The role of self-understanding in resilient individuals: the development of a perspective.

Three studies are reviewed in which an in-depth life-history approach was used, and in which a strong connection was demonstrated between self-understanding and resilience. Subjects were civil rights workers in the South, survivors of childhood cancer, and adolescents whose parents had serious affective disorders. Dimensions of the concept of self-understanding which are evident in all three investigations are explored, and the study of resilience as part of an integrative approach to the understanding of human behavior is outlined.

[1]  E. Werner,et al.  Vulnerable but Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children and Youth , 1989 .

[2]  Donald Meichenbaum,et al.  Stress reduction and prevention , 1989 .

[3]  D. Hart,et al.  Psychotherapeutic Implications of the Development of Self-Understanding , 1988 .

[4]  W. Beardslee,et al.  Resilient adolescents whose parents have serious affective and other psychiatric disorders: importance of self-understanding and relationships. , 1988, The American journal of psychiatry.

[5]  R. Selman,et al.  Level of Social-Cognitive Development, Adaptive Functioning, and DSM-III Diagnoses in Adolescent Offspring of Parents With Affective Disorders: Implications of the Development of the Capacity for Mutuality , 1987 .

[6]  M. Rutter.  Meyerian psychobiology, personality development, and the role of life experiences. , 1986, The American journal of psychiatry.

[7]  Stability and change in children's self-understanding. , 1986 .

[8]  L. Eisenberg.  Mindlessness and Brainlessness in Psychiatry , 1986, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[9]  E. J. Anthony,et al.  Children at risk for schizophrenia : a longitudinal perspective , 1984 .

[10]  D. Offer,et al.  Normality and the life cycle : a critical integration , 1984 .

[11]  N. Garmezy.  Stressors of childhood. , 1983 .

[12]  W. Beardslee.  Commitment and endurance: common themes in the life histories of civil rights workers who stayed. , 1983, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[13]  W. Damon,et al.  The development of self-understanding from infancy through adolescence. , 1982 .

[14]  G. Collins,et al.  Ciba Foundation Symposium 89 - Temperamental Differences in Infants and Young Children , 1982 .

[15]  G. Vaillant,et al.  Natural history of male psychological health, X: Work as a predictor of positive mental health. , 1981, The American journal of psychiatry.

[16]  M. Rutter.  Stress, coping and development: some issues and some questions. , 1981, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[17]  H. Lefcourt,et al.  Research With the Locus of Control Construct , 1981 .

[18]  R. Selman.  growth of interpersonal understanding , 1980 .

[19]  G. Stechler,et al.  The development of the self: a psychoanalytic perspective. , 1980, The Psychoanalytic study of the child.

[20]  H. Grunebaum,et al.  Superkids: competent children of psychotic mothers. , 1979, The American journal of psychiatry.

[21]  R. Blanck,et al.  Ego psychology II : psychoanalytic developmental psychology , 1979 .

[22]  L. Eisenberg,et al.  A friend, not an apple, a day will help keep the doctor away. , 1979, The American journal of medicine.

[23]  J. Rotter.  Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. , 1966, Psychological monographs.

[24]  H. Hartmann.  Ego psychology and the problem of adaptation , 1958 .

[25]  E. Erikson,et al.  Childhood and Society , 1951 .