Is resilience always a good thing?

Resilience has been defined as a positive adaptation in response to adversity. Two researchers, Hamidah Mahdiani (University of Mainz, Germany) and Michael Ungar (Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada), have pointed to the risks of this concept. They ask who decides if an adaptation is positive and warn of the risk of focusing on adaptation to adversity at the expense of challenging that adversity.

Being resilient does not mean being invulnerable. Resilience and invulnerability are sometimes confused. For example, more educational support for children with learning disabilities may make them more resilient within a learning environment, but it will not make them less vulnerable to stigma or bullying.

Resilience may be displayed in ways that not all consider positive. Over-optimistic expectations that have little chance of being met – “false hopes” – can lead to failure, as can excessive self-reliance. Similarly, excessively high self-esteem can slide into narcissism. Resilience may manifest as a lack of appropriate emotional response to adversity, for example, in the case of bereavement.

A focus on resilience may distract from the need to challenge adversity rather than adapt to it – the resilience paradox.

Resilience according to whom? The Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton managed to survive with his team for two years in a cold wilderness. Was this heroic resilience, as was celebrated at the time, or did taking his crew into such a situation recklessly endanger their lives? When soldiers reach a personal limit in training, is resilience showing grit or is it extracting themselves to focus on something that suits them better mentally or physically? Were the survivors of the 2002 flooding in the Solomon Islands resilient when they responded with self-reliance by rebuilding houses that could not withstand another flood? Was the 19^th-century belief in opium as a relief from anxiety a form of resilience?

A focus on resilience may distract from the need to challenge adversity rather than adapt to it – the resilience paradox. One could argue that adapting to climate change is counterproductive when the only safe response is to challenge it and try to stop it. The same could be argued for racism, poverty, violence, maltreatment, and social injustice. In all cases, resilience by a compliant individual may only make matters worse. This is called the resilience paradox. Expecting resilience in such contexts could even be considered cruel.