How Do You Become Resilient? A Critical Realist Explanation of the Youth Resilience Process

Adversities serve as risks, but also opportunities to acquire capacities to adjust positively in future stressors. There is now considerable agreement that resilience should be viewed as a process. However, a key question remains: Why do some individuals exhibit resilience while others do not? The present study aimed to provide a detailed description of the youth resilience process and theorized on the specific mechanisms that support positive adjustment following adversities in early life. In-depth interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 34 young adults with adverse childhood experiences; analysis followed a paradigm of critical realism. Results were organized in three levels of realist ontology to provide hierarchical and substantive support of findings and theorizations. We propose the Youth Resilience Process Model (Y-RPM), which integrates and builds on existing theories and concepts to explain the mechanisms and different pathways of internal processes that foster resilience among youths.