Resilience is the capacity to rebound from adversity strengthened and more resourceful.

Family resilience refers to coping and adaptation in the family to achieve these goals.  Individual resilience is best understood and fostered in the context of the family and community.

 A basic premise guiding this approach is that serious life crises and persistent adversity have an impact on the whole family.

Together, the therapist and clients work in partnership to see new possibilities in a problem situation.

Healing and recovery depend less on clinician techniques than on tapping into each individual’s and family’s own inherent potential.

Assessment and intervention are redirected from problems and how they are maintained to solutions and how they can be attained.

 Therapeutic efforts aim to identify and amplify existing and potential competencies and resources.

 Positive, future-oriented stance shifts the emphasis of therapy from what went wrong to what can be done for enhanced functioning and wellbeing.

 A family resilience-based approach builds on these principles to link each family's processes with recent, ongoing, or impending stress events to reduce vulnerability and master family challenges.

Fostering the family's ability to master its immediate crisis situation also increases its capacity to meet future challenges. Thus, the family is strengthened as problems are resolved and each intervention is also a preventive measure.