Contextual Axiological Conditions of Mental Resilience and Health

196 Pages·2021·5.318 MB·English

by  Krzysztof Gerc, Bogusława Piasecka

CONTEXTUAL
AXIOLOGICAL
CONDITIONS
OF MENTAL RESILIENCE AND HEALTH
Published online by Cambridge University Press
JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published online by Cambridge University Press
CONTEXTUAL
AXIOLOGICAL
CONDITIONS
OF MENTAL RESILIENCE AND HEALTH
Edited by
KRZYSZTOF GERC
BOGUSŁAWA PIASECKA
JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published online by Cambridge University Press
The publication of this volume was supported by The Institute of Applied Psychology
– Faculty of Management and Social Communication of the Jagiellonian University.
REVIEWER
dr hab. Krzysztof Mudyń, prof. Jesuit University in Kraków
COVER DESIGN
Marta Jaszczuk
© Copyright by Krzysztof Gerc, Bogusława Piasecka & Jagiellonian University Press
First edition, Kraków 2020
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Krzysztof Gerc, Bogusława Piasecka
Resilience: “Ordinary Magic,” Development of the Issues
and Current Status of Research  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Marta Krupska
Support as an Existential Phenomenon and Experience of Relationships
in a Phenomenological Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Agnieszka Franczok-Kuczmowska, Tadeusz Marian Ostrowski
Personality, Resilience, and Stress as Predictors of Mental Health
in Informal Partner Relationships  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Jean M. Novak, Krzysztof Gerc, Michael Levy
Resiliency in Parents and Family System Profiles of Autistic Children
Encompassing Social, Cultural, and Axiological Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Katarzyna Morajda, Bogusława Piasecka, Anna Bodzek,
Ireneusz Czachura, Joanna Krupa, Judyta Andrijew
Model of Working with Family in the Situation of Parental Separation:
Diagnosis, Psychoeducation, Family Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Krzysztof Gerc, Marta Jurek, Jean M. Novak
Resilience, Social Functioning and Quality of Life Considerations
as Found in the Narratives of High-Functioning Autistic Adults  . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Anna Mazur, Tomasz Saran, Jacek Łukasiewicz,
Anna Stachyra-Sokulska
Coping with the Stress of Chronic Disease and the Occurrence
of Depressive Symptoms in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Iwona Sikorska, Tomasz Krawczyk, Paulina Wróbel,
Mirella Wyra, Martyna Reder
Adolescents’ Well-Being at School in the Light of Psychology of Place  . . . . 131
Published online by Cambridge University Press
6 Table of Contents
Bogusława Piasecka
School Climate: Teachers’ Perspective. A Report from a Study
on Elementary Schools Faced with Poland’s Current Education Reform . . . . 151
Beata Bednarczuk
Montessori Learning Environment Beneficial for Awakening
of Self-authoring Features  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
About the authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Krzysztof Gerc, Bogusława Piasecka
Jagiellonian University in Krakow
Faculty of Management and Social Communication
Institute of Applied Psychology
RESILIENCE: “ORDINARY MAGIC,”
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ISSUES
AND CURRENT STATUS OF RESEARCH
Using the term ordinary, everyday magic Masten called the mechanism protect-
ing or modifying the impact of difficult, traumatic experiences on the individual.
Numerous studies on resilience in the last 30 years (Masten, Powell, 2003) allow
to organize the factors protecting against trauma, grouping them into three areas:
individual, family and environmental. Thanks to this classification, the model in the
form of a two-dimensional grid allows for systematic verification. Individual factors
interact and/or compensate, and the circular paradigm is used to understand their
influence. The beginnings of research on resilience concerned mainly the period
of childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, currently the research (Ostrowski
et al., 2018) is conducted with the participation of people in every developmental
period and various life situations. Luthar et al. (2000) distinguish emotional re-
sponses of individuals in case of risk factors, which translate into their cognitive
and behavioral functioning, which are classified as resilience. Individuals maintain
functioning much better than it might be expected or maintain good functioning
despite difficult or traumatic experiences, or return quickly to well-being. The
analysis of contemporary research (David-Ferdon et al., 2016; Vannucci et al.,
2019) allows us to assign a preventive role to the development of resilience in
children and adolescents, and the emphasis is on shaping the family and social
environment towards healthy development. The clamping of healthy development
are the features of the family and social environment, which include, among others:
healthy communication, maintaining family rituals, cultivating social contacts.
When analyzing the terminology related to the issue of mental resilience, it
should be noted that a certain group of concepts was already known in science, e.g.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
8 Krzysztof Gerc, Bogusława Piasecka
in psychopathology. It applies to such terms as: adversity, risk factor or vulnerability.
However, the concept of resilience has now been significantly enriched with a range
of new terms, among others, such as: protective factor, resource, compensatory
factor (Wright, Masten, Narayan, 2013). Due to the concept of resilience and its
increasingly common application, reflection on pathomechanisms of functioning
and a salutogenetic approach have gained new research inspirations. Resilience is
therefore a perfect example of the synthesis of knowledge about the context in which
an individual, when confronted with various types of risk factors, can strengthen
personal immune resources. Initially, researchers, in the perspective of the concepts
of resilience and ego-resiliency, dealt only with the identification of protective
