Understanding Family Resilience

Joän M. Patterson
University of Minnesota

Families, as social systems, can be considered “resilient” in ways that

parallel descriptions of individual resilience. In this article, the conceptual-
ization of family-level outcomes as a prerequisite for assessing family com-
petence, and hence their resilience, is presented relative to the unique
functions that families perform for their members and for society. The risk
and protective processes that give rise to resilience in families are dis-
cussed in terms of family stress and coping theory, with a particular empha-
sis on the family’s subjective appraisal of their sources of stress and their
ability to manage them. An effort is made to distinguish two perspectives
on resilience: exposure to significant risk as a prerequisite for being con-
sidered resilient versus promotion of strengths for all families in which
life in general is viewed as risky. Implications for practitioners and policy mak-
ers in working with families to promote their resilience are discussed. © 2002
Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 233–246, 2002.

Keywords: family resilience; family protective processes; family risk

processes; family stress; family adaptation; family functions

As a society, we have a long history of focusing on the causes of disease, deficits, and
behavioral problems. In the 1970s, many social scientists began to shift their orientation
to the question, “What accounts for why some people stay healthy and do well in the face
of risk and adversity while others do not?” This perspective is now called “resilience,”
and, to date, it has focused primarily on individual health and functioning.
In this article, the focus is on the family system as the unit of analysis and interven-
tion for understanding resilience. Parallels with the much more extensive body of research
and conceptualization of individual resilience will be apparent, but an effort is made to
examine family relational processes wherein risk and protective mechanisms develop and
result in some level of adaptation of the family system. To consider whether a family is
resilient, three things are necessary: First, a family-level outcome must be conceptualized

Preparation of this article was supported by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Grant MCJ000111.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Joän M. Patterson, University of Minnesota
School of Public Health, 1300 South 2nd Street, Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55454.

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 58(3), 233–246 (2002)

© 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/jclp.10019
234 Journal of Clinical Psychology, March 2002

in a way that it is possible to assess the degree to which a family is competent in accom-
plishing the outcome. Second, there must be some risk that is associated with the expec-
tation that the family will not be successful relative to the outcome(s) of interest. Third,
there is a need to understand what protective mechanisms interrupt or prevent the poor
expected outcome(s) (adapted from Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). In this article, the
unique functions that families perform within an ecological context are described as the
basis for conceptualizing meaningful family-level outcomes. The discussion of risk and
protective processes that give rise to resilience in families are then presented using prior
work on family stress and coping theory to examine these processes as they unfold over
time. Finally, a brief discussion of implications for practitioners in working with families
to promote their resilience is presented.

The Family as a Social System

A family system is two or more individuals (family structure) and the patterns of rela-
tionship between them (family functioning) (Bateson, 1972; Patterson, 1999). Within the
United States, there is considerable variability in family structure, reflecting diverse fam-
ily forms (e.g., couples who are heterosexual, homosexual, married, remarried, cohabit-
ing, with or without children; separated, divorced, or always single adults with children,
etc.) as well as cultural and ethnic variability. Although often referred to as a unitary
dimension, family functioning is multidimensional, with several processes characterizing
the family unit as a whole such as cohesiveness, flexibility, affective and instrumental
communication, behavioral control, and so on. When we ask the question, “What is a
resilient family?” we are primarily interested in describing these family functioning
processes.

Functions of the Family

Families fulfill important functions for their members and for society, such as (a) family
formation and membership, (b) economic support, (c) nurturance and socialization, and
(d) protection of vulnerable members (Ooms, 1996). In Table 1, some of the ways in
which these family functions serve the needs of individual family members and society
are presented. Family functions are not the same as family functioning patterns. Rather, a
functioning pattern is a process variable and describes the way in which families fulfill
their functions.

