las unidades tecnológicas de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia

“…La resiliencia es un constructo que ha recibido muy poca atención en la investigación sobre abandono universitario, pero del que se podrían derivar buenas explicaciones sobre los mecanismos psicológicos que operan en los estudiantes persistentes (LIGHTSEY, 2006).…”