factors, and later—in a different research perspective—they attempt to explain
the factors in the context of specific mechanisms of action (Fletcher, Sarkar, 2013).
Resilience is founded primarily on positive psychology and health psychology,
but the theoretical construct, which is analysed, is also present in interdisciplinary
research perspectives: medicine, pedagogy and sociology. Wright, Masten and
Narayan (2013) presented four currents of research on resilience process in de-
velopmental perspective; they featured: (1) identifying individual resilience and
factors that make a difference, (2) embedding resilience in developmental and eco-
logical systems, with a focus on processes, (3) intervening to foster resilience,
and (4) resilience research on multiple-systems levels, epigenetic processes and
neurobiological processes.
The analysis presented by the cited researchers shows that initially the focus
was on the attempt to operationalize what resilience is, taking into account the
reference to the differences between individuals in this aspect. The methodologi-
cal aspect was also taken into account and the criteria for identifying resilience
were determined, and also the attempts to research the ways of developing this
predisposition in humans were made.
The second research trend in resilience focused primarily on the process ap-
proach to this phenomenon. For the researchers, it was particularly important to
include the developmental approach and take into account the relationship between
a person and the systems to which they potentially belong and which their proper
functioning depend on. It was noticed that the effectiveness of protective factors
in different environmental contexts in relation to specific people is varied, which
indicates that depending on the circumstances or situation a specific person can be
interpreted as mentally resistant, and in others—not. It was also noticed that there
is a phenomenon of sleeper effect, describing a situation in which the negative
consequences of adverse development conditions are revealed in a postponed
manner, manifesting themselves at later development stages. The main purpose
of the analyses undertaken as a part of this research trend was to identify media-
tors and moderators between existential difficulties, sometimes referred to as
adversity, and resilience.
The third current of research on resilience focused on undertaking various
intervention activities, based among other things on knowledge acquired in
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Resilience: “Ordinary Magic,” Development of the Issues and Current Status of Research 9
previous phases of analysis, in order to promote more effectively mental resilience
of people of different ages and brought up in different sociocultural conditions.
The advanced research on the effectiveness of preventive programs, developing
resilience and theoretical analyses related to this construct, resulted in the use of
so-called gold standards. It involved initiating experiments with randomly selected
groups of people and comparing the effectiveness of different interactions. These
activities were aimed at, among others, more effective prevention of risk-taking
behavior by people (especially young people) and protection against the negative
evolution of mental health disorders in specific people. It was obtained by sup-
porting proper development and limiting the appearance of abnormal behavior.
The last stage of research on resilience aimed at in-depth identification and
characterization of resilience in many aspects. That is why in this trend the re-
searchers are very committed to understand human epigenetic and neurobiological
processes, which is possible due to the emergence and dissemination of modern
and more adequate research methods (Wright, Masten, Narayan, 2013).
In the past, there were also attempts to binary approach to resilience, i.e. to
describe its existence according to the scale of 0–1. However, this approach does
not seem practical, and it is more accurate to include resilience on a continuum—
due to various aspects of a person’s dependence (Southwick et al., 2014).
Resilience is sometimes defined in the source literature in different ways:
(1) resilience, which refers to the process related to dealing with adverse life
events, and (2) ego-resiliency, which is combined with the persistent personality
traits of resilient individuals (Ostrowski, 2014). In some circumstances, due to
differences in the manner of operationalization of resilience, the presented divi-
sion may complicate the conduct of scientific research. However, as emphasized
by Fletcher and Sarkar (2013), most operationalization refers to the concepts of
adversity and positive adaptation. Some researchers try to explain adversity as
any difficult moments, suffering, unpleasant events or negative circumstances of
everyday life that may hinder functioning. Positive adaptation, however, consists
in the effective implementation of subsequent development tasks. In order to cor-
rectly assess whether an adaptation has taken place, account should be taken of the
adversities that the individual has come across with and the socio-cultural context
in which he or she operates, and appropriate criteria should be applied to them.
Resilience as a personality trait is mostly described by the English term ego-
resiliency, meaning a person’s individual predispositions to face flexibly life’s
difficulties, adapt to many situations and successfully solve problems (Falewicz,
2016). Therefore, ego-resiliency can be interpreted as the competence to adapt
dynamically one’s behavior to constantly changing environmental conditions
(Farkas, Orosz, 2015). The cited researchers treat ego-resiliency as a meta-feature
and isolate its three constitutive components: active engagement with the world,
repertoire of problem solving strategies, integrated performance under stress
(Farkas, Orosz, 2015). Using the dimensional approach, it can be stated that the
highest score is shown by people who are very flexible in tuning to new conditions,
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