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Handbook of Resilience in Children pp 3–15Cite as

Why Study Resilience?

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Abstract

The study of resilience traces its roots back a scant 50 years. Early on, the field of study was not extensive and the number of researchers devoting their careers to the examination of this phenomenon was fairly small. The field, as Michael Rutter noted in 1987, reflected not so much a search for factual phenomena but “for the developmental and situational mechanisms involved in protective processes“ (p. 2). The interest was and is not just on what factors insulate and protect, but how they went about exerting their influence. Resilience studies were reserved for high-risk populations with a particular focus on those youth demonstrating resilience or the ability to overcome the emotional, developmental, economic, and environmental challenges they faced growing up.

Keywords

  • Protective Factor
  • Single Mother
  • Adverse Life Event
  • Developmental Psychopathology
  • Resilience Process

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84102

    Sam Goldstein

  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

    Robert B. Brooks

  3. Consultant in Psychology, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, 02492

    Robert B. Brooks

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah

    Sam Goldstein

  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

    Robert B. Brooks

  3. McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts

    Robert B. Brooks

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Goldstein, S., Brooks, R.B. (2005). Why Study Resilience?. In: Goldstein, S., Brooks, R.B. (eds) Handbook of Resilience in Children. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48572-9_1

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