ABSTRACT
In the early 2000s, the word went out in the UK that nurses needed to be, or learn how to be, resilient. Courses sprang up teaching it, questionnaires proliferated claiming to measure it and the consensus was that nurses, because of the occupational features of their work, were in particular need of it. The arrival of COVID-19 intensified the resilience imperative for nurses, but also exposed its limits. In this chapter, Michael Traynor reviews the way that ‘resilience’ has been promoted among and written about by nurses. The chapter looks at the development and deployment of the term by the ‘psy’ professions (psychology, psychiatry and others) and explores ‘resilience’ as an example of both reification and second-order signification. It is proposed that the promotion of resilience among the nursing workforce is a characteristic neoliberal project. The chapter closes by arguing for the benefits of engaging critically with the questions and issues that the promotion of resilience raises for nursing.
