CH 3 Belief Systems:

The Heart and Soul of Reslience

Walsh
  Are at the heart of family functioning and powerful forces in
resilience
 Cope with crisis and prolonged adversity by making meaning
of our experiences:
 - link to our social world
 - to our cultural and spiritual beliefs
Belief Systems  - to hopes and dreams for the future

 How families view their problems and their options can make
all the difference between:
 coping and mastery OR
 dysfunction and despair
  Beliefs are they lenses through which we view the world as we
move through life
 -influencing what we see or do not see
Belief Systems  -how we understand our perceptions

 “Perception is reality”
  Encompass:
 Values
 Convictions
 Attitudes
 Biases
Belief Systems  Assumptions
 May trigger emotional responses that can inform decisions and
guide actions
 Beliefs and actions are intertwined – our actions and their
consequences can reinforce or alter our beliefs
  Beliefs are socially constructed
 Continuous process through interactions with others
Shared Belief  Family belief systems organize experience, enable one to make

Systems sense of crisis situations

 In well-functioning families, members share a congruent set of
beliefs while having an openness to differing viewpoints
  Shared beliefs shape family norms
 Expressed in predictable ways with rules that organize
interactions and guide family life
Family Norms  Rules are both explicit and implicit – expectations, roles,
and actions, consequences

Identity  Help to maintain a sense of continuity through disruptions

 Link past, present, and future through shared traditions and
expectations
  Meaning-making happens through the narratives (stories) we
construct to help us make sense of our world and our position
Constructing in it!

Belief Systems:  Storytelling allows for the transmission of cultural and family
beliefs that guide personal expectations and actions
Storytelling  Helps convey personal mores, family values and adaptive
strategies for mastering life’s challenge
  Sharing stories helps us to know our personal and collective
history and ourselves
Constructing  Build coherent identities
Belief Systems:  Make sense of larger social context and our place in it
Storytelling  Make meaning of adversity, a positive outlook and rise above
adversity
 Making  How families make sense of a crisis situation and finding

Meaning of meaning is crucial for resilience

 Making meaning to difficult situations makes it easier to cope
Adversity
  Strong families value kinship and pride in family identity

Relational View  Trust is essential

of Resilience  Confidence in one another’s basic goodwill is essential to

achieve closeness and collaboration; comfort in relating
  Families gain perspective when they can view the problem in
Normalizing and context

Contextualizing  Foster resilience by normalizing and contextualizing distress

Adverse  Allows family members to grow their understanding to see

their reactions and difficulties as understandable in light of the
Experience adverse situation
  Defined as a global orientation to life as:
 -comprehensible
 -manageable
Sense of  -meaningful

Coherence  A strong sense of coherence increases confidence to understand

and make sense of an adverse situation
 Positive contributions to health, mental well-being, quality of
life
  One’s appraisal of stressful events and the resources needed to
deal with them influence our response
Appraisal of  Stressful life events are more distressing when one feels little
Adverse control over them

Situation  Highly resilient people do reach out for help when needed –
family, social, religious support systems
  Make sense of what happened – a cause of or an explanation
for the adverse event

Causal and  High-functioning families tend to view problems as resulting

from many contributing variables rather than one cause
Explanatory  Poorly functioning families more often use one rigid
Beliefs explanation, a belief of a single cause
 How a family defines and frames a problem will influence how
they deal with it
  Self-defeating cognitive distortions:
 (1) minimizing or underestimating strengths
Future Expectations  (2) magnifying or exaggerating the seriousness of each problem
and or mistake
Catastrophic  (3) catastrophizing or expecting the worst
Fears
 Each of these can be a contributing factor to depression
  A positive outlook is vitally important for resilience
Positive  Hope and optimism
Outlook in  Focus on strengths and potential
Overcoming  Initiative and perseverance

Adversity  “mastering the art of the possible”

  Sustaining hope in the face of hardship
Hope:  Hope is future-oriented belief; ability to envision the possibility

“Oxygen for the of a better future

 Reasonable hope – the messiness and uncertainties of a
Spirit” situation without losing hope
  High-functioning families tend to hold a more optimistic view
Optimistic of life

Orientation  Positive illusions sustain hope, allow one to carry on their best
efforts to overcome the odds
  In resilient families, members encourage each other’s
Shared confidence through an ordeal

Confidence in  A shared ”can-do” spirit

Overcoming  Search for solutions to fuel optimism and gain active

participation in the problem-solving process
Challenges  Relationships build resilience to sustain individual efforts
Active Initiative  For resilience, a positive outlook must be acted up (initiative)
rather than passive waiting for things to work out
and  Perseverance – the ability to “struggle well” and persist in the
Perseverance face of overwhelming adversity – a core element in resilience
  Resilient adults report that they had overcome childhood
adversity by mastering what they could control and accepting
Mastering the what they could not control

“Art of the  Serenity Pray notion

 May not be able to control the outcome of events, but can
Possible” make choices and meaningful ways to actively participate in
the process of dealing with the events that are heppening
  Moral and spiritual values are one of the main factors that
strengthen families

Values and  Spirituality – different than organized religion

Purpose: A  -internalized beliefs that bring a sense of meaning, wholeness,

and connection with others
Moral Compass
 Spirituality  Neurobiological evidence demonstrates that strong faith and
contemplative practices (prayer, meditation) promotes health,
Resource for healing, stress reduction, improves immune and cardiovascular

Resilience systems
  Suffering and struggle can open ones heart to greater
compassion for the plight of others on behalf of those
endangered
Compassionate  Giving love when one is facing adversity oneself is an act of
Outreach power that redefines their situation and creates new meaning(s)
 Resilient families often desire to give back to their
communities to prevent or alleviate similar suffering