Realism and resilience: the usefulness of adopting an Existential outlook

What is it about?

The form of sense making referred to as cognitive reappraisal has been shown to support resilience. Our study however, goes beyond replacing negative thoughts with more positive ones and investigates how some people are able to make sense of life events that are so significant they have the potential to cast a permanently negative shadow over the way a person feels and thinks about their life as a whole.Previous research has identified the supportive role that a religious or spiritual outlook can play, but we focus on whether and how the non-religious outlook of Existentialism could support resilience.

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Why is it important?

Three key findings are highlighted as helpful Existential strategies: paying attention to what the totality of our moments adds up to; taking actions to redress wrongs now rather than hoping for justice to be delivered in an afterlife; and constructing personal identities that are informed by authentic temporalizing.