Download - Kate M Bennett
April 21, 2023 GSA 2008 1
Achieving Resilience in Later Life: Testing a Two Component Model of Resilience
Among Older Widowers
Kate M Bennett
April 21, 2023 GSA 2008 2
Resilience
• A working definition of resilience:
– A resilient widower is considered to be particularly
well adjusted to life following their loss. He would have
the following characteristics:
• Good adjustment;
• Positive view of life;
• No mention of current distress;
• Participating in life;
• Returned to life with meaning and satisfaction.
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Models of Resilience
• Deprivation Models
– Resilience as a response to abnormal stress (Rutter, 1999)
• Resilience as a steady state
– Without fluctuating levels of distress following bereavement
(and other traumatic events) (Bonanno, 2004)
– His data focused on 6 and 18 months post loss, and 46%
identified as resilient, sample of approx 203, mainly women)
• Resilience as a long-term outcome
– Initial painful awareness of loss; integrated belief and value
system; optimistic and positive personality (Moore & Stratton,
2003)
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Models of Resilience cont.
• Achievement of Resilience
– Gradual or turning point (Bennett, 2007; submitted)
• It is possible that Bonnanno’s conceptualisation of
resilience fits into Moore & Stratton’s and Bennett’s:
AlreadyResilien
t (Bonann
o)
AlreadyResilien
t (Bonann
o)
Achieving Resilience (Bennett)
Bereavement Event
Distress
Low
High
Bonanno
Bennett
Time
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Older Widowers
• Participants (From 2 independent studies):– 45 from NW England (M);– 18 from East Midlands, England (Mr.).– 9 new interviews NW England (I)
• Two Qualitative Questions:– What did you do?– How did you feel? – In new study specific discussion about resilience
• Time heals• Gradual or turning point• Self –evaluation of resilience
• Resilience– 29 demonstrated resilience
• That is not to say that the remaining widowers
were not resilient, merely that it was identifiable.• In addition, in new interviews, 2 identified
themselves as resilient, but we thought they were
not
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Components of Resilience
• Time:
– Resilience as a process:
• Facing widowhood with resilience throughout.
– Resilience as a turning point:
• An event, person, experience which changed the
widower’s life.
• Agency
– Widowers as active agents
• Doing something to change their situation
– Others as agents, widowers as passive
• Decisions taken for widowers, or being forced by others
to change
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Two Component Model of Resilience
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Two Component Model of Resilience
Mr H, Man 14
Bonanno’s Resilience: Always Resilient
• 3 men met these criteria – I8, Man 14 and Mr. H
• I8
– Had a car crash in which his wife died and he was
seriously injured. His wife and daughter had, 10 years
earlier, had another serious car crash
– He had to contend with losing his wife and learning to
walk again.
– Throughout his interview he seemed so strong and so
matter of fact.
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But it’s a case of mind over matter I think.
[Do you think it’s a gradual thing or were you able to adapt immediately?]
Em, yes I would say that I did adapt immediately, I had to. Um
I knew I wasn’t going to sit on behind all day and do nothing,
it was a case of gradually doing a bit more each day…. (I8)
Grief comes out and all that, that didn't happen for 6 weeks…
all of a sudden I just cried. And then it just stopped (his
emphasis). (Mr H)
You've got to get cracking and live your life. (Man 14)
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Resilience: Gradual and Active
• I got to, to, the fact that, that I got to get on with life and
that was it, the best I could. (Mr. D)
• It’s remarkable how it does heal ….. But part of my
character is to adjust to circumstances. I realise it was a
blessing for her and indirectly a blessing for me. (I5)
• That’s how you get through it, having friends …. I can go
out and talk to anybody … Being happy, is that a
characteristic? Funny, I have a sense of humour. (I3)
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Resilience: Gradual and Passive
• That's been the story ever since really, that… each day
has been made a bit easier by something unseen. (Mr. I)
• It was just the two lads that kept me going you know.
(M3)
• Children I had to look after them so I hadn't time to sort
of mope about really. (M11)
– Is this passive or active?
Resilience: Turning Point and Active
• And eventually you go well this won’t do. It’s like in a
sense you’ve got a big job to. (M41)
• I'll get over it in me own way … I started to go out. (Mr.
G).
