Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy, vol.

19, no1 (73) March 2016

Psychological Counseling and Developing Resilience for

Rodica G. Enache*ii
* Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Psychology and Social Work
Department, „Ovidius” University, Constanţa, Romania

Abstract
Introduction: A family resilience approach aims to identify and fortify key interactional
processes that enable families to withstand and rebound from disruptive life challenges.
Objectives: The main objectives of study were to identify the level of development of social
and emotional feelings of loneliness felt by young people with psychological traumas in childhood
and to investigate a correlation between the level of social and emotional loneliness and the
dependence on others felt by young people with psychological traumas in childhood.
Methods: The research was based on four surveys: Self-Determination Scale
(SDS; Sheldon & Deci, 1996), Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults (SELSA; Di
Tommaso & Spinner, 1993), Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (Hirschfield, Klerman, Gough,
Barrett, Korchin & Chodoff, 1977) and Child Abuse and Trauma Scale (CATS; Sanders & Becker-
Lausen, 1995). To validate the two hypothesis we have used correlations between characteristics of
30 people aged between 19 and 42 years.
Conclusions: Resilience is the result of interactions between individual, family and
environment. Resilience and posttraumatic growth confirm the development of a potential cure for
the persons that agree to participate in a program of counseling and cognitive-behavioral
psychotherapy. These people must develop skills of resilience and self-determination through
counseling techniques and cognitive behavioral psychotherapy.

Keywords: psychological trauma, family resilience approach, social and emotional loeliness,
dependence

ii
Corresponding author: Rodica G. Enache, Murelor 12, 900508, Constanţa, Romania. Tel: 0723169247. E-mail:
[email protected].

