Building resilience after trauma
As a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I cannot speak about trauma without speaking about resilience. Wherever there has been trauma, there has also been resilience — in some form, even if it is not immediately visible. My understanding of resilience has been shaped not only by research, but also by years of training in trauma work, including Somatic Experiencing®Int, Neuro Affective Relational Model, Bodynamic International and others.
In this article, I explore what building resilience after trauma truly means as a neurobiological, relational, and deeply human process.
I believe resilience is, on the one hand, something that already exists within us (otherwise we would not be here). And at the same time, it is something that can be cultivated gradually, at each person’s pace, with support.
I also believe something essential: those who began life with little protection and significant early stress do not “see” their resilience as easily. They often live in a chronic state of nervous system overload. Not because they don’t want to or are unmotivated, but because they have carried too much for too long, alone.
That is why I felt the need to go into detail — to speak about resilience not as a slogan, not as “motivation,” but as a real and complex phenomenon with biological, psychological, relational, and communal implications. So that we can see more clearly how we grow — even post-traumatically — after losing so much.
I often notice that in spaces where we work with the nervous system, adverse experiences, stress, and trauma — whether in therapy or in dialogues about recovering and healing — we focus heavily on the painful story, the wound, the cause, the “why does it hurt.” I believe we need to pause more often (truly pause) and ask: And yet… what has supported you until now? How did you manage to arrive here today, despite everything you’ve lived through?
Beyond “Bouncing Back”
Resilience is often understood as “bouncing back” after stress or trauma. Many people imagine that resilient individuals are unchanged before and after hardship — “I want to be like I was before.”
But if we reduce resilience to returning to a previous state, we lose much of what difficulty, pain, and suffering can bring. The reality is that we cannot go back in time. There is no return. There is only moving through. To be resilient does not mean rewinding. What happens to us becomes part of us.
Resilient people do not “go back” after difficult experiences; they integrate those experiences in healthy ways and move forward — they bounce forward. Real life stories show that even after devastating events, people can rediscover joy, rebuild trust, and experience post-traumatic growth. Grief does not follow tidy timelines, and adversity is not distributed equally. Yet growth remains possible.
No one escapes pain, fear, or suffering. And yet, from pain can emerge wisdom; from fear, courage; from suffering, strength or renewed trust. This is the core of resilience: a learnable capacity to adapt, to move through trials, and to grow from them — deepening meaning, connection, and wellbeing.
Not Everyone Starts from the Same Place
It is important to recognize that we do not all begin from the same starting point. Some of us move through stress, loss, and disappointment within “good enough” relational contexts and can access flexibility and meaning more readily.
Others, exposed to repeated, early, relational trauma, struggle in adulthood with emotional regulation, identity formation, and relationships. This is the territory of complex trauma (C-PTSD): prolonged exposure — often within dependency relationships — to violence, abuse, neglect, or coercive control, leading to persistent emotional dysregulation, toxic shame, and relational difficulties. It is unrealistic to expect everyone to build resilience at the same pace. For many people with severe trauma histories, the process is slower, more fragile, and deeply dependent on relational and community support.
Can Resilience Be Cultivated?
Research in neuroscience and psychotraumatology converges on a clear message: resilience can be cultivated throughout life. The adult brain remains plastic — capable of forming new neurons, creating and reshaping circuits in response to experience. This is the engine behind resilient capacity: regulating the nervous system, shifting perspective, choosing wise actions, and persevering under stress.This is not abstract theory. It is the biological reality of how focused, intentional practice creates new patterns, and how repetition consolidates them.
Authors who write about the brain and neuroplasticity often describe four complementary processes of brain change:
- Conditioning. Automatic patterns that have already taken root. This is our existing infrastructure — neural networks formed through repetition and association. “What fires together wires together.” The first step is awareness: becoming conscious of habits, patterns, and automatic responses so that we can move toward change.
- New Conditioning. Deliberately practicing new responses. Here we build alternative pathways. The key is not intensity but spacing. The brain learns better through “little and often” rather than “a lot and rarely.” New conditioning does not erase old conditioning. Under stress or fatigue, the brain defaults to what it knows. With sufficient repetition, however, we create a point of choice in the brain’s functioning. And through the next process — reconditioning — even old circuits can be updated.
- Reconditioning. Updating painful networks by juxtaposing them with positive, safe, resilience-based experiences. The technical term is memory deconsolidation and reconsolidation. In recent years, brain imaging has allowed researchers to observe this process in real time. Yet trauma therapy has been working with this principle for decades. When a memory or emotional association is reactivated in conditions of safety and paired with powerful contradictory information, it can be rewritten — not merely inhibited. This does not change what originally happened. It cannot. But it changes your relationship to what happened.It does not rewrite history; it rewrites the brain. You do not forget the memory. But it no longer carries the same charge or power to derail you.
