Thoughts and Suggestions from an Aging Psychologist.

I’ve thought a lot about the concept of resilience. The general view of how people meet stresses and challenges along the way seems a little simplistic to me. I’ve come to think that resilience in old age is different than at younger ages. The individual has had a longer time to have more experiences and create and refine the way they respond to stress and challenges.

There are also more challenges that commonly occur as we become old. These include more physical challenges, including losses of ability and losses of roles and relationships that help to support us. Some of us get through these challenges and losses better than others.

Who is the resilient older person?

I propose a three-part model that explores resilience in older age and offers a guidepost for understanding how well or poorly, how creatively and adaptively some older folks deal with inevitable vicissitudes and stresses.

To this end, I invite you to envision a three-legged stool. The legs together support resilience. All three legs must be steady and sturdy or else the stool tilts. If two of the three legs break, the stool tips all the way over. One leg portrays the ability to avoid stressors, challenges and problems that are avoidable. The second leg depicts the ability to cope with that which is not avoidable. And the third leg depicts the ability to bounce back and reequilibrate following the event.

Avoid

My previous post about The Role of Personality Traits in Resilience addressed how dominant personality traits contribute to personal resilience. Through my own life experience, and experience as a therapist, I came to appreciate that some folks learn how to avoid stressors and challenges as they moved through life. There are others whose entire life has been dramatic and chaotic. Rather than avoiding challenges and problems, they seem to do the same things over and over again to evoke the same challenges and problems.

On one end of an imaginary continuum is the very cautious person who avoids puddles and lives intentionally on solid turf only. At the other end of the continuum there are those who seek out puddles to jump into.

When we consider the myriad challenges that we encounter as we become old, they fall into three categories:

• Genetics: Things we are born with that need to be coped with maybe all our life or show up in older age. Some of us do better with the wear and tear of the aging process.
• Challenges we were aware of but could not or chose not to avoid.
• “Things that go bump in the night”: These do not reflect our heredities or volitions, but rather they are challenges that just happen, and happen most powerfully to older persons. I’m recalling the COVID pandemic, for example.

Cope

The second aspect of the three-part resilience model is coping with what cannot be avoided. This incorporates the repertoire of one’s coping techniques, and how well they fit with efforts to meet one’s needs — “the goodness of fit.” Coping refers to our protective resources that we call on in order to deal with challenge or stress. This includes our resources and responses, both internal and external.

A limited coping repertoire, or “Johnny one note,” is where the individual meets all challenges with one go-to response — anger, or inaction and awaiting rescue, as examples. Even where there is a broader coping “tool kit,” there is also the need to be able to choose which to apply to what challenge. This “goodness of fit” between the challenge and response informs how one’s need gets met, on a continuum of adaptive to maladaptive.

Our coping strategies can be active or passive, considered or impulsive. When faced with a crisis or challenge, some people look inward and take time to analyze the response options and choose a considered response. Others just respond with the same strategies. Some of us are more challenged with flexibility than others. Sometimes this means doing the same thing over and over again even if it doesn’t work.

Bounce Back

The third part of the three-part model is equilibration — the bouncing back from the stressor or hurt. Some people are able to bounce back more quickly and more fully than others at any age.

I recall a punching bag my children had when they were small. It looked like a clown and had sand in the bottom so that it stood up straight. When they punched it, it flopped to its side and quickly bounced back with every punch. Over time the sand began to leak out and, little by little, when punched the clown would bounce back ever more slowly and less completely. Ultimately it was relegated to its side, unable to become vertical at all.

In older age our sand — everything that helps us bounce back from challenge and adversity — is often reduced more than replaced.

I am thinking ahead to the New Year. I am setting an intention to come up with new ways to replace my sand.

How about you?

Contact me. I’d love to hear back from you, especially about any creative ways you’ve put this to use.

Photo by the author.