Fattori di resilienza e benessere psicologico

In accord with the growing attention to strengths and what “goes right” in development, the construct of resilience, a family of processes that scaffold successful adaptation in the context of adversity (Roisman, 2005), has been the focus of burgeoning recent interest. Although resilience can be achieved at any point in the life span most work in the area has focused on children and has just recently extended to the adult population (Bonanno, 2004). Insofar resilience calls up health psychology, especially considering the growing number, at least in Western countries, of chronic degenerative diseases, whose patients are continuously involved in exhausting processes of adjustment. In this domain, a still open question regards the kind of relation which links resilience to wellbeing and health outcomes; different paths will be presented. Special attention will be devoted to adults’ resources of resilience and particularly to the dimension of sense which is considered at the heart of the complex system of responses at the individuals’ disposal to face stressful life events (Reker e Chamberlain, 2000; Krause, 2005). The contribute of the Sense of Coherence (Antonovsky, 1993), will be reviewed.