EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2016

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2016.1154035

Family resilience: a developmental systems

framework
Froma Walsha,b,c
a
School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA; bDepartment of
Psychiatry, Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA; cChicago Center
for Family Health, Chicago, IL, USA
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ABSTRACT
This article presents a brief overview of a family resilience conceptual framework,
grounded in a multi-level developmental systems orientation. A family systems
perspective broadens attention to resources for individual resilience throughout
the family network of relationships. The concept of family resilience refers to
the family as a functional system, impacted by highly stressful events and social
contexts, and in turn, facilitating the positive adaptation of all members and
strengthening the family unit. A research-informed map of key processes in
family resilience is outlined, highlighting the recursive and synergistic influences
of transactional processes within families and with their social environment. Varied
process elements may be more or less useful, depending on different adverse
situations over time, with a major crisis, trauma, or loss; disruptive transitions;
or chronic multi-stress conditions. This perspective is attuned to the diversity
of family cultures and structures, their resources and constraints, salient socio-
cultural and developmental influences, and the viability of varied pathways in
resilience.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 21 June 2015; Accepted 10 February 2016

KEYWORDS Family resilience; family processes; family adaptation

Resilience – the capacity to withstand and rebound from disruptive life chal-
lenges – has become an important concept in developmental science and in
the field of mental health over recent decades. It involves dynamic processes
fostering positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity (Masten &
Cicchetti, 2016). Beyond coping, these strengths and resources enable recovery
and positive growth from serious life challenges.

CONTACT Froma Walsh fwalsh@uchicago.edu

For Special Issue, “Resilience in Developing Systems: The Promise of Integrated Approaches for Understanding and
Facilitating Positive Adaptation to Adversity in Individuals and their Families” Edited by Anne Borge, Ann Masten, and
Frosso Monti, in European Journal of Developmental Psychology.

© 2016 Taylor & Francis

 2 F. WALSH

Relational resources in family systems

Most theory and research on psychosocial resilience to date have focused on
individual resilience. From early studies of traits in resilient individuals, attention
expanded to understand the multiple influences in the social ecology. Notably,
the positive influence of significant relationships stood out across many studies
(Walsh, 1996). Most studies of youth who thrived despite parental dysfunction
and maltreatment focused on extrafamilial resources, such as mentoring roles
played by coaches and teachers. A narrow, dyadic focus on deficient parent-child
bonds led many to assume that families contributed to risk, but not to resil-
ience. Yet, Werner’s seminal longitudinal studies (Werner & Smith, 2001) found
that despite high-risk conditions and parental deficits in childhood, the strong
investment of a grandparent or other relative could make a significant difference
for a youth’s resilience.
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A family systems orientation broadens attention from parent-child dyadic

bonds to a broad relational network, identifying potential resources for individual
resilience throughout the immediate and extended family. A resilience-oriented
family assessment (Walsh, 2016b) seeks to identify members who are – or could
become – invested in the positive development at-risk children, believe in their
potential, support their best efforts, and encourage them to make the most of
their lives. Even in troubled families, positive contributions might be made by
parents, step-parents, siblings, and other caregivers (Ungar, 2004). Grandparents
and godparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and informal kin can play a sup-
portive role.
For instance, the Chicago Center for Family Health provided a
resilience-oriented family component for a multi-level prevention program
(including individual, peer group, and community interventions) to support
the positive development of 1000 youth (age 10–14) identified at high-risk of
gang involvement. Resilience-oriented genograms (McGoldrick, Gerson, & Petry,
2008; Walsh, 2016b) were useful tools to broaden the family assessment focus
from risks and problem factors to strengths and resources in the relational net-
work, within and beyond the household. In one case, for example, the family
was initially dismissed as a negative influence because the boy’s father and older
brother were active gang members and the mother’s fulltime job constrained
her ability to monitor his activities after school. A genogram-assisted interview
revealed that the maternal uncle – who was the boy’s godfather – was formerly
a gang member and prison inmate, but since then had turned his life around
productively. He readily agreed to play an active monitoring and mentoring
role, reducing risk factors, countering the gang influence, and supporting the
boy’s investment in pursuing a positive future vision. As in this case, protective/
preventive and promotive influences in resilience are overlapping and syner-
gistic in family processes.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 3