- Deconditioning. Allowing the brain’s default mode network (DMN) to recombine ideas and generate insight. During states of “active rest” — sitting on a park bench, gazing out a window — the default mode network collaborates with executive control networks in creative recombination. This is where insight emerges. The DMN is directly involved in creativity and adaptive flexibility. For emotional processing and consolidation, rest and quality sleep are essential. Together, these processes explain how resilient habits are installed and outdated ones are revised.
Implicit (unconscious) memories do not have expiration dates. When triggered, they can feel as real now as they did then. Without awareness, we may react as if the past is happening in the present. Through body-based work, these implicit memories can be addressed and gradually neutralized within safe conditions.
New conditioning creates new neural circuits — more skillful, more resilient patterns of response. These circuits run alongside older ones, offering us more options when facing new or recurring challenges. With increased internal stability, we can consciously use reconditioning to deliberately reshape outdated patterns. When done attentively, this process does not only update old networks; it changes the brain’s structure itself.
But all of this requires safety. Not pressure. Especially not in the context of complex trauma. “More and intense” (as in cathartic approaches) can destabilize. “Less and often” builds.
Core Skills That Make Resilience Possible
Research programs on resilience converge toward a set of seven measurable capacities that increase adaptability, internal resources, and the ability to evolve through adversity.
1) Emotional regulation
Emotional regulation is the capacity to feel emotions and bodily sensations without becoming overwhelmed — to stay grounded enough to choose the next step under pressure.
Resilient people can stay anchored when things are intense: they can manage their emotions, attention, and actions in a way that helps them remain functional and connected. This capacity supports intimate relationships, collaboration, physical health, and psychological balance. When emotional regulation is low, two common risks appear: exhausting the people around us, and getting stuck inside ourselves. An important clarification: resilience does not mean “cancelling” emotions.
Healthy expression — including painful emotions — is a real part of healing. The difference is not between “feeling” and “not feeling,” but between becoming captive to emotions and being able to move through them with clarity and self-compassion.
Some people have a stronger predisposition toward anxiety or sadness and recover more slowly after activation. And even in these cases, emotional regulation can be trained — and through that, resilience grows.
2) Impulse control
Impulse control is the ability to keep a space between impulse and action — to tolerate discomfort without immediately self-sabotaging.
A well-known example is the Marshmallow Test, the experiment conducted by Walter Mischel in the 1960s–70s. Children could eat one marshmallow right away or wait a few minutes to receive two. Early follow-up studies suggested that children who could delay gratification had better long-term outcomes in school and socially.
More recent research (2018, a replication with a larger and more diverse sample) refined these conclusions: the ability to wait is not only about willpower; it is strongly influenced by environment, relational security, family resources, stress, and early cognitive skills.
The core point still stands: being able to delay gratification and tolerate the tension of the moment makes room for wiser decisions and healthier outcomes. Temptations show up daily; impulses arise naturally. What differentiates psychological health is the ability not to act immediately from them.
Impulse control is trainable. It is also central to resilience, because every time you consciously choose what is better for you in the long run — instead of reacting automatically — you strengthen self-regulation and trust in yourself.
3) Realistic optimism
Realistic optimism is the capacity to expect viable, positive outcomes while also preparing for real risks. This is not toxic positivity. It is a grounded, realistically positive attitude: the belief that the future can improve and that effort is worth it.
Psychologist Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology, showed that the way we explain life events to ourselves (our explanatory style) directly influences resilience. In his research on learned helplessness, he highlighted that it is not events themselves that defeat us, but our internal interpretation of them. He described three dimensions of explanatory style: – personal: “it’s my fault” vs. “there are multiple factors” – permanent: “it will always be like this” vs. “this is temporary” – pervasive: “this affects everything” vs. “this affects one area”
When our mind automatically responds with “me — always — everything,” we fall into the helplessness trap: we believe it is our fault, that it will last forever, and that the problem contaminates our entire life. This pessimistic explanatory style fuels giving up, blocks energy for action, and erodes hope.
In contrast, a realistic-optimistic explanatory style — in which we see the situation in context, recognize multiple contributions, distinguish the permanent from the temporary, and the specific from the general — protects against helplessness and supports resilience. It helps us remain in the active role of author of our lives, rather than the victim of circumstances.
Resilient people tend to be optimistic. They believe things can move toward the better, and that they have some influence over the direction of their lives. Hundreds of studies show that optimists are physically healthier, less prone to depression, function better at school and work, and even perform better in sports.
