We all go through hardships in our lives. Some hurt, leave more or less stinging marks, sometimes scars, can transform our personality or prevent it from giving the best of itself.

For a long time, the subject was treated from the angle of " mourning ", summoning the terrible idea that something dies definitively within oneself when certain pains irremediably affect integrity. Then, the notion of " resilience " became popular in the 1990s, bringing a more positive vision of resistance to suffering and bringing the possibility of overcoming hardships in a constructive way.

But what exactly does this notion of resilience cover? What is its history ? How can we develop our own resilience capacities? What criticisms does the notion arouse? We take stock.

From physics to ecology to computer science : a metaphor for regenerative plasticity

Resilience comes from the Latin resilio which means " to return by jumping ". Resilience is therefore etymologically the ability to bounce back.

The term is first used in physics to refer to the energy absorbed by a material during its deformation. When you twist a metal or plastic plate without breaking it, you will no doubt have noticed that it gives off heat. There is indeed the production and diffusion of energy by a body subjected to brutalization.

The physical metaphor is used in computer grammar to describe the ability of a system to persist in working despite a failure : an app on your computer bugs, but this does not burn the entire machine or even prevent other features from continuing to work well. The system is resistant to its flaws, and better than that, it offers you after rebooting to recover your files and possibly repair the damage caused by the failure.

It is then in the field of environmental sciences that we find the notion of resilience : when a species is threatened, the entire ecosystem begins to go off the rails ;  But all we have to do is reintroduce and/or protect the species, for its entire environment to start regenerating again. For example, the seabed devastated by deep-sea fishing becomes resilient when the most destructive fishing methods are abandoned, and after a few years, the diversity of animal and plant species recovers.

Why do some recover better than others from painful experiences?

The notion of resilience appeared in the lexicon of psychology and personal development in the 1940s with the work of Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith, two Californian professors who study the behavior of children who have suffered traumatic experiences. They note that some are better able than others to overcome hardships and hypothesize that this variation in the ability to recover from painful experiences depends on the personal qualities of individuals (innate or acquired through socialization) and on the environment in which they evolve.

To find out, they will study a cohort of 698 Hawaiian children born in 1954 over three decades. At the end of this extensive fieldwork, they draw three main conclusions :

• As they had intuited, we are not equal when it comes to the ability to cope with a traumatic event. Individuals who have been able to develop a good level of self-esteem, autonomy and confidence, who have been trained in the " spirit of solution " (there are no problems, only solutions to be imagined !), who have social skills and a certain sense of altruism rebuild themselves faster and more robustly than those in whom such skills have not been sufficiently deployed.

• The second hypothesis is confirmed : a containing, framing and reassuring environment that is warm and respectful of everyone's words greatly promotes the reconstruction of traumatized subjects.

• But where it goes further is that those who have been able to rebuild themselves well turn out to be stronger individuals than they were before going through the ordeal.

Resilience is therefore in summary, this ability to mobilize one's own resources and those of a positive entourage that allows one to emerge stronger from a traumatic experience.

Cyrulnik's Tree of Life

The concept of resilience became ultra-popular when the neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik took it up, not by looking to the work of Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith but rather by drawing inspiration from those of the English psychoanalyst John Bowlby, one of the pioneers of attachment theories along with Winnicott and Lorenz.

Bowlby defines resilience as a " moral spring" that is deeply rooted in an individual's intimacy. This spring, acquired according to him through a mother-child relationship of close proximity ensuring a lasting sense of security, would have the power to delay (or even prevent) moments of discouragement and more generally to create individuals who do not "let themselves be defeated ".

Cyrulnik wonders about a possible resilience gene that would make some people better endowed by nature to withstand hardships. In particular, he discusses the role of serotonin (" the happiness hormone") and its neural vectors in the variability of the ability to experience hardships during and to recover afterwards.

In parallel with his scientific research on a possible biological essence of resilience, Cyrulnik popularizes the concept by making it a field of personal development. Even those who are not the best endowed by nature to repair and strengthen themselves can equip themselves with resilience skills. A breath of hope for all those who struggle with their demons of the past and find in the metaphor of the tree of life a whole optimistic philosophy: a tree with a broken branch can not only continue to grow where it is intact, but also see young shoots budding again on its amputated surface.

Wounds are inevitable in the course of an existence, but they do not abolish the impulse of life, as long as it is maintained !

How to develop resilience capacities?

For Cyrulnik, Bowlby's spiritual son, attachment is key in developing resilience skills. However, it is not limited to the parent-child relationship in early childhood: forging bonds of trust and solidarity throughout one's life increases the ability to prevent the risk of trauma as well as to repair oneself if trauma exists.

He takes the example of the soldier at war who, if he is integrated into a close-knit collective, is less exposed to post-traumatic stress disorder than if he is isolated in combat as well as on his return from the front.
Then there is acceptance.

Of the trying fact and the suffering it produces. In other words, denial is the worst enemy of resilience! Conversely, awareness is objectively good... There is no point in trying to persuade yourself that an attack you have suffered is not " very serious " if what you have felt about it is indeed painful. Grief, anger, fear are normal reflexes and knowing how to welcome them comes from emotional intelligence.

Finally, there is action :  why not make your trauma a space of empowerment ? Thus, for example, taking on responsibilities in an association for the defence of patients' rights can contribute to treating the psychological condition that has gone hand in hand with the physical suffering of the disease. We can also shift the motive for the action : not to commit to a cause that immediately echoes a painful experience, but to commit oneself to something that makes sense to oneself... An opportunity to reveal hidden skills, a great driving force to (re)gain confidence.

From the glorification of resilience to the " anti-victim"  rhetoric?

We will not dwell here on the criticisms directly addressed to the personality and work of Cyrulnik, whose media and commercial success has aroused as much admiring feedback as challenges to his legitimacy. We prefer to question the effects of a temptation to glorify resilience, which can go as far as the injunction to be well ! When it doesn't turn into a certain contempt for those who don't resilient as quickly or as well as they should.

It is the question of the consideration of the victims that is raised here.

The neologism " victim" is very ambiguous in this respect. It can describe a person who uses his or her painful past to manipulate others, seeking to attract inappropriate affection or even undeserved indulgence, and will allow himself dysfunctional behaviors by giving himself the excuse of having been traumatized himself.

For example, the bullied becomes a bully or the beaten child becomes violent in turn. But without ever falling into determinism or self-fulfilling prophecy, we must not neglect that trauma affects personality and behavior, as Werner and Smith demonstrated, and on the contrary know how to take into account with empathy the impact of the trials that someone has gone through to better interact with it.

In everyday language, " victim" has also too often become synonymous with a refusal to consider the victims : under speeches encouraging the person to get back in the saddle, not to let himself be defeated, to take his destiny into his own hands instead of wasting his time whining about his own fate, there can be an invitation not to listen to himself too much and above all to make as little noise as possible so as not to not to spoil the atmosphere !

So, it is a double punishment for the victims : suffering from what has directly affected them, they find themselves silenced and possibly depreciated for their supposed lack of courage and ability to terminate. This is an absolute contradiction to the philosophy of resilience, which precisely wants us to welcome the victim from one time to the other in oneself and in the other in order to help each other make amends.