The concept of family resilience

Beyond seeing the influence of individual family members or a parent/caregiver
for individual resilience, a systemic perspective focuses on risk and resilience in
the family as a functional unit (Walsh, 1996, 2003, 2016b). A basic premise in sys-
tems theory is that serious crises and persistent life challenges have an impact
on the whole family, and in turn, key family processes mediate adaptation (or
maladaptation) for all individual members, their relationships, and the family
unit. Major stressors or a pile-up of stresses can derail family functioning, with
ripple effects throughout the relational network. In situations of adversity, the
family approach and response are crucial for the resilience of all members, from
young children to the elderly (Walsh, 2016a, 2016b). For instance, in eldercare,
mobilizing a family caregiving team approach reduces strains on the designated
primary caregiver as it strengthens family resourcefulness to support resilience
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of the elder member (Walsh, 2012b). Key transactional processes enable the
family to rally in highly stressful times: to take proactive steps, to buffer disrup-
tions, to reduce the risk of dysfunction, and to support positive adaptation and
resourcefulness in meeting future challenges.
Family resilience can be defined as the capacity of the family, as a functional
system, to withstand and rebound from stressful life challenges – emerging
strengthened and more resourceful (1996; 2002; 2003). The concept of family
resilience extends family developmental theory and research on family stress,
coping, and adaptation (Hawley & DeHaan, 1996; Patterson, 2002). Family
resilience theory, research, and practice also build on a body of family systems
research on transactional processes in well-functioning families (for review, see
Lebow & Stroud, 2012); a resilience-oriented lens focuses on adaptive family
functioning in situations of adversity. Effective functioning and positive adap-
tation are contingent on the type, severity, and chronicity of adverse challenges
faced and on the resources, constraints, and aims of the family in its social con-
text and life passage.
Resilience entails more than managing stressful conditions, shouldering a
burden, or surviving an ordeal. It involves the potential for personal and rela-
tional transformation and positive growth that can be forged out of adversity.
Studies over recent decades find that couples and families, through suffering
and struggle, often emerge stronger, more loving, and more resourceful in meet-
ing future challenges. Although some families are more vulnerable or face more
hardships than others, a family resilience perspective is grounded in a deep
conviction in the potential of families to strengthen their resilience in overcom-
ing their challenges. Even those who have experienced severe trauma or very
troubled relationships have the potential for healing and growth over the life
course and across the generations (Walsh, 2012b, 2016a, 2016b).
 4 F. WALSH

A developmental systems perspective

The family resilience framework presented here integrates ecosystemic and devel-
opmental dimensions of experience. Akin to Falicov’s (2012) multi-dimensional
approach with immigrant families, each family is considered within a complex
ecological niche, sharing borders and common ground with other families, as
well as differing positions with the intersection of such variables as gender,
economic status, life stage, ethnicity, and location in the dominant society.
Each family’s experience of adversity will have common and unique features.
A holistic assessment includes the varied contexts and aims to understand the
constraints and possibilities in each family’s position.

Ecosystemic view
From a biopsychosocial systems orientation, risk and resilience are viewed in light
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of multiple, recursive influences. Human functioning and dysfunction involve

an interaction of individual, family, community, and larger system variables;
their interplay affects vulnerability and resilience in dealing with stressful life
experiences and chronic conditions. Genetic and neurobiological influences
may be enhanced or countered by family processes (Spotts, 2012) and by wider
sociocultural resources and constraints. Family distress may result from unsuc-
cessful attempts to deal with an overwhelming crisis situation or with cumula-
tive stresses, such as significant loss within the family or the wider impact of a
major disaster (Walsh, 2007).
From an ecological perspective, the family, peer group, community resources,
school or work settings, and other social systems can be seen as nested con-
texts for nurturing and reinforcing resilience (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Cultural
and spiritual resources also support individual and family resilience, (Kirmayer,
Dandeneau, Marshall, Phillips, & Williamson, 2011; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013;
Walsh, 2009), especially for those facing discrimination and socioeconomic bar-
riers (Boyd-Franklin & Karger, 2012). These sources of resilience, understood in
dynamic terms, are drawn upon through active family transactional processes:
engaging with their social and community networks, in mobilizing resources
and in navigating and negotiating to overcome barriers in complex environ-
ments (Ungar, 2010).

Developmental view
A developmental perspective is essential in understanding and fostering resil-
ience (Walsh, 2016a). The impact of adversity varies over time, with unfolding
conditions and in relation to individual and family life-cycle passage.

