There and back again: a dynamical perspective on psychological resilience

During our lives, we are inevitably confronted with adversity and stress. These negative experiences can lead to mental disorders. Psychological resilience protects against adversity's damaging effects and helps maintain mental health. A deeper understanding of how psychological resilience works will allow us to improve its functioning in the future. By protecting ourselves against stress and adversity, we can reduce the burden of mental disorders and increase the well-being of society and individuals.

In this thesis, we focused on studying resilience dynamically, i.e., how protective factors and stressors mutually influence each other, especially in the flow of daily life. Insights into these dynamic interactions help to understand better how resilience works and assess the level of resilience. Our results show that people who recover quickly from minor daily stressors (traffic jams, spilled coffee) later have better mental health than people who are more stuck in negative emotions.

In addition, we have found that our perception of how we deal with everyday problems can predict later changes in mental health. Such insights can be used to develop and inspire new diagnostic tools and resilience-enhancing intervention and prevention strategies.