Pojetí psychické odolnosti českými a slovenskými psychology

Abstract

The concept of human resilience is used in various contexts from every day speech to experts discourse. When used in everyday language, the concept of psychological resilience seems quite clear and understandable. In the professional psychological context, we encounter various problems and ambiguities on a theoretical, terminological and methodological level. When we take a closer look. A more thorough analysis of the concept of psychological resilience currently leads to the assumption that it is a complex, complexly structured multi-conditional phenomenon. The aim of the paper is to explore Czech and Slovak psychologists’ concept of psychological resilience. The paper presents a theoretical definition of the phenomenon of resilience, discussing its relation with health and outlining approaches to researching hardiness. The sample was randomly assembled on the basis of respondents’ willingness to participate. Responses were collected using a questionnaire completed by 348 psychologists from the academic community and other spheres in which psychology is professional practiced. The method – using a questionnaire with a small number of relatively simple questions – primarily provides information on respondents’ immediate reactions to the questions. The analyzed sample was assembled randomly on the basis of willingness to participate; it is not a representative sample. In view of the research topic, no hypotheses were generated; instead, research questions were formulated concerning the definition of psychological hardiness, its relation with health, methods used in diagnosing or researching hardiness, and the opinions of experts from the academic and research community. In view of the nature of the data collected, an analysis of descriptive data was carried out, based on absolute and relative frequencies. When defining psychological hardiness, most of the respondents used the concept of ability in the general sense (either in simple or more complex terms), or they defined hardiness as a psychological characteristic (a personality trait). They assumed a strong and significant connection between hardiness and health. This corresponds with the opinions of numerous present-day researchers. The psychologists from the academic sphere gave more detailed responses. When determining hardiness, respondents use self-devised methods or methods taken from expert sources.