Emerging challenges and responses over time. Most major stressors are
not simply a short-term single event, but rather a complex set of changing
conditions with a past history and a future course (Rutter, 1987). For instance,
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 5

risk and resilience for children and their families with divorce involve family
processes over time from an escalation of pre-divorce tensions to separation,
legal divorce and custody agreements, reorganization of households, and
realignment of parent–child relationships (Greene, Anderson, Forgatch,
DeGarmo, & Hetherington, 2012; Walsh, 2016a). Most children and their families
undergo subsequent disruptive transitions, with financial strains, relocation,
remarriage/repartnering, and stepfamily formation. Longitudinal studies find
that children’s resilience depends largely on supportive family processes: how
both parents, and their extended families, buffer stresses as they navigate these
challenges and establish cooperative parenting networks across households
over time.
The psychosocial demands of an adverse situation, such as serious illness,
may vary over time with the evolving course of different conditions (Rolland,
2016). For instance, a medical crisis may be followed by a full recovery, with
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normal life resumed; a plateau of persisting disability (e.g., with a stroke); a roller
coaster course with remissions and recurrences (e.g., with cancer); or a deteri-
orating course (e.g., with Alzheimer’s Disease). Given this complexity, varied
strategies may be more or less useful over time depending on their fit with the
demands of their situation.
In assessment, it is important to explore how families approached their
adverse situation, their immediate response, and long-term strategies. Some
initial responses may be functional in the short term but rigidify and become
dysfunctional over time. For instance, with a father’s heart attack, a family must
rapidly mobilize resources and pull together to meet the crisis, but continuing
to hover over the father after his recovery may become maladaptive; families
need to shift gears to attend to other priorities and other members’ needs.
Family resilience thus involves varied adaptational pathways extending over
time, from a threatening event on the horizon through disruptive transitions,
and subsequent shockwaves in the immediate aftermath and beyond.

Cumulative stressors. Some families do well with a short-term crisis but buckle
under the cumulative strains of multiple, persistent challenges, as with chronic
illness or disability, conditions of poverty, or ongoing, complex trauma in war and
conflict zones. A pile-up of internal and external stressors can overwhelm the
family, heightening vulnerability and risk for subsequent problems (Patterson,
2002). In a cascade effect, the closing of a factory and job loss for low-skilled
wage-earners brings loss of essential family income; prolonged unemployment
sparks relational stress and conflict, and heightens risks for disruptive relocation,
family breakup, or even homelessness (Walsh, 2013, 2016b). An effort to
strengthen family resilience realigns functional roles, reduces relational tensions,
 6 F. WALSH

mobilizes extended kin, social, and financial resources, and increases support
for the displaced worker’s re-employment efforts.

Multi-generational family life-cycle. Human functioning is assessed in the

context of the family system as it moves forward over the life course and across
the generations (McGoldrick, Carter, & Garcia-Preto, 2016). No single family
model or life trajectory of sequential stages should be regarded as the norm,
or standard, as family cultures and structures are becoming increasingly diverse,
complex, and fluid over an extended life course (Walsh, 2012c, 2016a, 2016b).
Amid global social, economic, political, and climate disruptions, families are
also navigating unprecedented challenges and dealing with many uncertainties
about their future. Abundant research finds that children and families can thrive
in varied family structures that are stable, nurturing, and protective. Yet, adults,
their children, and aging elders are increasingly likely to move in and out of
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varied households and family configurations over time, requiring resilience to

meet adaptational challenges with each transition.
Across the family life cycle, a family resilience framework focuses on adapta-
tion with critical events and major transitions. This includes unexpected compli-
cations with predictable, normative transitions, such as the birth of a child with
disabilities, and with highly disruptive events, such as the untimely death of a
childrearing parent. The timing of symptoms in a family member is often con-
current with highly stressful family transitions (Walsh, 2016a). Frequently, child
emotional or behavior problems coincide with anxiety-provoking disruptions,
such as parental separation, incarceration, or military deployment, which also
involve family boundary shifts and role redefinition. The impact for children is
likely to vary with salient issues at different developmental phases.
Through a systemic lens, losses for a family can be seen as multi-faceted
(Walsh, 2007), involving not only particular persons and relationships, but also
crucial role functioning (e.g., breadwinner or caregiver), financial security with
job loss, loss of homes and communities with a major disaster, and loss of future
hopes and dreams, especially with the death of a child (which upends norma-
tive generational expectations). In our experience (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2013),
crucial family processes facilitate immediate and longterm adaptation to loss for
families and their members, through shared acknowledgment, meaning-mak-
ing, and grief through open communication and helpful rituals; family reorgan-
ization and relational realignment; and reinvestment in relationships and life
pursuits, while sustaining continuing bonds with lost loved ones.
The convergence of developmental and multigenerational strains increases
the risk for complications when facing adversity (McGoldrick et al., 2016; Walsh,
2016a, 2016b). Distress is heightened when current stressors reactivate painful
memories and emotions from past family experiences, especially those involv-
ing trauma and loss (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2013). Family members may lose
perspective, conflating immediate and past situations, becoming overwhelmed,
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 7

Table 1. Key processes in family resilience.

