Online

Baege, Monika

College of Education and Social Services

2005

Ed. D.

The concept of resiliency, or how young people thrive in the face of adversity, brings a positive focus to youth development research, and has emerged as an important topic in the youth development field. Adversity, or risk factors, may be internally or externally generated, and may be acute or chronic. Researchers often point to the balance between risk factors and protective factors as the determining influences on a child's resiliency. If protective factors in the layers of a child's world (such as self, family, school, and community) outweigh the risk factors, then a child will be resilient. However, questions remain about why siblings who share the same family, school, and community, often respond differently to the same adversity. Though a child's temperament is often considered the answer, researchers also point to the fact that underlying relationship processes surrounding adversity playa role in how young people respond and how children in the same family may have different responses.
This research examines how family processes playa role in the resilient and nonresilient responses of youth. The author proposes definitions of a resilient response and a non-resilient response that change the paradigm of resiliency from a fixed trait to a set of responses that vary in different relationships. The study uses Bowen Family Systems Theory to frame the discussion about family emotional processes that evolve to manage anxiety created by adverse conditions. Data are drawn from five case studies of families who participated in Bowen's original family research study. The five families were among others who lived at the National Institute of Mental Health between the years of 1954-1959. The multi-year observations of these families provide a rich source of information on the interaction between family members that influence the resilient responses of their children.
Using a cross case analysis with a grounded theory methodology reveals the link between adverse conditions and the central phenomenon of anxiety. In the context of the family system, various action and interaction strategies (family emotional processes) evolve to handle anxiety, which then result in the consequences of resilient or nonresilient responses. A resilient response model illuminates pathways toward greater and lesser adversity, and Bowen's concept of differentiating a self (here called a differentiating move) is offered as an intentional way that individual family members can influence resilient responses.