Limits and Possibilities of Resilience as a Psycho-Sociological Strategic Game:

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the psycho-sociological complexity inherent in the exercise ofresilience. The concept of resilience has become so popular that it is usual in academic publications,in popular self-help publications, and in everyday conversations. This monographic issue shows thevariety of empirical studies of resilience in different fields. However, my contribution is fundamentallytheoretical insofar as it tries to analyze the limits and possibilities of the very concept of resilience. Indeed,human society is inherently ambiguous and ambivalent. This requires a capacity for flexible adaptationin which risk and uncertainty are always present. However, resilience or the ability to adapt to adversesituations is a quality that can only be adequately analyzed within the complex etiological triangle of humanbehavior. Resilience is an exercise in which biology, culture, and environment establish the framework thatenables or frustrates its success. Resilience is a relational and ambivalent dynamic process in which peopleare both passive and active subjects. Overcoming adversity means ceasing to be who we were and becomingdifferent people. Therefore, resilience calls in question the sameness approach to human beings. Thiscomplexity of resilience always requires an integrated interdisciplinary approach that accounts for humanreality. The most important conclusion is that resilience is a useful concept as long as it is sufficientlyrooted in a realistic anthropological model such as the one I will try to develop throughout the article.