Belief systems
1. Making meaning of adversity
• Relational view of resilience
• Normalize, contextualize distress
• Sense of coherence: view crisis as meaningful, comprehensible, manageable challenge
• Facilitative appraisal: explanatory attributions; future expectations
2. Positive outlook
• Hope, optimistic bias; confidence in overcoming challenges
• Encouragement; affirm strengths, focus on potential
• Active initiative and perseverance (can-do spirit)
• Master the possible; accept what can’t be changed; tolerate uncertainty
3. Transcendence and spirituality
• Larger values, purpose
• Spirituality: faith, contemplative practices, community; connection with nature
• Inspiration: envision possibilities, aspirations; creative expression; social action
• Transformation: learning, change, and positive growth from adversity
Organizational processes
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4. Flexibility
• Rebound, adaptive change to meet new challenges
• Reorganize, restabilize: continuity, dependability, predictability
• Strong authoritative leadership: nurture, guide, protect
• Varied family forms: cooperative parenting/caregiving teams
• Couple/coparent relationship: mutual respect; equal partners
5. Connectedness
• Mutual support, teamwork, and commitment
• Respect individual needs, differences
• Seek reconnection and repair grievances
6. Mobilize social and economic resources
• Recruit extended kin, social, and community supports; models and mentors
• Build financial security; navigate stressful work/family challenges
• Transactions with larger systems: access institutional, structural supports
Communication/problem-solving processes
7. Clarity
• Clear, consistent messages, information
• Clarify ambiguous situation; truth seeking
8. Open emotional sharing
• Painful feelings: (sadness, suffering, anger, fear, disappointment, remorse)
• Positive interactions: (love, appreciation, gratitude. humor, fun, respite)
9. Collaborative problem solving
• Creative brainstorming; resourcefulness
• Share decision-making; repair conflicts; negotiation, fairness
• Focusing on goals; concrete steps; build on success; learn from setbacks
• Proactive stance: preparedness, planning, prevention

or cutting off from painful feelings and connections. Experiences of past adver-
sity influence expectations: Catastrophic fears can heighten risk of dysfunction,
whereas multigenerational models and stories of resilience can inspire positive
adaptation.

Mapping key processes in family resilience

Systems-oriented family process research over recent decades has provided
empirical grounding for assessment of effective couple and family functioning
 8 F. WALSH

(Lebow & Stroud, 2012). However, family instruments and typologies tend to
be static and acontextual, offering a snapshot of interaction patterns but often
not considering a family’s stressors, resources, and challenges over time or in
social and developmental contexts.
A family resilience framework, by definition, focuses on strengths under
stress, in response to crisis or with prolonged adversity. Second, it is assumed
that no single model of healthy functioning fits all families or their situations.
Functioning is assessed in context: relative to each family’s values, structural and
relational resources, and life challenges. Third, processes for optimal functioning
and the well-being of members may vary over time as challenges emerge and
families evolve.
Based on a meta-analysis of the research literature on resilience and family
functioning, including my own clinical studies, I identified nine key transactional
processes that facilitate family resilience (Walsh, 2003) and organized them in
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three domains (dimensions) of family functioning. (See Table 1; for a descrip-

tion of key processes and subcomponents, see Walsh, 2012a, 2016b for greater
detail). This framework was initially developed to serve as a flexible map to guide
inquiry in practice and research with families facing adversity.
These core transactional processes in family resilience are mutually inter-
active and synergistic, both within and across domains. For example, shared
meaning making facilitates communication clarity, emotional sharing, and
problem-solving; and, reciprocally, effective communication processes facili-
tate shared meaning-making. A counterbalance of process components is also
needed, as in fluid shifts between stability and change in the organizational
flexibility required for adaptation to emerging challenges. These key family pro-
cesses and overall effective functioning in family systems tend to strengthen
resilience in children in dealing with adversity, as described in depth in other
publications (see Chapters 3–5 in Walsh, 2016b).
Thus, this is not a typology of traits of a “resilient family.” Rather these are
mutually interactive dynamic processes involving strengths and resources that
family members can mobilize within their family system and in transaction
with their social environment. Core processes may be expressed in varied ways,
related to cultural norms and family preferences, and they may be more (or less)
relevant and useful in different situations of adversity and evolving challenges
over time. Families forge varying pathways in resilience depending on their
resources, challenges, values, and aims.

