ABSTRACT
The concept of resilience triggers a further exploration of personal resources for recovery in this final chapter. The key question is whether a person’s ability to ‘bounce back’ depends on innate traits. Why do many people show what Ann Masten calls ordinary magic, while others do not? Resilience is viewed here not as an innate capacity, but as a set of skills. Three of these are denial, which is helpful at certain points in the experience of illness; acceptance, which avoids both self-defeating struggles and apathy; and disobedience, which is the ability to rebel against prescribed ways of being ill or of getting better. Each can have either positive or negative effects. The skills perspective suggests that ordinary magic is made possible by reflecting about oneself and one’s situation. Clinical and literary evidence suggests that this kind of reflection has affinities with formal meditation and with the spiritual exercises of Stoic philosophers and others. Reflection may be a non-verbal process, producing alternative images of reality, so that one is not ‘held captive’ by specific pictures of illness and wellness. An overarching skill, finally, is the ability to hope.
