While I hate an undue focus on the goals of resilience, improvement, and healing, I also don't want to see them erased from the discussion. Of course, healing and recovery are essential goals. I want everyone who has suffered to know what it is like to find peace and healing, and to feel genuinely strong and resilient and safe. The problem isn't with the concepts. It's with how they are sometimes used and overemphasized.
If someone gave me a button to press and said "this will bring you resilience and healing," of course I'd press it without hesitation and would also hurry to share it with everyone else who needs it.
But it's not that simple so we have to be careful. We live in a scary, imperfect world where deeply unjust, sometimes horrific things happen. When I question the overemphasis on improvement, resilience, and healing, I'm not saying those are bad things. I'm saying we have to be careful about what we miss out on when we are so fixated on aiming for "measurable" things like resilience and progress.
Because sometimes those that need the support the most, who have been most stuck, might need a lot of help/kindness/understanding before they can even begin to move towards healing--before they can even begin to think of themselves as resilient. Yet that doesn't mean they aren't strong. They could be every bit as strong as anyone else, yet not improve at all (maybe even get worse) due to the gravity of what they're facing. If we focus too much on interventions that yield the greatest results, we might miss out on helping and supporting those people.
An even bigger issue I have with an undue focus on resilience is that an emphasis on enhancing an outcome so amorphous as resilience may lead us to give inappropriate regard to the kinds of progress that are amenable to being measured. What does it mean to be resilient? Does it mean being a productive member of society? Does it mean avoiding a life of substance use disorders? Does it mean never developing a mental health issue? What does it mean to survive adversity? What if you accomplish all those things but have to harden yourself and feel less compassion for the suffering of others in order to be able to keep going? Does that count as resilience? Which part of you has to survive before you count as being resilient?
What if for some of us surviving adversity means something altogether different? What if for some it means maintaining our acute sense of compassion and urgency despite all we've suffered? What if it means maintaining a sense of allegiance, solidarity and community with others who suffer like we have, even if it means not escaping our own hardship, even if it ultimately results in us suffering the same fate as those whom we refuse to leave behind? How do we measure resilience if what matters most to the person in question is staying gentle and vulnerable in the face of a storm (rather than withstanding its impact)?
This is the essence of my stubbornness on this issue. I'm not saying all the above goals and types of survival are necessarily mutually exclusive, but if we privilege the more easily measurable ones and define those as "resilient," then not only do we prioritize the aims and needs of some over others, we also risk denigrating and stigmatizing some as "lacking" in resilience who have actually shown considerable strength of character in hanging onto what truly matters to them. And we also risk pushing "evidence-based treatments" on everyone that might be evidence-based only with regard to some visions of survival/thriving, but not others. Further, we also risk losing sight of the losses involved in some outcomes that might appear to have been the result of resilience....
My probably very trite point is that what it means to have a good and meaningful life is profoundly personal. What it means to be helped through adversity and its aftermath is similarly personal in many ways. For me, what matters most at the moment is simply feeling valued as I am (with all my non-resilient shortcomings) and like I don't have to endure things alone. For someone else, what might matter most may just be making it through the day without turning to unhealthy coping strategies.
So that's the root of my ambivalence. In many senses, the ways in which I appear resilient cause me the most pain because of what I had to give up in myself to attain them. In other senses, the ways in which I've been unsuccessful are a reflection of what I'm most proud of (maintaining my sense of connection to those who suffer, despite how painful it is to me, rather than shutting it out in order to "survive"). I don't hate the idea of resilience. I just think it needs to be put in its place. There are bigger questions that are messy and complicated that risk being hidden from view if we focus on seemingly neat and tidy concepts like measurable versions of progress, healing, and resilience.
As I've repeated, I'm not a mental health professional or an expert on anything, but the reality of mental health is that it has an inherently subjective component (or at least one that we are all capable of debating). No one can dictate for us what it means to be a good person, to live a meaningful/healthy life, and to come through trauma and adversity in a way that feels okay to us. We can benefit from the wisdom, insight and support of others, but at the end of the day, it won't matter if our own sense of what's important is ignored or overridden.
So what should we aim for first in supporting each other? My view: just figure out how to be there for others as they sort the above out for themselves. This means figuring out how to see and appreciate the humanity/inspiration/grief/joy/hope/despair in the life stories of those who fought/survived/succumbed/overcame/faltered. We can't help "fix" each other if we don't first get a sense of what that means for each other. It might not be easy to measure but that's okay. That's why listening is so critical.
Obviously, there will still be a place for measurables and for evidence-based-this-and-that aiming at particular outcomes to offer as tools to those who wish to pursue them, but let's just start by listening to and being there for each other....
As always, please note that I am a lawyer, not a mental health professional of any kind. I have no expertise in trauma or mental health. Also, please note that any opinions and views expressed in this blog are solely my own and are not intended to represent the views or opinions of my employer in any way. For more information about the purpose of this blog, please see here and for a bit more information about my personal perspective on this issue, please see "my story" here
I am very grateful to have received a "Clawbie" Award for this blog (which reflects the importance of this topic): https://www.clawbies.ca/2019-clawbies-canadian-law-blog-awards/
For some of my external writing on this topic, see:
- https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion/a-more-inclusive-discussion-on-the-impact-of-trauma-on-lawyers-mental-health-is-needed/276166
- https://www.cbabc.org/BarTalk/Articles/2020/February/Features/Speaking-Up-About-Trauma-and-Mental-Health
- https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion/changing-the-conversation/326240
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