Hidden Resources: The Messy Way to Resilience

Abstract

All individuals have similar psychological needs like experiencing self-efficacy, pleasure, or attachment (Epstein, 1993; Grawe, 2006). The way to get those needs met, however, is sometimes messy, especially when vulnerability is high. While the concept of hidden resilience has been introduced two decades ago (Ungar, 2002), hidden resources or more precisely hidden affordances of resources within hidden resilience seem to be rather unexplored. Conceptualising hidden resources allows to extent and strengthen the social ecological perspective of resilience, wherein factors and processes of resilience are conceived as contextually dependent. Hidden affordances (Gaver, 1991; Gibson, 1979) of resources can be understood as the nonconventional behavioural patterns used on the path facilitating (hidden) resilience, hence, a resource is equipped with different qualities that are compatible with and relevant for the individual’s psychological needs. Vulnerable children might be securing resources, helping them to stay healthy, by being angry, even aggressive. Various studies (Kassis et al., 2018; Sroufe et al., 2010; Ungar, 2002; Ungar et al., 2013) are in line with a view, indicating that resilience processes are rarely linear or ideal, in the sense that only the pure self-beneficial or socially accepted resources are navigated to. By acknowledging messy resilience processes, we sharpen the view towards hidden resilience and hidden (affordances of) resources which allows us to take off our conventionally tinted resilience-glasses and recognize various resilient ways of life. The conclusion opens the field of vision regarding successful adaptation to adverse situations and provides added value for educational sciences and therapeutic areas.