Amsterdam Neuroscience

Consistent failure over the past few decades to reduce the high prevalence of stress-related disorders has motivated a search for alternative research strategies. Resilience refers to the phenomenon of many people maintaining mental health despite exposure to psychological or physical adversity. Instead of aiming to understand the pathophysiology of stress-related disorders, resilience research focuses on protective mechanisms that shield people against the development of such disorders and tries to exploit its insights to improve treatment and, in particular, disease prevention. I will present a critical appraisal of current resilience research and propose a framework, both methodological and theoretical, that serves to fully harness the potential of resilience research. The framework is being applied in large-scale cohort studies. Recent insights, including from work on resilience in the COVID-19 pandemic, indicate an important role for individual differences in stressor appraisal processes.