It seems unlikely we shall ever resolve the forever debate about the relative influence of our genetic inheritance versus our environment. The pendulum of the debate seems to swing back and forth through the decades as new information becomes available to us. Lately, it seems, the score is even at 50/50.
But I have often wondered why we limit the discussion to environment and heredity. Isn’t there a third or X factor? I mean, heredity and environment are certainly the major influences in our lives. But are we, as individuals, no more than the sum of our genes and environment? Are we not actors in our own lives?
Our genetic inheritance does set limits. We can’t all be Bachs or Einsteins. Environmental influences, on the other hand, provide the opportunities for development within those limits, which are not as limited as we sometimes think. Now if you are a determinist who believes that your genes or your environment or, more likely, some combination of the two, not only set the boundaries but determine your life, the game is over. There is no role for you and no place for human freedom. But if you believe, as I do, that you, your choices, your efforts, can make the big difference, your role is of critical importance.
Why Are Some Children Resilient?
Which brings us to this fundamental question. Why do some who have had abusive and difficult experiences as children go through life thinking themselves victims “born to lose,” and too often end up repeating the sad histories of their biological parents? Why do others, often described as resilient children or adults, manage to use their early experiences as motivators to overcome those early traumas and go on to create productive and rewarding lives?
At age 14, just beginning my own quest for self-understanding, it was upsetting to learn that psychologists held out little or no hope for human beings with an early history of abuse and neglect such as mine. The books I borrowed from my adoptive father’s study predicted I would lack self-confidence. I would have a dead emotional center and much difficulty in intimate relations. At first I accepted what I was reading. After all, it was in blocks of authoritative black print on white pages and these men and women were professional experts. My immediate reaction was despair.
But my second reaction was to rebel. I would prove them wrong! I would not repeat the sad histories of my biological parents. I would live a productive life, find and marry a girl of my dreams. I would father and raise normal children that I would not neglect or abuse. I would succeed in my chosen profession, whatever that turned out to be. All this and more of the good things in life I eventually achieved.
I am not saying the psychologists were all wrong. I struggled to maturity, fighting battles not everyone faces, strongly believing I could overcome most of the negatives of my early life’s experiences. I did not do this alone. I had the support and love of an informed and wise adoptive mother, my own in-house therapist.
The Most Important Factors
Now I have just described two factors that make a resilient child and adult. Studies show that the resilient believe they can choose their own path. They believe they can take matters into their own hands and overcome their past. They can imagine a better future and believe they can make that better future real. They believe they can make the difference.
The second factor is a mentor or mentors. These are mature, admirable, and trusted adults. Such mentors are capable of offering love, and modeling what it is to be a fully developed human being. Most important, they believe strongly that the child they mentor can succeed. Mentors can be foster or adoptive parents, therapists, pastors, coaches, or teachers. They can come in fact from almost any walk of life. There can be more than one for no child can have too many adults interested in their welfare. What is essential is that they are capable of offering loving support, that they model what it is to be a fully developed human being, and that they believe in the child. But support and encouragement is what mentors can offer. Their efforts unaided cannot heal the child. That hard and lonely work must be done by the child himself.
The Process Described
Maya Pines, in an l984 article in “The American Educator” described the process that resilient adults had to go through to heal the emotional wounds inflicted on them as children. Her description fits my own experience.
"In solitude and separateness, they sorted out and ordered their chaotic world into some sensible whole, drawing from their chaos a lasting, sustaining inner strength.... Their sense of being different, unique and alone may have provided them with just the (right) foundation for (the) independent, intuitive thinking and autonomous behavior that they needed to protect their sanity and fend for themselves."
Pines concludes: "It is precisely the lonely task of ordering their disruptive lives and coming to terms with feelings of alienation or separateness which allowed them to develop such strong feelings of self-trust, a firm sense of who they were and of what they could --- and had to do in life.”
Other Characteristics of the Resilient
More recently Gina O’Connell Higgins in her book Resilient Adults—Overcoming a Cruel Past identified additional characteristics common to many resilient adults.
Among these are:
…A strong spiritual center though most of the resilient do not participate in institutional religions.
…The ability to support their faith in themselves and a better future imaginatively through reading and other experiences of the arts.
…Eventually, a special pride in having overcome their past, a victory that made them stronger than they would otherwise have been.
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