Family-Level Outcomes. One way of conceptualizing a competent family outcome

(i.e., whether a family is resilient) is the degree to which they are able to successfully
fulfill their functions so that individual family members and other social systems benefit
(Table 1). To be a family outcome, a minimum of two family members must be involved;
that is, the outcome must represent the product of family relationship(s). Sustaining a
commitment to maintain an intact family unit by solving marital problems or parent–
child problems is an example of competence in fulfilling the membership function. An
example of problems fulfilling this function would be a teen who runs away from home
because of conflict with family rules, expectations, values, and so on.
Farm wives who sought jobs off the farm to help support their families when agri-
cultural changes threatened the demise of many family farms is an example of success-
fully meeting the economic function. Conversely, a divorced parent who fails to provide
child support often threatens the ability of a single parent to accomplish the economic
 Family Resilience 235

Table 1
Family-Level Outcomes Conceptualized in Terms of the Family’s Core Functions

Ways Each Function Provides Benefits to:

Examples of
Individual Positive and Negative
Family Function Family Members Society Family-Level Outcomes

Membership and • Provides a sense of • Controls reproductive 1 Commitment to and

family formation belonging function maintenance of family
• Provides personal and • Assures continuation of unit
social identity the species 1 Addition of children is
• Provides meaning and planned and desired
direction for life 2 Divorce
Economic • Provides for basic needs • Contributes to healthy 1 Adequate food and
support of food, shelter, and development of members clothing
clothing and other who contribute to society 1 Safe housing
resources to enhance (and who need fewer 2 Child neglect
human development public resources) 2 Homelessness
Nurturance, • Provides for the physical, • Prepares and socializes 1 Family love and mutual
education, and psychological, social, children for productive support
socialization and spiritual adult roles 1 Marital commitment
development of children • Supports adults in being and satisfaction
and adults productive members of 1 Securely attached
• Instills social values and society children
norms • Controls antisocial 2 Domestic violence
behavior and protects 2 Child abuse
society from harm
Protection of • Provides protective care • Minimizes public 1 Family care for child
vulnerable and support for young, responsibility for care of with special needs
members ill, disabled or otherwise vulnerable, dependent 2 Elder abuse
vulnerable members individuals

function. Success in fulfilling the economic function is very much linked to individual
resources (such as education) as well as to community resources in the form of employ-
ment opportunities for all racial groups and policies assuring a decent wage (such as child
care workers).
A high-quality parent–child relationship appropriate to a child’s developmental needs
is a prime example of success in fulfilling the nurturance and socialization function.
Child abuse or domestic violence would be examples of failure to accomplish this function.
A family’s ability to reorganize their roles, rules, and relational patterns to accom-
modate the special needs of a member with a chronic illness or disability would be
evidence of success in fulfilling the function of protecting vulnerable members. Abuse or
neglect of an elderly family member would be an example of failed accomplishment of
this function.

What Is Family Resilience?

Family Stress and Coping Framework
The perspective of family resilience presented in this article builds on family stress and
coping theory (McCubbin & Patterson, 1982, 1983; Patterson, 1988, 1989), just as the
236 Journal of Clinical Psychology, March 2002

understanding of child resilience emerged from studies of stress and coping in children
(Garmezy & Rutter, 1983). Specifically, family stress theory, as articulated in the Family
Adjustment and Adaptation Response (FAAR) Model, emphasizes the active processes
families engage in to balance family demands with family capabilities as these interact
with family meanings to arrive at a level of family adjustment or adaptation (Patterson,
1988, 1989, 1993) (Figure 1). Family demands are comprised of normative and nonnor-
mative stressors (discrete events of change), ongoing family strains (unresolved, insidi-
ous tensions), and daily hassles (minor disruptions of day-to-day life). Many family
demands are equivalent to risk factors. Family capabilities include tangible and psycho-
social resources (what the family has) and coping behaviors (what the family does).
Capabilities are akin to protective factors. Consistent with the recognition of risks and
opportunities in the ecological context (Garbarino, 1992), both demands and capabilities
can emerge from individual family members, the family as a unit, or from various com-

Figure 1. Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response (FAAR) Model

