A new paper in printed in Nature Human Behavior: The resilience framework as a strategy to combat stress-related disorders.
Abstract:
Consistent failure over the past few decades to reduce the high prevalence of stress-related disorders has motivated a search for
alternative research strategies. Resilience refers to the phenomenon of many people maintaining mental health despite exposure
to psychological or physical adversity. Instead of aiming to understand the pathophysiology of stress-related disorders, resilience
research focuses on protective mechanisms that shield people against the development of such disorders and tries to exploit its
insights to improve treatment and, in particular, disease prevention. To fully harness the potential of resilience research, a critical
appraisal of the current state of the art — in terms of basic concepts and key methods — is needed. We highlight challenges to
resilience research and make concrete conceptual and methodological proposals to improve resilience research. Most importantly,
we propose to focus research on the dynamic processes of successful adaptation to stressors in prospective longitudinal studies.
Kalisch, R., Baker, D. G., Basten, U., Boks, M. P., Bonanno, G. M., Brummelman, E., … & Geuze, E. The resilience framework as a strategy to fight stress-related disorders: current challenges and future perspectives.