The study of resilience from a developmental perspective and its contribution to knowledge of risk and protection in social intervention

Abstract

The understanding of the factors and mechanisms with potential to promote human resilience in facing adversities is a crucial theme for optimal social interventions, like the ones carried out by professionals of Social Work. This article presents an overview of the evolution of the study of resilience from the perspective of both Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology. The main findings of this study show that human resilience is a bio-psychosocial phenomenon that depends on dynamic interaction between risk and protection present at individual (including behavioural, but also neurobiological and epigenetic processes), family and community levels. This perspective implies a shift to a more dynamic, multidisciplinary and integrative study of resilience, considering multiple levels of analysis and a focus on processes of change. The work ends up by analyzing the possible implications that this approach can have for social interventions and the consideration of their possibilities and limitations.