• I mean to say I was very backwards doing anything, I’m
not now…. That happened two year after she died. I
joined the Labour Party … this Tuesday night, feeling a
bit down, so I thought well I’ll just go (M27)
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Resilience: Turning Point and Passive
• With being a diabetic I shouldn’t do what I did. I had this
heartache over it and I just thought, fuck it. I went straight
round to the pub… Erh, got around and, they said leave Brown
Road, and erh, I don’t know what strings were … And within an
hour she sent me down here the same… to look at this place…
that was the first time I’d gone home sober. (Mr. E)
• Well, the person there who was knowledgeable said. “there’s a
young chappie who’s quite brilliant”…...He was absolutely
brilliant. (M1)
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Resilience: Turning Point and Passive; Gradual and Active (M26)
• I did go into a bit of depression about a year later… And the old
chap says there’s only one way of getting rid of it. (…) Do some
hard work. So I said I do eight hours. Oh he said but what do you
do in the rest of your sixteen …. He said in about a month’s time
you’ll feel it going out of your hair and your fingernails which it
did.
• I've come to the conclusion rightly or wrongly that um whatever
life's - whatever you think life's dealt you unfairly you've only got
to look sideways and there's someone a damn sight worse off
than you are.
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Resilience: Active and Gradual and Turning Point (M19)
• Before I was forty you'd think by the time you were forty
you'd be dead… But when I was forty I thought oh I'm not
dead. The rest of your life is now a bonus. Enjoy it.
• One night I thought if you don't get out you're going to
climb up these walls, so I went down and joined the club.
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Resilience: Active and Turning Point – M10/I3 – The challenges of retrospection
• [Can we just move now to a year or so later.] Well that is the time I
realised that I’d got to – it’s a terrible phrase and people use
it at funerals – life goes on. So as I mentioned earlier I’m a
great music lover - the Philharmonic came back into my life
and I realised that that was good therapy for me. (M10)
• Gradually I started going out …. So I joined the
Philharmonic (I2)
• You’ve got to take the bull by the horns and you’ve really
got to work at it (I2)
• [Was there an actual turning point?] No, not a turning point (I3)
– Consistency in significant influences
•The Phil
• His character
– Gradual versus turning point
• In the first interview there is a sense of a turning point
• In the second there is more sense of gradual change,
and he himself says there was no turning point
• We would argue these are not necessarily incompatible, and
may be what counts is his current experience
• In the first interview we were not asking them to reflect on
turning points
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Discussion
• We’ve not found many men who meet Bonanno’s criteria (3)
• There are more who become resilient (38% by 2.5 years – so
similar to Bonanno’s 43%)
• Following a time course that is gradual or has a turning point
• They can be passive or active
• Outstanding question:
– Is the resilience inherent?
– is it more common than we think?
– Does it need unlocking by some external agent?
–If so, that has implications for intervention
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Discussion: Limitations
• The new schedule looks specifically at resilience but
could be better crafted
• How do we deal with the data from those men who see
themselves as resilient but we don’t think we are
– In a comparison interview with women, one woman
starts of by saying she is, but on reflection on realises
she isn’t.
• There are definitional and operational debates to be had
and to be resolved
• The data is not longitudinal
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Selected References
• Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience:
Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after
extremely aversive events? American Psychologist, 59, 20-28.
• Ferraro, K.F. Mutran, E. & Barresi, C.M. (1984). Widowhood,
health and friendship in later life. Journal of Health & Social
Behavior, 25, 245-259.
• Moore, A. J. & Stratton, D. C. (2003). Resilient Widowers: Older
Men Adjusting to a New Life. NY: Prometheus.
• Rubinstein, R. L. (1986). Singular Paths: Old Men Living Alone.
NY: Columbia University Press.
Bereavement versus Resilience
• Bonanno and Moore & Stratton and myself may be talking
about resilience in relationship to different things:
• Bonanno is talking about bereavement
– Operationalized as the objective situation or state of
having experienced the death of someone significant in
one’s life; it is considered to be a relatively short-term state,
and has primarily personal consequences and meanings.
• Moore and Stratton and myself are talking about widowhood
–refers to an ongoing, and frequently long-term state, which
has both social and personal consequences and meanings
• So the findings are not necessarily contracdictory
04/21/23
GSA 2008 2304/21/23