 Family Resilience 237

munity contexts. In the FAAR Model, three levels of family meanings are emphasized:
(a) situational meanings (a family’s primary appraisal of their demands and secondary
appraisal of their capabilities), (b) their identity as a family (how they see themselves
internally as a unit), and (c) their world view (how they see their family in relationship to
systems outside of their family) (Patterson & Garwick, 1994).
On a day-to-day basis, families engage in relatively stable patterns of interacting as
they juggle the demands they face with their existing capabilities to achieve a level of
family adjustment. However, there are times when family demands significantly exceed
their capabilities, and when this imbalance persists, families experience crisis, which is a
period of significant disequilibrium, disorganization, and disruptiveness in the family. A
crisis is very often a turning point for a family, leading to major change in their structure
and/or functioning patterns. A crisis can lead to a discontinuity in the family’s trajectory
of functioning, either in the direction of improved functioning or poorer functioning. This
turning point is similar to the developmental discontinuities noted by Rutter (1987),
Cowan, Cowan, and Schulz (1996), and others, which often are associated with resil-
ience. The processes by which families restore balance (reducing demands, increasing
capabilities, and/or changing meanings) is called regenerative power in stress theory if
the outcome is good, i.e., family bonadaptation. Of course, families also can engage in
processes leading to poor adaptation (maladaptation), which is called vulnerability (McCub-
bin & Patterson, 1983).
Consistent with the individual resilience perspective, family resilience is an ongoing,
often emergent process in families and not a stable trait. Family resilience is similar to
family regenerative power, particularly when good outcomes follow significant risk sit-
uations confronting a family.

Family Risk Exposure and Processes

An important consideration in linking family stress theory concepts with resilience and
the related concepts of risks and protective factors is whether family demands giving rise
to stress are equivalent to risks. In keeping with Rutter’s (1987) view that risk should be
examined in terms of mechanisms or processes rather than factors, per se, how might risk
mechanisms be conceptualized when the family is the unit of analysis? In this regard,
family stress theory may be helpful in bridging a divide that exists in the literature regard-
ing the nature of risk and individual resilience. The divide seems to center around how
“significant” the risk must be before a good outcome can be considered evidence of
resilience. Masten and Coatsworth (1998) articulated the view of resilience researchers
and define significant risk as emerging from (a) high-risk status by virtue of continuous,
chronic exposure to adverse social conditions such as poverty; (b) exposure to a trau-
matic event or severe adversity such as war; or (c) a combination of high-risk status and
traumatic exposure. From this perspective, everyone would not have sufficient risk expo-
sure to be considered resilient. Everyone theoretically could be competent, but only those
exposed to significant risk could be called “resilient.” A different perspective on resil-
ience suggests that anyone who functions competently should be considered resilient
(Benard, 1999; Walsh, 1998). In this view, life in general is sufficiently challenging to
create risk exposure. The notion of significant risk as a precondition for resilience is not
considered.
It is important to note that the “significant risk perspective” emerged from research-
ers who, as it happens, were studying populations at significant risk. The “life-as-risk
perspective” has been articulated primarily by practitioners whose interest has been the
238 Journal of Clinical Psychology, March 2002

encouragement of a new approach to prevention and intervention that focuses on indi-

vidual and family strengths rather than deficits. The two perspectives, however, are related.
Practitioners use the evidence produced by the significant risk researchers as the
basis for their more generic approach. Furthermore, many practitioners, working with
individuals or families, hold the belief that all clients can recover from stress and adver-
sity and be successful. Following these lines of thinking, the resilience perspective can be
viewed as a philosophy and belief system oriented towards uncovering individual and
family assets and strengths. From this author’s perspective, it seems conceptually more
useful to label the life-as-risk perspective “a family strengths approach” rather than fam-
ily resilience, per se, as a way to maintain a distinction with the more traditional signif-
icant risk exposure perspective. Building family strengths and how these protective
processes can stave off risk status as well as contribute to resilience if and when signif-
icant risk exposure occurs will be discussed later.
Turning for a moment to the significant risk perspective, one of its dilemmas is
“who” defines what constitutes significant risk. Generally, in the individual literature,
significant risk has been determined retrospectively by examining population-based neg-
ative outcomes experienced by the majority of persons exposed to any given significant
risk. However, from stress theory, we are aware that stressor events (or risks) are subjec-
tively perceived as well as being objectively defined. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) call
this subjective assessment of risk “primary appraisal;” and these subjective appraisals of
experienced risks shape coping processes, influence behavior, and ultimately affect
outcomes.
In the FAAR Model of family stress, the first level of family meanings (situational
meanings) emphasizes the family’s primary appraisal of the difficulty of the sources of
stress and secondary appraisal of the family’s capabilities to manage them (Patterson &
Garwick, 1994). It might be argued that the process of arriving at these situational mean-
ings is a critical component in understanding resilience processes because these apprais-
als are a critical link in what Rutter (1987) calls the chain of risks (risk mechanisms) or
chain of protections (protective mechanisms). The point here is that a family’s subjective
judgment about the demands they are experiencing can render them more or less vulner-
able and hence create more or less self-perceived risk. These family appraisals, and even
more importantly, their responses to perceived demands, cumulatively create a pattern or
trajectory of family adaptation, which in the FAAR Model is viewed on a continuum
from bonadaptation to maladaptation.