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 Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy, vol. 19, no1 (73) March 2016
I. Introduction problems. Illness, the birth of a sibling, day-to-day
The concept of “resilience” - theoretical frustration and parents’ temporary absence are common
approaches sources of stress for almost every child. Divorce or
Family life and the world around us have death of parents, hospitalization, and the day-in, day-
changed so dramatically in recent years, that while we out grind of poverty affect many children. Some
yearn for strong and enduring relationships, we are children undergo the trauma of war, earthquakes or
unsure how to shape and sustain them in front of life’s kidnapping. Such severe stressors may have long-term
challenges. Although some families are shattered by effects on physical and psychological well-being
crisis or persistent stresses, what is remarkable is that (Garmezy, 1983). Yet some children show remarkable
some people emerge stronger and more resourceful. resilience in surviving such ordeals.
With widespread concern about family breakdown, we The psychologist David Elkind (2001) has
need more than ever to understand those processes that called today’s child the “hurried child”. He warns that
can foster family resilience. the pressures of modern life are forcing children to
A family resilience approach aims to identify grow up too soon and are making their childhood too
and fortify key interactional processes that enable stressful. Today’s children are expected to succeed in
families to withstand and rebound from disruptive life school, to compete in sports, and to meet parents’
challenges. A resilience lens shifts perspective from emotional needs. Children are exposed to many adult
viewing distressed families as damaged to seeing them problems on television and in real life, before they
as challenged and affirming their potential for healing have mastered the problems of childhood. They know
and growth. This approach is based on the conviction about sex and violence and if they live in single-parent
that both individual and family strength can be forged homes or dual-earner families, they often must take
through collaborative efforts to deal with sudden crisis over adult responsibilities. Yet children are not small
or prolonged adversity. Resilience can be defined as adults. They feel and think like children, and they need
the capacity to rebound from adversity stronger and their childhood years for a healthy development.
more resourceful. It is an active process of endurance, One source of stress is the disruption that
self-righting and growth in response to crisis and occurs when families move. Moving is hard for
challenge (Rutter, 1987). children. They feel the loss of their friends, perhaps of
Stress and resilience at different ages extended family and of control over their lives. They
Resilience has become an important concept generally have to change schools and are less likely to
in child development and mental health theory and know well many adults. Children who move three or
research. With concern for early intervention and more times have about twice the risk of emotional,
prevention, a number of child development and mental behavioural, health, or school problems as compared to
health experts redirected their attention in the 1970’s children who have never moved, even when income
and 1980’s towards understanding vulnerability and and other social factors are taken into account. Given
susceptibility to risk and disorder (Garmezy, 1983; how much stress children are exposed to, it should not
Murphy & Moriarty, 1976), as well as the protective to be surprising that they worry a lot.
factors that fortify the resources of children and Coping with stress: The resilient child
encourage their resilience (Dugan & Coles, 1989; Two children of the same age and sex are
Luthar & Zigler, 1991; Masten, Best & Garmezy, exposed to the same stressful experience: one crumbles
1990; Rutter, 1987; Simeonsson, 1995). while the other remains emotionally healthy. Why?
Most of these inquiries sought to understand Resilient children are those children who no matter the
how some children of mentally ill parents or circumstances that would blight most others, manage to
dysfunctional families are able to overcome early maintain their composure and competence under
experiences of abuse or neglect and live productive challenge or threat, or who bounce back from traumatic
lives (Anthony, 1987; Cohler, 1987; Garmezy, 1987). events. They are children of the ghetto who distinguish
Holmes and Masuda (1974) described a cluster of themselves in the professions. They are children of
qualities in healthy adults who showed individual divorce who adjust and go on with their lives. They are
resilience despite growing up in dysfunctional, and neglected or abused children who manage to form
often abusive, alcoholic families. intimate relationships and to become good parents.
Stressful events are part of childhood, and Children under adverse circumstances who
most children learn to cope. However, stress that function well despite challenges or threats, or bounce
becomes overwhelming can lead to psychological back from traumatic events that would have a highly
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negative impact on the emotional development of most Family resilience cannot be captured in a
children in general. snapshot at a single moment in time. More than
Family resilience as an interactive processes immediate crisis response or adjustment, resilience
over time involves many interactive processes over time - from a
The term “family resilience” refers to coping family’s approach to a threatening situation, through its
and facilitative processes in the family as a functional ability to manage disruptive transitions, to varied
unit. A system perspective enables us to understand strategies for coping with emerging stress in the
how family processes mediate stress and enable immediate and long-term aftermath. Adaptation to
families to surmount crisis. Patterson (1983) contends divorce, for example, begins in pre-divorce climate and
that stressors affect children only to the extent that they the decision to separate, moves through legal
disrupt crucial family processes. It is not just the child complexities, emotional bereavement and
who is vulnerable or resilient, more importantly, the reorganization (of households, finances, parenting roles
family system influences the eventual adjustment. Even and custodial arrangements). Later, it involves further
individuals who are not directly touched by a crisis are reconfigurations for most with remarriage and
affected by the family response, with effects for all stepfamily formation.
other relationships (Bowen, 1978). How a family Deterministic views that divorce inevitably
confronts and manages a disruptive experience, buffers has damaging effects on children fail to take such
stress, effectively reorganizes itself and moves forward process variables into account and overlook the wide
with life, influences immediate and long-term variability in adaptation over time. The post divorce
adaptation for every family member and for the very functioning and well-being of family members,
survival and well-being of the family unit. especially children, are influenced not only by the
A family resilience approach has much in event of divorce, but even more by the many family
common with many competence based family therapy processes involved in dealing with the various
approaches: emphasizing a collaborative process and unfolding stressful challenges and in making meaning
