Beyond Resilience: Transforming Disaster by Transforming

Our Selves and Our Systems

Dr Theresia Citraningtyas

(Citra)

Resilience

Most recent definition:

Responding to perturbations by changing, within limits, while retaining essential functions, structures and “identity”Steven Cork, p.4

Responding? From defensive to initiative: Resilience as the capacity to respond

Changing in order to retain? Becoming more of who we areEssential functions, structures, and “identity”? Who we are at

our core

Focusing on our core, on being

Identity Essential course of action Essential bonds/relationships Connection with the bigger picture

Andre Rochais, 1968 (PRH International, 1997)

Centred and aligned

Individuals Families, teams Organisations

larger systems

Identity IdentityEssential course of action Essential course of actionEssential bonds Essential bondsConnection with bigger picture Connection with bigger picture

Are we helping individuals, families, and communities be more centred and aligned with what is essential for them?

Depersonalisation: Work vs. life? Formal systems made up of professional roles, job

descriptions, mandates and hierarchies rather than people People may feel subjected to or limited by the system

rather than being part of or supported, particularly in the face of the unexpected

Transformative power of adversity

Disaster as 'life changing’ Changes can be simultaneously negative and positive (e.g.

Aldwin 1994; Kessler et al. 2006) Disaster NOT a positive experience, but highlights:• Adaptive responses to disaster (Mawson, 2005)• Strength to overcome difficulties most profound in difficult

circumstances (Ryff & Singer, 2003)• Capacity to draw out positive from difficulties (Tennen & Affleck,

2005)• Capacity make positive events happen (Lazarus, 2000)• Posttraumatic Growth (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2004)

Transformed by adversity

Greater appreciation for what we have Reminder of true priorities help to reorient life goals

accordingly: return to core, alignment of doing with being Greater awareness of the bigger picture - realisation that

we are subject to greater forces/part of something greater than ourselves

More realistic sense of mastery and limitation Capacity to accept , prepare for and face subsequent

adversities Awaken potentials that we never knew existed

True resilience: capacity to transform

Systems controlled by people, not people controlled by systems

Power throughout the system Sharing and negotiation of authority Sense of autonomy Permission and capacity to make quick, crucial decisions

and take actions otherwise institutionalised/ delegated Courage and accountability

Transforming our systems

Identifying and strengthening the essential/our core Communication and alignment at the core between the

different levels of the system Action as actualisation/manifestation of the core Strengthening essential bonds/relationships Fitting the system with the bigger picture

References

Aldwin CM (1994) Stress, Coping, and Development. The Guilford Press. New York.Calhoun LG and Tedeschi RG (2004) The Foundations of Posttraumatic Growth: New

Considerations. Psychological Inquiry 15, 93–102.Camilleri P, Healy C, Macdonald E, Nicholls S, Sykes J, Winkworth G, and Woodward M

(2007) 'Recovering from the 2003 Canberra bushfire: A work in progress'. Australian Catholic University, Canberra.

Kessler RC, Galea S, Jones RT, and Parker HA (2006) Mental illness and suicidality after Hurricane Katrina. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 84, 930–939.

Lazarus RS. (2000). Toward Better Research on Stress and Coping. American Psychologist, 55(6), 665-673.

Mawson AR. (2005) Understanding mass panic and other collective responses to threat and disaster. Psychiatry 68, 95–113.

PRH International. (1997) Persons and their growth: The anthropological and psychological foundations of PRH Education. Personnalité et Relations Humaines International, Poitiers, France.

References

Ryff CD & Singer B. (2003). Flourishing Under Fire: Resilience as a Prototype of Challenged Thriving. In J. Haidt & C. L. M. Keys (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive Psychology and the Life Well-Lived. American Psychological Association. Washington, D.C.

Tennen H, & Affleck G. (2005). Benefit-Finding and Benefit-Reminding. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of Positive Psychology. Oxford University Press, New York.

Tedeschi RG, Park CL and Calhoun LG (1998) Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual issues. In Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis. (Eds RG Tedeschi, CL Park and LG Calhoun) pp. 1–23. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc, New Jersey.

Walker B, Carpenter S, Anderies J, Abel N, Cumming GS, Janssen M, Lebel L, Norberg J, Peterson GD and Pritchard R (2002) Resilience management in social–ecological systems: a working hypothesis for a participatory approach Conservation Ecology 6, 14 [online] <http://wwwconsecolorg/vol6/iss1/art14/>.

Presentation related to

Citraningtyas T (2010). Beyond resilience in the face of disaster – transforming adversity by transforming ourselves and our systems. In Cork S & Reeder L, ed. Resilience and Transformation: Preparing Australia for Uncertain Futures. CSIRO Publishing, Canberra.

With reference to:Cork S. (2010) Introduction and synthesis of key themes. Cork, S.

& Reeder L, ed. Resilience and transformation: Preparing Australia for uncertain futures. CSIRO Publishing, Canberra.