Family Risk Status. Maladaptation might well be viewed as a trajectory of risk status
(using the language of significant risk researchers). If a family repeatedly experienced
difficulty in managing even normative demands (defined as typical life cycle and societal
changes affecting everyone), a cumulative downward trajectory in family functioning
patterns could emerge and lead to high-risk status. Normative demands are not usually
defined as “significant” stressors; however, they could trigger additional risks, setting in
motion a risk process. For example, giving birth to an unplanned and unwanted child may
strain economic resources in the family (a core function), or it may create extensive
worry if there is a family history of genetically transmitted disease, or it may change a
couple’s career plans. Any of these appraisals about the pregnancy and impending birth
could increase mental health problems for the parents, compromise their parenting com-
petence, increase marital strain, and so on.
In addition to this perceptual factor, the likelihood of a cascade of additional risks
increases when there are insufficient capabilities (or protective factors) available. In the
FAAR Model, this imbalance between demands and capabilities is, in fact, what precip-
 Family Resilience 239

itates a crisis for the family, which could either initiate or accelerate a downward trajec-
tory in family functioning. Family maladaptation renders the family vulnerable to repeated
crises. Repeated crises with poor outcomes would probably result in the family being
classified as high-risk status. It should be emphasized that many resources families need
to fulfill their functions only become available to them by virtue of public programs and
policies that assure access to what is needed, such as affordable child care, health insur-
ance, employment opportunities, and so on. Therefore, we need to be careful about blam-
ing many families for their high-risk status when, in fact, this status may reflect significant
social inequities.

Significant Risk Exposure. When a family is exposed to an unexpected traumatic

event, this would fit the definition of “significant” risk. Clearly, there is a range of such
events from natural disasters, such as floods and tornadoes to a sudden loss of employ-
ment, to the premature death of a parent or child, or the diagnosis of chronic illness in a
child and the ongoing strains associated with managing it. These nonnormative sources
of stress have a way of pushing a family to the extremes of functioning—either their
functioning becomes much worse or much stronger. When stressors bring out greater
(than average) strengths in families, this represents the inoculation or challenge model of
resilience (Zimmerman & Arunkumar, 1994). Improved functioning or growth occurs
when a system is challenged just enough to encourage the development of new capabil-
ities, but not so much that the system is overwhelmed by the demands. Developing new
strengths or assets in response to a stressor illustrates the dynamic nature of protective
mechanisms.

Family Strengths Status. The opposite of high-risk status would be a family with a
history of successfully managing demands and/or a history of building family strengths.
Such a strong family would be positioned to show resilience if and when they were
exposed to a traumatic event that would be defined as a significant risk.
For example, in our research with families who have a child with a chronic illness or
disability, we have observed higher scores on standardized measures of child and family
functioning, which is contrary to expectations that the risk of a chronic illness would lead
to deficits in child and family functioning (Patterson, 2000). This high functioning sug-
gests that (a) some families already had the protective capacity to manage the new risk
exposure (i.e., most of the children lived in two-parent families with middle-class incomes
and higher levels of parental education), or (b) families developed the protective resources
needed to successfully respond to the risk exposure. These protective factors, whether
present before the risk exposure or developed and/or strengthened in response to the risk,
better equip a family to satisfactorily manage present and future adversity, i.e., to be
resilient.
From this systemic, process-oriented perspective, the punctuation point for defining
significant risk exposure (of the sort where recovery from it would be called resilience) is
less clear, particularly with regard to high-risk status as a necessary precondition to be
viewed as resilient. While there may be some theoretical value in belaboring the issue of
who is or is not at significant risk, from the applied perspective of a practitioner or a
policy maker, the bottom line is to facilitate family competence or adaptation. In other
words, practitioners and policy makers should concern themselves with strengthening
family capabilities to successfully manage whatever sources of stress they may encoun-
ter. A strong family may never acquire risk status, but clearly if ever they should experi-
ence a traumatic event, they will be better positioned to successfully adapt to it—to be
resilient.
240 Journal of Clinical Psychology, March 2002

On the other hand, a very hopeful and optimistic perspective for policy makers and
practitioners would be considering ways to support families in crisis who have not yet
built a repertoire of protective factors. This is not as naïve as it may seem. Applying the
definitions from the FAAR Model, families in crisis are unstable and disorganized and
often more open to interventions and programs that will facilitate their return to balanced
functioning (Patterson, 1988, 1989). In other words, crises may be the critical moments
for acquiring/developing new protective factors in a family. Hence, there is a need to
understand the nature of protective processes in families.