Optimism means seeing the future as relatively bright and trusting your capacity to face difficulties — and this depends, in part, on self-efficacy. That is why authentic optimism goes hand in hand with the belief that your actions can shape your situation. At the same time, unrealistic optimism can be dangerous when it leads us to ignore real threats.
4) Causal analysis
Causal analysis is the ability to identify the realistic causes of a problem without catastrophizing or overgeneralizing.
Resilient people can differentiate between causes that are real (and controllable) and those that are temporary or inevitable. They do not minimize hard factors, but they also do not get stuck in guilt or fatalism. They do not waste energy ruminating on what they cannot control — they direct it toward small, concrete steps that help them move forward over time.
If you notice you remain stuck in rigid or global interpretations, working directly with beliefs (challenging beliefs) can significantly improve the way you approach problems — and can support real resilience.
5) Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to read emotional cues in others and respond skillfully. Empathy supports resilience precisely because it helps us navigate relationships with flexibility. Safe, empathic relationships are a central pillar of resilience — because that is where authentic support, co-regulation, and a sense of belonging are built, and these give us strength to move through adversity.
6) Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is the belief that our actions matter — built through solving problems step by step.
People with strong self-efficacy remain engaged in problem-solving and do not give up when their initial solution fails. Compared to those who doubt their ability to cope, they are more likely to try new ways of solving a problem (including creative ones), persisting until they find something functional. And as they solve problems, their confidence grows — which increases the likelihood they will persevere even more the next time they face a challenge.
By contrast, people who do not believe they can create good things in their lives tend to be more passive when faced with a problem or when placed in a new situation. They avoid new experiences — even ones that could bring pleasure or joy — because they assume they are not equipped to handle the challenges the new situation might bring. This is especially true when the nervous system is overwhelmed, where any stimulus — pleasant or unpleasant — can feel like “too much.”
In that context, when a problem arises at work or in family life — negotiating with a difficult client, or trying to connect with a partner who does not communicate — the tendency may be to retreat and rely on others to find solutions. If they are forced to solve a problem alone, lack of confidence may lead them to quit at the first sign of difficulty. And this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: each time they give up or fail to solve a problem, the belief that they cannot manage life’s pressures is reinforced, and self-doubt grows.
7) Reaching out
Reaching out is the courage to step into the world with vulnerability and curiosity — to ask, to initiate, to explore new experiences and relationships. It is the dimension of resilience that expands our lives: it creates connection, meaning, and growth. For many people, however, this step is difficult. Some learned early that exposure is dangerous — shame, ridicule, or rejection arrived too early and too harshly — and the body decided it was safer to stay “small” and invisible. For others, the block is a subtler form of self-protection: “if I don’t try, I don’t risk discovering that I can’t.”
These capacities strengthen each other. For example, optimism together with self-efficacy fuels persistent solution-seeking; empathy deepens connection (a major protective factor); impulse control supports emotional regulation; causal analysis reduces rumination and energy drain while guiding effective action. Research suggests that resilience serves several essential functions in our lives. For some of us, it is the resource that helps us move beyond early wounds, childhood obstacles, or the effects of chronic developmental stress. We rely on resilience when we want to leave behind what was painful and step into the role of creators of the adult life we want.
At the same time, resilience is also the capacity needed to navigate everyday difficulties: tension in relationships, conflictual conversations with loved ones, misunderstandings at work, an unexpected major expense, political, social, or economic changes that affect us indirectly.
A shared red thread remains: resilience allows us to stay whole, flexible, and oriented toward life — even in the midst of uncertainty and the real challenges of existence.
Resilience Is More Than an Individual Skill
Resilience exists on multiple levels at the same time: psychological, biological, relational, and social.
- Individual psychological resilience: our inner capacity to manage stress, emotions, thinking, behaviour, and meaning.
- Biological resilience: the way the nervous system (and the body) returns to regulation after activation.
- Relational resilience: how relationships support us, buffer stress, co-regulate us, and offer meaning.
- Social/systemic resilience: how families, communities, organizations, and cultures provide structure, safety, belonging, and resources.
Resilience, then, is a complex process — neurobiological, somatic, relational, and communal. Some grow faster because they had more support. Others grow more slowly because they started further back and had to survive for longer.
Resilience grows over time, at the body’s pace, in safe relationships, with support, and in community. And even if we did not have regulation or protection in childhood, the adult brain can learn different responses today.
Meaning, Beliefs, and Resilience
Based on our experiences, the brain often creates shortcuts — beliefs and rapid interpretations about ourselves and the world — meant to offer meaning and protection when reality feels overwhelming. Some of these shortcuts help us cope; others can lead us into patterns of thinking and behaving that no longer serve us and may become self-destructive.