seeking to identify and build on strengths and of the experience.
resources. The similar concept of hardiness grew out of
another line of research on stress and coping (Murphy II. Objectives
& Moriarty, 1976). Examining the influence of 1. To identify the level of development of
stressful life events in a range of mental and physical social and emotional feelings of loneliness felt by
illnesses, a number of investigators sought to identify young people with psychological trauma in childhood.
personality traits that mediate physiological processes 2. To investigate a correlation between the
and enable some highly stressed individuals to cope level of social and emotional loneliness and
adaptively and remain healthy (Antonovsky, 1979, dependence on others felt by young people with
Holmes & Masuda, 1974, Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). psychological trauma in childhood.
Building on earlier theories of competence, Kobasa
(1985) proposed that persons who experience high III. Method
degrees of stress without becoming ill have a The research was based on four surveys:
personality structure characterized by hardiness (apud 1. The Self-Determination Scale (SDS,
Rutter, 1985). Sheldon & Deci, 1996)
Walsh F. noted that strong self-esteem and 2 The Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale
self-efficacy make successful coping more likely, for Adults (SELSA, Di Tommaso & Spinner, 1993)
whereas a sense of helplessness increases the 3. The Interpersonal Dependency Inventory
probability that one adversity will lead to another. (Hirschfield, R.M.A., Klerman, G.L. Gough, H.G.,
Similarly, Kobasa and colleagues found evidence Barrett L., Korchin, S.J. & Chodoff, P., 1977)
supporting their hypothesis that persons with resilient 4. The Child Abuse and Trauma Scale (CATS,
personalities possess three general characteristics: Sanders & Becker-Lausen, 1995).
1. The belief that they can control or influence
events in their lives, IV. Results
2. An ability to feel deeply involved in or In order to validate the two hypotheses of this
committed to the activities in their lives, study, we have used correlations between
3. Anticipation of change as an exciting characteristics of 30 people aged between 19 and 42
challenge to further development (Kobasa, 1985). years old. The purposes of this study were: 1. To
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 Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy, vol. 19, no1 (73) March 2016
investigate a correlation between emotional four main processes: reduction of risk impact,
dependency of others and self-awareness in persons reduction of negative chain reactions, establishment
with psychological trauma in childhood and and maintenance of self-esteem and self-efficacy, and
adolescence and 2. To investigate a correlation between opening up for opportunities.
the level of social and emotional loneliness and
dependence on others. V. Conclusions
Hypothesis no. 1 Resilience characterizes a person who has
From the beginning of the research, we had lived or lives a traumatic event or a chronic condition
select 30 subjects with psychological trauma in and shows a good ability to adapt, with some
childhood or adolescence that had high scores on the differences based on this person’s age and the socio-
Child Abuse and Trauma Scale (CATS; Sanders & cultural context in which he/she lives.
Becker-Lausen, 1995). To demonstrate the correlation Resilience is the result of interactions between
between emotional dependency of others and self- individual, family and environmental factors. People
awareness we assessed the level of emotional with childhood or adolescence traumas show a range of
dependency of others by means of the Interpersonal psychological problems regarding the way they view
Dependency Inventory (Hirschfield, RMA, Klerman, life, and the cognitive distortions in their thinking.
GL Gough, HG, L. Barrett, Korchin, Chodoff SJ, P. These people often use a number of negative strategies
(1977) and the capacity to be aware of their own that devalue their self-image, such as:
feelings and their self-determination. In the sample a) Anticipation of some negative /
investigated, we have obtained r = -0.366, which dysfunctional events even if they have no reason to
indicates a negative correlation at a significance level p anticipate these events,
= 0.047. The level of emotional dependency of people b) Removing the positive aspects of their life
with psychological trauma in childhood and adolescence and that of others, especially of their family members,
varies inversely with their level of self-determination. c) Using “must” type formulations. Such
Hypothesis no. 2 persons permanently blame themselves (manifest self-
To investigate a correlation between the criticism or hostility and distrust of others who
level of social and emotional loneliness and consider them capable).
dependence on others felt by young people with d) Unrealistic comparisons with others and the
psychological trauma in childhood we had used the belief that they are unable to accomplish anything
Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults alone, to make decisions and to be successful.
(SELSA, Di Tommaso & Spinner, 1993) and the Resilience and posttraumatic growth confirm
Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (Hirschfield, the development of a potential cure for the people that
R.M.A., Klerman, G.L., Gough, H.G., Barrett L., agreed to participate in a program of counselling and
Korchin, S.J., & Chodoff, P., 1977). cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy. These people
The results showed a positive correlation (r = must develop the skills of resilience and self-
0.479 p = 0.007). The higher the level of social and determination through counselling techniques and
emotional loneliness is, the higher the interpersonal cognitive behavioural psychotherapy. Among the goals
dependency is. Social and emotional loneliness is a of therapy are:
characteristic of people with tendencies to a) Gradual assumption of duties in activities
perfectionism, that are self-critical and who prefer to with a high degree of difficulty to allow self-
give up verbal communication for fear of being strengthening and positive feed-back,
ridiculed by others. As stated by Rupert, these people b) Development of behaviours and thoughts
tend to ruminate on their sadness and subsequently that facilitate adaptation to professional duties and
may develop depressive tendencies, suicidal thoughts involvement in social life,
or might attempt suicide. c) Training of assertive communication skills
In 1987, Rutter showed a positive correlation and emotional intelligence.
between avoiding interpersonal relations and the show d) Combat negative beliefs and carry out
of anxiety and also a strong correlation between self- activities in the company of people who value them.
criticism, criticism from others and low self-esteem. Seligman (2002) believes that when
Rutter M., (1987) shows that the mechanisms that counselling people who have had traumatic experiences
protect people against the psychological risks is very efficient to use psychotherapy based on the
associated with adversity are discussed in relation to strengths of the individual. Since resilience is largely
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conditioned by the patterns of interpersonal Jason Aronson.
Cohler, B. (1987). Adversity, resilience and the study of lives, in E.J.
relationships, Rutter considered that the notion of
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