Resilience In Late Adulthood

When examining Erikson 's crisis of late adulthood, there has been a serious tendency toward an examination of the negative factors associated with old age and not much attention directed toward the positive (Berk, 2015; Kuiper, 2012; Wild, Wiles & Allen, 2011). Yet it must be noted that positive factors are key to the process of overcoming this developmental crisis - positive psychology sees resilience as such a factor (Compton & Hoffman, 2013).

Resilience. Resilience can be defined as the ability to recover from, overcome, learn from, or even be transformed by, life’s challenges and adversities, without any adverse effects (Christopher, 2014; Wagnild, 2009; Pan, Wong, Chan & Joubert, 2008). Within resilience studies, there is often referred

The resolution of this late-life crisis – despite vulnerabilities and risks – would indicate that aging individuals are, in fact, resilient. Elderly individuals simply have to be observed in their everyday activities to see this. Indeed, resilience has been shown to play a large role in the pleasure and sense of purpose derived from later years (Wilde, Wiles & Allen, 2011). Resilience can, however, simply not be reduced to the process of growth through hardship. The protective factors related to resilience, must also be taken into account. These protective factors help individual maintain a state of psychological homoeostasis: personified by self-esteem, confidence, optimism and internal locus of control (Wells, 2007). It can then be deduced that, by optimising these factors the individual can become more resilient. However, it is the process of obtaining these traits that is now of interest to psychologists (Wilde, Wiles & Allen,

This tendency is in contrast to the earlier tendency of psychologists, and researchers alike, to mainly focus on the avoidance of psychiatric disorders by preventing psychopathology (Hill & Smith, 2015; Wilde, Wiles & Allen, 2011). Focusing on the resulting pathology and declines, as disengagement theory suggests, opposes the positive orientation of resilience studies. Thus, to avoid this, a proactive approach to aging has to be taken. Hill and Smith (2013) acknowledges two universal desires; the first, to increase the human life-span and the second, to thrive in those later years of life. Such an approach brings the focus back to the study of positive ageing. This field of study focuses on the capacities, strengths, skills and potentials of the elderly; of which the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances is a central element (Kuiper, 2012). Touching on this, Christopher (2014) posits that when adversities and challenges are faced with a positive orientation, growth can be achieved. This can ultimately be linked back to Erikson 's concept of achieving ego-integrity and it becomes clear that resilience is a key factor in protecting the elderly individual from despair. Therefore, if resilience is to be an 'asset ' to achieve positive aging, the means of acquiring this asset must then be