For example, people who have lived with a lot of powerlessness may come to perceive difficulties as impossible to overcome, giving up even when they actually do have control.
To cultivate resilience, it is essential to become aware of these thinking styles and learn how to revise them, so we can see the real causes of adversity more clearly — and its true impact on our lives.
Our capacities of perception and response are among the most important factors that shape or predict our ability to be resilient and find our balance again. No matter what difficult situation we face, the key to resilience lies in how we shift our perception (attitude) and our response (behaviour). External stressors or internal negative messages can feel endless, but what we can control is how we interpret them and how we respond.
Shifting perspective and behaviour becomes one of the most effective ways to strengthen resilience. We can practice this capacity by moving attention from what happened to how we are meeting what happened.
When we discover that we can change our attitude and behaviour in difficult situations, we realize we can do this in any context. This experience produces a profound inner transformation — a psychophysiological shift that often emerges naturally in psychotherapy.
It is the shift from “poor me” to an empowered, active self — with self-compassion and strength, not pity and helplessness. It is a move from a fixed, rigid mindset, initially developed as protection, toward a more flexible mindset aligned with present reality rather than past reality — a growth-oriented mindset, a way of keeping the mind open to learning.
We can change the internal messages we carry about how we cope (or don’t), or how we coped (or didn’t) in the past. Strengthening resilience includes beginning to see ourselves as people who can be resilient — competent at coping and competent at learning how to cope.
Another way of knowing ourselves and cultivating resilience, then, is learning to notice cognitive traps and the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world. This brings clarity. And clarity creates space for new choices — not for self-criticism.
Common Cognitive Traps in Adversity
These are a few common traps that can drain resilience:
Jumping to conclusions. Sometimes we move straight into interpretation without checking the data. The brain does this to save energy. But acting on unverified assumptions means we may react to an invented story rather than present reality. Intuition can be valuable — and in many social or professional contexts, it helps to treat intuition as a hypothesis, not a fact.
Tunnel vision. Under stress, attention narrows onto a detail (usually negative), and we lose the wider picture. Evolutionarily, this is a survival mechanism. In daily life, however, tunnel vision can exaggerate risk, amplify threat, and turn a single obstacle into a “total disaster.” When we remember the larger frame, we return to reality.
Magnification or minimization. Sometimes we inflate the significance of a negative detail (as if it defines everything). Other times we deny or minimize something important to avoid discomfort. In both directions, we lose accurate evaluation — and without accurate evaluation, we cannot make healthy decisions
Personalization. We assign ourselves total responsibility and ignore context. Sometimes this is an attempt to regain control (“if it’s my fault, I can change it”). Other times it is an old strategy learned in childhood. Personalization becomes toxic when we carry everything on our shoulders, including what is not ours.
Externalization. The opposite extreme: we place responsibility entirely “outside.” If everything is other people’s fault or the system’s fault, we lose our power to change anything. Externalization can protect us from shame and vulnerability, but it deprives us of self-efficacy.
Overgeneralization. One failure becomes “I am a failure.” One rejection becomes “no one wants me.” One mistake becomes “this is who I always am.” Overgeneralization turns a specific situation into a global label. It is hard to be resilient when we believe a moment defines destiny.
Mind reading. We assume we know what others think and act as if we are certain — but most of the time, we don’t know. We need clear questions, not guessing. Mind reading is one of the main sources of conflict in couples, parenting, and work. Direct communication is the antidote.
Emotional reasoning. If something feels dangerous, the mind assumes it is dangerous. Emotion is a source of information — but it is not the whole information. In resilience, we learn to take emotion seriously, but not literally. We reality-test instead of confusing experience with objective truth.
Why does all of this matter?
Because resilience is not only visible in what we do externally, but also in how we perceive, interpret, and respond internally. If we learn to notice cognitive traps in real time, we already create more space to choose a different direction. This is the essence of resilience: not perfect control over the world, but the flexibility with which we respond to the world — even when it is hard.
Conclusion
Resilience is not an inborn talent, but a form of living intelligence — a neurobiological, somatic, and relational process that is shaped over time. Some of us had safer foundations in childhood; others began with less protection, with nervous systems that became hypervigilant or shut down. But regardless of the past, the adult brain can learn new pathways and new responses.
Resilience does not mean we never fall — it means we can return to ourselves. That we can regulate. That we can ask for support. That we can learn from reality rather than from shame. It means we can expand our capacity to stay with ourselves in difficult moments, without losing contact with what matters.
And perhaps the most important lesson is this: resilience is not individual. It is born in relationship, strengthened in community, and sustained through belonging.
We grow in resilience together. “When shit happens, shift happens too.”