"I'm Going to Put on Bright Clothes now" The Process and Social Dimensions of Resilience Among Older Adults

Abstract

This article focuses on older adults’ resilience following major losses. Interviews of seventeen older adults in Ireland illuminate the resilience process and its social dimensions – family, friends, social participation, formal supports, faith and spirituality. Becoming resilient is a process that develops through agential resolve contextualized by utilization of available resources. Those who had struggled to see themselves as resilient benefited from formal supports – such as counseling and social prescribing – that helped them to engage resilient agency. The resilience process presents as an internal resolution aided by social supports.