Resilience in the Salutogenic Model of Health
Maurice B. Mittelmark
Abstract
Abstract This chapter discusses the question, how does Antonovsky’s salutogenic model of health address the concept resilience? Resilience scholarship focuses on coping processes in persons and groups who experience severe adversity and deprivation, while salutogenic processes are posited to be descriptive of coping in all persons. Resilience scholarship has always had a focus on developing interventions to help people do well in life despite barriers, while salutogenesis has until recently been more concerned with descriptive research. Resilience and salutogenesis share the perspective that coping is culturally and contextually bounded. Resilience scholarship is principled, but no single, articulated theory is dominate. Salutogenesis is well developed as a theory, following the scholarship of Aaron Antonovsky. The concept resilience does not have a formal place in salutogenesis theory, yet when salutogenesis scholars focus on coping under conditions of severe adversity, they apply resilience approaches and strategies, even if the concept resilience is not explicit.