Family Protective Processes

The patterns of relational functioning that become established within a family, which
serve to facilitate the accomplishment of family functions and individual developmental
tasks, can be examined in terms of how well they protect the family from undesired
outcomes when exposed to risks (or demands). Many scholars and practitioners have
delineated various aspects of family functioning that can be considered healthy or opti-
mal (see Walsh, 1993, for an overview). Two central aspects of family functioning that
are included in most of these conceptualizations are the degree of family cohesiveness
and the degree of flexibility of the family system. These two related processes both
involve achieving a balance. The degree of cohesiveness represents a balance between
family separateness and connectedness, and the degree of flexibility is the balance between
change and stability (Olson, Sprenkle, & Russell, 1979).

Family Cohesiveness. Human beings have a need to experience themselves both as

separate individuals and as part of a group. Infants, with no sense of a self separate from
their birth mothers, depend on caregivers to meet their basic needs for food and protec-
tion (economic function). Development is a gradual process of differentiating self from
the other, with an increasing capacity to function as an independent being. This capacity
for physical independence, however, is coupled with a need for emotional connection.
The family is a primary social context in which this need for connection is enacted.
The desired amount of emotional connectedness varies significantly between and
within families at different ages and stages of life as well as among different cultural
groups. Among European Americans, a newly married couple usually chooses to be very
connected to each other and to separate from their families of origin as a way to establish
their own system and identity. However, other cultural or religious groups may have
different expectations. The Amish, for example, emphasize strong connectedness to the
extended family and to the community. Among African American families, intergenera-
tional connections among women often are stronger than couple bonds. Within a nuclear
family, there is variability in how close or distant members are to each other. For exam-
ple, Native Hawaiians emphasize the collective over the individual. Even their language
minimizes the use of pronouns such as “I” or “me.” Success is valued only when one is
part of a group, rarely as a form of individual achievement. In contrast, the dominant
European American culture emphasizes individualism. Our capitalist free-enterprise sys-
tem is based on competitiveness and individual success. This cultural norm is frequently
learned and carried out in the family. Adolescents, for example, are encouraged to be
separate from their parents; health and education systems often advocate for their auton-
omy. Much of the normative tension experienced at the adolescent phase of development
is about renegotiating the balance between connectedness and separateness in the family.
Overall, some degree of cohesiveness is needed to fulfill the membership function and
the nurturant function.
 Family Resilience 241

While most families try to avoid the extremes of total disengagement or total enmesh-
ment (Olson, 1993), even these extremes can be adaptive for a family if this is a shared func-
tioning preference. It is disagreement about what is desired and expected of other members
of one’s family that can lead to problems in family functioning. The underlying tension in
achieving a satisfactory balance between togetherness and apartness that is best for all of-
ten underlies the symptoms in families seeking professional help for their problems.
It is critical to note that there is no one place on the continuum from separateness to
apartness that is best. What is optimal varies by age, stage of the life cycle, religion,
culture, historical time, and so on. This variability illustrates why any given protective
mechanism must be considered in context, just as risk processes must be viewed in con-
text. Ideally, the members of a family would decide what works best for them, and a key
to this process would be their ability to develop consensus about their preferred style.
Furthermore, most families will, over time, change their preferences for the amount of
desired cohesiveness based on age, family stage, and other circumstances.
Following exposure to significant risks, many families develop or renew their sense
of cohesiveness. The metaphor of “drawing the wagons into a circle” to deal with exter-
nal threats is how families describe this. In our research on children with chronic health
conditions, families repeatedly report that increased family cohesiveness is what helps
them get through this adversity. In some instances, this quality of family relationships is
developed anew because families report they could not deal with the ongoing strains
without this closeness. There is a newfound commitment to the family as a unit that
is manifest on a day-to-day basis with greater valuing of each other. Their identity as
a family changes (second level of meaning in the FAAR model), and often takes on a
greater priority than their prior individualistic orientation.