Broad range of practice applications

A family resilience orientation is applied usefully with a wide range of crisis sit-
uations, disruptive transitions, and multi-stress conditions in community-based
services (Walsh, 2013, 2016b). A family-centered systems assessment may lead
to individual, family, and/or group work with youth, parents, and significant
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 9

extended family members. Putting an ecological view into practice, interven-

tions may involve collaboration with school, workplace, social service, justice,
or health care systems. By targeting interventions and prevention programs to
strengthen key processes for resilience, families also become more resourceful in
meeting future challenges. Resilience-oriented services foster family empower-
ment as they bring forth shared hope, develop new and renewed competencies,
and strengthen family bonds.

Advances and challenges in family resilience research

This past decade has seen a burgeoning interest internationally in family resil-
ience research, addressing situations ranging from the death of a child or parent,
divorce, foster care/reunification, chronic illness in the family, to widespread
conditions of poverty, military combat-related trauma, major disasters, and
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populations in war-torn regions and refugee resettlement (see Walsh, 2016b).

Few studies to date have examined the evolving challenges and processes
over time in family resilience (e.g., Conger & Conger, 2002; Lietz, 2013). More
mixed-methods research and multi-level longitudinal studies are needed to
advance our knowledge (Card & Barnett, 2015; Masten & Monn, 2015; Walsh,
2016b).
Assessment of family resilience poses many challenges, given the inherent
flexibility of the construct of resilience, contingent on variables in different
adverse situations and in social and developmental contexts. The diversity and
complexity of family households and significant kinship bonds require clear yet
flexible and inclusive definitions of “the family” under study. In reports (individ-
ual perspectives) of family functioning, the role of respondents (e.g., mother,
step-father, child, grandparent) in family life should be clarified. Researchers,
both qualitative and quantitative, bring their own subjectivity and assumptive
maps into every evaluation, embedded in cultural norms, professional orienta-
tions, and personal experience (Walsh, 2012c).
Just as resilient families must overcome multi-stress challenges in complex
situations, researchers need to practice resilience in mastering the daunting
conceptual and methodological challenges in order to advance a multi-level
developmental systems understanding of human resilience (Luthar & Brown,
2007). Although it is not feasible to directly assess or control all variables, it is
advisable to focus on those most relevant to the type of adversity, target pop-
ulation, social and temporal contexts, and study aims. A systemic lens keeps us
mindful of the broad and interdependent influences across and within system
levels. Like families, research efforts are strengthened by a team approach, inte-
grating multiple perspectives and with flexibility to adapt study methods and
measures to fit the diverse experience of families in their social world.
 10 F. WALSH
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Figure 1. Multilevel recursive processes in resilience.

Towards an integrated multilevel systems perspective on resilience

This paper has focused on the family system level of analysis, grounded in eco-
systemic and developmental perspectives, Figure 1 depicts the dynamic, recur-
sive processes in resilience operating both within and across system levels in
the context of stress and over time.
The key processes in family resilience identified in the framework summarized
in this paper were culled from three decades of research on both individual
and family levels of resilience and major research on effective family function-
ing. My aim was to organize core process elements as a useful map for family
systems practice and research, from the myriad findings from diverse studies,
focused on varied situations of adversity, populations, and sociocultural and
developmental contexts.
There is growing interest in organizational, community, and ecological resil-
ience, noting the importance of many of these process elements at a larger
systems level and the recursive influences with individuals and their families
(Walsh, 2007, 2016b). Greater efforts are needed to integrate levels of resilience,
beyond the scope of this paper, following the excellent recommendations by
Masten and Monn (2015) for integrating child and family resilience.
In their introduction to a recent Family Relations Special Issue on Family
Resilience, Criss, Henry, Harrist, and Larzelere (2015) have called for more inter-
disciplinary and innovative approaches to our understanding of child and family
resilience. Yet, to date, studies tend to be scattered through diverse literatures
and remain largely fragmented in focus, identifying a few significant variables,
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 11

in particular situations and contexts, much like the proverbial blind man and
the elephant. I strongly encourage more collaborative efforts of scholars across
disciplines, linking research and practice, in our shared endeavor to develop a
more integrative, wholistic understanding of the dynamic multilevel processes
in human resilience.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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