Strengths-Based Resilience (eBook)

|xiii|Preface

Stressors and setbacks are inevitable in our contemporary world where we face global pandemics, a climate crisis, racial injustice, and social inequities as well as global unrest. Despite having more money and material goods, living longer, and having more social freedoms, happiness in most Western countries has not increased substantially (Easterlin et al., 2010; Rojas, 2019). On the contrary, rates of mental illness have been increasing steadily (Roth et al., 2020). There is an abundance of self-help books filled with tricks and tips which promise to magically eliminate anger, ambivalence, anxiety, sadness, and other forms of psychological distress. Workshops, courses, and retreats entice individuals to invest a few hours or days and pay a hefty fee to become the best version of themselves and live happily ever after. Though tempting, these untested interventions often overlook the unique needs of living in the 21st century, where people are ambitious, anxious, digitally savvy but increasingly alienated and alone.

Eliminating all risks and vulnerabilities is not feasible. Therefore, we suggest that practicing resilience by tapping into strengths, rather than reducing risks, might be a better approach. Instilling hope, practicing mindfulness, boosting social intelligence, and encouraging citizenship can build confidence and self-efficacy, whereas merely managing stressors cannot. We believe building these skills is essential for everyone, especially for our young people.

Our goal in creating SBR was clear and focused – to explore ways to tap into strengths that build resilience in educational and community settings. The strengths-based resilience (SBR) program described in this manual is informed by positive psychotherapy (PPT; Rashid & Seligman, 2018), the Penn Resilience Program (PRP; Gillham et al., 1995; Jaycox et al., 1994), and the high school positive psychology program (Gillham et al., 2013; Seligman et al., 2009). It was originally developed for youth in secondary school settings but is accessible to a wide range of professionals who work with adolescents and young adults.

The SBR program was created before the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life around the world (Rashid et al., 2014). The pandemic caused disruptions in people’s learning, work, leisure activities, relationships, and household dynamics that have continued to have an effect. These challenges may have been tougher for some, especially if they were experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, or other mental health difficulties. In this postpandemic era that has introduced hybrid work and learning arrangements, people need resilience more than ever to navigate uncertainty and new ways of learning, working, and socializing.

In designing SBR, we integrated knowledge about mindfulness, stressors, and strengths into a holistic program of interventions. We ran implementation studies, mostly in schools, but also some in clinical and community settings (Rashid et al., 2014). Through these studies, we learned ways to strike a balance between mitigating stressors and accentuating strengths and to engage participants through experiential practices. We learned from teachers and facilitators how and where to add more creative room and autonomy for them to deliver the program while keeping the core elements intact. Based on this learning, we included guidelines for facilitators so they can adapt the program to make it culturally relevant, accessible to students with different learning needs, and applicable to everyday life situations that their students are likely to encounter. The result of all this work is this Manual.

SBR is a 14-module program that can be delivered in the form of a life skills or self-development course in a group setting and in one-to-one work with individuals. The program modules can |xiv|be adapted to various durations (e.g., 60, 75, or 90 minutes). Each module begins and ends with a brief relaxation or mindfulness practice to help participants focus on their experiences in the present moment and settle into a reflective learning journey. Participants are also coached to keep a gratitude journal throughout the program. The aim is to help them spot, reflect on, and write about positive experiences that they may otherwise ignore or minimize.

In addition to the Manual, the Strengths-Based Resilience Workbook (Rashid et al., 2025) is an excellent resource for participants engaged in the SBR program. It can also be utlilized as a standalone book by individuals interested in developing resilience through a strengths-based approach. The Workbook provides ample space for participants to respond to questions and reflect on what they have learnt in the modules. Additionally, extra materials are available to purchasers for download.

After exploring definitions and illustrations of resilience, the first module of the program, Module 1: Resilience, encourages participants to recall and write a personalized narrative of resilience. The aim is to define what resilience means to participants and to remind them of times when they used their strengths to overcome significant adversity.

The next three modules, Module 2: Fixed and Growth Mindsets, Module 3: Cognitive Accuracy, and Module 4: Cognitive Flexibility focus on skills for helping participants appraise and process negative experiences in a realistic and flexible manner. The goal of these modules is to improve their self-awareness about negativity bias – a common human tendency to give negative events and experiences more weight and importance than positive ones.

Modules 5: Character Strengths, 6: Signature Strengths, and 7: Problem-Solving and Strengths invite participants to acknowledge, assess, and express their core strengths. Participants are encouraged to incorporate multiple perspectives, including those of family members, teachers/colleagues, and friends/peers, resulting in a cohesive understanding of their strengths. Participants also learn to use their strengths in context-specific, goal-directed, and positive ways which are beneficial for them and others.

Modules 8: Grudge and Gratitude, 9: Empathy, and 10: Slowness and Savoring build essential personal and interpersonal skills, i.e., those that strengthen relationships. The underlying invitation in these modules is to pay closer attention to both positive and negative reactions participants experience when interacting with others. These modules also encourage participants to be mindful of their reactions to their experience in the present and how these might be impacted by the past, especially when associated experiences fuel negative feelings due to unprocessed memories.

Modules 11: Positive Relationships, 12: Positive Communication, and 13: Altruism focus on cultivating healthy interpersonal and community connections. In the final module, 14: Meaning and Purpose, participants review their stories of resilience, which they wrote in the first module. They are encouraged to incorporate learning from the program to write a story about their future self.

Culture plays a critical role in individual responses to stress and adversity. Yet, most resilience interventions and programs that have been described in the psychological literature are developed by Western researchers and practitioners. Given today’s ethno-culturally diverse, urbanized, polarized, and increasingly anxious world, our program invites facilitators to consider the cultural context from which participants begin their learning journey. For each module, we draw on concepts and skills from positive psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, and mindfulness and suggest ways to modify program activities so that facilitators consider the unique cultural perspective of participants. Incorporating cultural context can also enable both individuals and communities to become more resilient.

|xv|In 2008, we began creating and piloting the SBR program in a variety of high-need educational and clinical settings of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada, one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Several iterations of the program and extensive consultation after each iteration with educators and healthcare professionals from diverse cultural backgrounds have enhanced its cultural responsiveness. ...