Family Flexibility. A second central process of family functioning is achieving a

balance between change and stability. In contemporary America, there is a tendency to
place a high value on being able to change rapidly in response to new social circum-
stances. The information revolution continuously bombards families with choices and
alternatives. It is easy to lose sight of the reality that too much change can undermine the
stability of most family systems. Families need to hold on to some core sense of place and
identity, to have some continuity with their past and future, if they are to maintain their
integrity as a system.
Daily routines and rituals are one important way in which families retain some sta-
bility and a sense of who they are. Some degree of resistance to change actually may be
a sign of family health. Again, there is wide variability in how much any given family
desires or needs to change. Traditional families are more likely to hold on to values and
beliefs from their past; postmodern families, on the other hand, are more eager to create
something new that integrates current circumstances and new opportunities. Both kinds
of families can be healthy and adaptive.
The primary issue is a family’s ability to negotiate a shared set of expectations for
themselves. Professionals should be aware of these family differences whenever they are
advocating for traditional behaviors or, conversely, encouraging families to change and
adapt to new circumstances. Clinicians may be too quick to promote change. Families
with multiple problems (often considered high risk) are usually involved with multiple
helping systems in the community. There often is a tendency to be overly directive with
these families, which is based on an assumption that they are inadequate and unable to
make good choices for themselves. However, practitioners who are able to guide families
to access and develop resources while respecting the family’s integrity are more likely to
promote their resilience by facilitating the development of their sense of mastery.
242 Journal of Clinical Psychology, March 2002

Families experiencing significant risk often are propelled into crisis and experience
disruptiveness and instability. Their prior sense of stability may be undermined. Even
when new circumstances call for major changes in family processes and greater flexibil-
ity, it is important for a family not to lose sight of their core routines and rituals. In other
words, achieving a balance between accommodating new demands and retaining that
which contributes to a family’s identity is crucial in being resilient.
Again, using the example of a family whose child is diagnosed with a chronic health
condition, there very often is a need to develop new family patterns for accomplishing
routine family activities that incorporate the special needs of a chronic illness. In the case
of diabetes, for example, the timing of meals, the food served, and the amount and timing
of physical activities need to be considered. Flexibility may be needed to incorporate
these new needs while also honoring and maintaining the key routines that characterized
a family and gave them their identity before the diagnosis. Practitioners should be encour-
aged to take prior family routines into account when educating families about the new
demands of a chronic health condition. Ultimately, achieving a balance between changed
routines and prior stable routines contributes to the protective processes in any given
family.

Family Communication. The patterns of communication within a family are the facil-
itating dimension for arriving at shared expectations about cohesiveness and flexibility as
well as for accomplishing the core family functions. Two primary types of communica-
tion are affective and instrumental. Affective communication patterns are the means to
show love and support between members and are central to accomplishment of the nur-
turing function. Various words, phrases, gestures, and behaviors are used to communicate
feelings and emotions between members. Clearly, there can be wide variation in how
affect is shown, from stoicism to being highly emotive. Many families have their private,
idiosyncratic ways of showing their devotion, which contribute to their unique identity
(second level of family meanings).
Significant risk exposure can threaten families’ usual means of communicating affec-
tively. For example, a chronic health condition can lead to the suppression of negative
affect when it is viewed as threatening to an already precarious family balance (Stein-
glass, Reiss, & Howe, 1993). However, repression of negative affect over an extended
period of time can contribute to behavioral disturbances and thereby undermine other
family processes. This is a good example of how risk exposure can threaten the mainte-
nance of protective processes, which need to be guarded. On the other hand, management
of significant risk may lead a family into the development of improved communication of
their feelings as well as improved communication for getting things done.
Instrumental communication patterns refer to the ways in which families let each
other know how things will be done, e.g., role assignments, rule setting, decision making,
and conflict resolution. Communication patterns can be examined with respect to many
dimensions, such as clarity, directness, coherence, who talks to whom, how much is
verbal (vs. nonverbal), who initiates, dominates, withdraws, and so on.
There are many styles of communication that can be effective and protective for
families; conversely, poor communication skills can increase risk processes. It is impor-
tant to determine how well communication patterns help a family accomplish their func-
tions and meet individual member needs. Many couples and families who seek professional
help to improve their relationships are stuck in ineffective communication patterns. The
therapeutic process often involves helping families recognize their existing patterns and
style and helping them acquire new skills for affective and/or instrumental communica-
tion, which can then serve to strengthen other relational processes. In addition to facili-
 Family Resilience 243

tating relationship processes such as cohesiveness and flexibility, communication ability

is central to the meaning-making processes in families, which are such an important part
of protective mechanisms that contribute to resilience in families.

Family Meanings. As noted earlier, families implicitly construct meanings about (a)
specific stressful situations, (b) their identity as a family, and (c) their view of the world.
For any given stressor, families implicitly appraise its difficulty. Some circumstances
become sources of stress only by virtue of the family’s expectations, or conversely, the
family may minimize a stressor event. For example, a parental job loss may be viewed by
one family as an opportunity to develop a simpler lifestyle or a chance to relocate closer
to the family of origin. For another family, however, it may be viewed as a catastrophe,
increasing marital and parent–child conflict, alcohol abuse, depression, and so on. Each
stressful situation (or risk circumstance) also is appraised relative to the family’s capa-
bilities (secondary appraisal). Many capabilities are primarily subjective, such as the
family’s sense of mastery. When confronted with major unexpected adversity, most fam-
ilies try to understand why it happened to them (locus of cause) and what can be done
about it and by whom (locus of effect). This meaning-making process influences how
they cope.
In a study of families with a medically fragile child, some families developed posi-
tive meanings about their situation as a way to cope (Patterson & Leonard, 1994). During
interviews, many parents emphasized the positive characteristics of their child (warmth,
responsiveness, and the ability to endure pain), of their other children (empathy and
kindness), of themselves as parents (assertiveness skills in dealing with service provid-
ers), and of their family (greater closeness and commitment to each other from facing the
challenge together). Many of these families faced real limits in getting the services and
help they needed because of the severity and extent of their child’s medical needs. It was
difficult, if not impossible, to achieve a balance between the accumulation of added
strains and caretaking needs (demands) and resources to meet them. Thus, many families
coped by changing the way they thought about their circumstances. They emphasized
what they had learned and how they had grown as a family (i.e., increased family cohe-
siveness) rather than the hardships they had experienced. Through the meaning-making
process, they increased their capabilities and reduced their demands.
A family’s belief in their inherent ability to discover solutions and new resources to
manage challenges may be the cornerstone of building protective mechanisms and thereby
being resilient. It is probably most protective when this mastery orientation is shared in
the family, but it may be possible for one member with strong self-efficacy to motivate
the other family members to engage in active problem-solving efforts and, perhaps, acquire
this orientation secondary to effective problem-solving efforts.
Once again, confrontation with significant risk exposure may stimulate the develop-
ment of this orientation of mastery in a family. We have been struck with the frequency
with which parents of children with special needs report the development of advocacy
skills and a “can do” attitude on behalf of their children. Previously shy, traditional
mothers report surprise at their own assertiveness with health, education, and social sys-
tems when the needs of their children are, in any way, compromised.
The orientation of resiliency-based practitioners is to engage with families believing
that the family has the capacity to discover solutions and resources for life’s challenges.
This is at the heart of the resiliency approach to intervention. Success in coping with and
managing one situation creates the foundation for this belief to generalize to other situ-
ations and ultimately to a set of meanings about the family as a unit, or what is referred
to as the family’s identity.
244 Journal of Clinical Psychology, March 2002

Families develop a shared identity from the spoken and unspoken values and norms
that guide their relationships. Daily routines and rituals contribute to this process of
building a sense of who a family is and how they are different from other families around
them. For example, engaging in these family rituals without the influence of alcoholic
behavior has been identified as a major process protecting families from the intergener-
ational transmission of alcoholism when the adult(s) grew up with an alcoholic parent
(Steinglass, Bennet, Wolin, & Reiss, 1987).
On the other hand, routines and rituals can be disrupted when adversity strikes the
family or when the family is living in unpredictable, high-risk situations. Disruption of
family routines and rituals, which regulate day-to-day processes, threatens the develop-
ment, maturation, and stability of the family system (Steinglass et al., 1993). If the stress
or risk is chronic, the family’s valued routines and rituals may be subsumed by the prob-
lem. Health care providers, working with a family who has a child with a chronic illness
(such as cystic fibrosis, which requires daily home treatment of up to four hours a day),
can unwittingly contribute to this distortion of family process when and if they encourage
families to devote a disproportionate share of their time, energy, and other resources to
meeting the problem. When the family does not follow through with prescribed treat-
ment, they often are labeled “noncompliant” or “resistant.” It is important for clinicians
to be more cognizant of the balancing act families face when they have chronic demands
and insufficient resources. The family’s choices should be respected, recognizing that
they often are made in the context of the needs of the whole family.
A family’s world view (third level of meanings) can be instrumental in shaping
day-to-day family functioning. It often is grounded in cultural or religious beliefs. In the
aftermath of a major adversity, the family’s world view often is changed as they reflect on
the losses they have or may experience. When a world view is shattered by a stressor like
the death of a child, the family’s ability to heal, grow, and move forward often involves
reconstructing a new view of the world that allows them to make sense of such an event.
It is certainly possible for families to develop meanings, especial family identities
and world views, that are protective without ever confronting significant risk. For exam-
ple, linkages to a faith community or a cultural tradition, particularly when regular con-
tact, practices, and rituals nurture these beliefs, can build these protective processes in
families. Sometimes, it is through the vicarious experiences of others in these communal
groups that family beliefs are solidified.
The meaning-making process is a critical component of family resilience, especially
when the significant stress is due to adversity or trauma. This meaning-making process is
facilitated by group interaction within the family as well as with other families experi-
encing similar circumstances. Alcoholics Anonymous is a classic example of group pro-
cess that helps to change beliefs to “live one day at a time.” When families seek professional
help in the aftermath of a crisis, many clinicians naturally help families reframe their
circumstances in a way that guides adaptive behavior. In this way, the clinician can
facilitate protective processes and resilience.
While there are many other processes families engage in to manage stress and risk,
cohesiveness, flexibility, communication, and meaning making are illustrative of how
protective mechanisms emerge and contribute to family resilience.

Implications for Policy and Practice

A family’s ability to be resilient in the face of normative or significant risk is related not
only to their internal processes but also to the risks or opportunities in the social systems
in their ecological context. Living in poverty and in crime-ridden, violent neighborhoods
 Family Resilience 245

places families at high risk and undermines their ability to satisfactorily accomplish their
core functions. Risk processes in the family (marital conflict, child abuse, etc.) are more
likely to emerge under these social conditions. The absence of needed community resources
to support families in fulfilling their core functions further undermines family resilience.
Public programs and policies, societal norms and values, and other community institu-
tions all shape the style and degree to which families are able to fulfill their functions as
well as their ability to acquire and develop new capabilities when challenged. For exam-
ple, when schools are of poor quality and they do not educate young people and prepare
then for jobs and careers, or when institutional policies limit employment opportunities
for certain cultural, gender, or ethnic groups, many families are challenged in meeting
their economic function. When family planning information is unavailable, unwanted
pregnancies can undermine the motivation to form and maintain a family. Furthermore,
when this membership function is undermined, the economic, nurturant, and protective
functions of the family subsequently may be challenged as well. The cumulative costs of
a family’s inability to fulfill their core functions are significant.
Clinicians who maintain a resilience orientation are better able to facilitate the adap-
tive processes needed by a family to restore balance to their functioning style. Believing
in the innate abilities of families to discover new strengths and assets and to maintain
their existing ones empowers them to do so and shapes the way members relate to one
another. Recognizing their successes, small or large as they may be, is critical. Unfortu-
nately, many clinicians work in environments that require the documentation of deficits
and problems to justify the services they provide. These bureaucratic requirements are, in
many ways, a disservice to families and to primary prevention.
From a policy perspective, it would be much more cost effective to insure that there
are adequate resources in the ecological context to facilitate the development of protec-
tive processes within families that enable them to satisfactorily accomplish their core
functions. Reducing the ecological risks that undermine accomplishment of family func-
tions also is important work for public policy makers. These strategies enhance the health
of families at the population level. At the individual level, clinicians who believe in
families’ inherent capabilities to discover their strengths are in a much better position to
facilitate family resilience. Such clinical beliefs contribute to families’ acquisition of a
sense of their own mastery, which is a fundamental building block of protective mecha-
nisms leading to family resilience.

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