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The study of resilience traces its roots back a scant 50 years. Early on, the field of study was not extensive and the number of researchers devoting their careers to the examination of this phenomenon was fairly small. The field, as Michael Rutter noted in 1987, reflected not so much a search for factual phenomena but “for the developmental and situational mechanisms involved in protective processes“ (p. 2). The interest was and is not just on what factors insulate and protect, but how they went about exerting their influence. Resilience studies were reserved for high-risk populations with a particular focus on those youth demonstrating resilience or the ability to overcome the emotional, developmental, economic, and environmental challenges they faced growing up.

How do children and adolescents “make it“ when their development is threatened by poverty, neglect, maltreatment, war, violence, or exposure to oppression, racism, and discrimination? What protects them when their parents are disabled by substance abuse, mental illness, or serious physical illness? How do we explain the phenomenon of resilience-children succeeding in spite of serious challenges to their development-and put this knowledge to work for the benefit of all children and society? The scientific study of resilience emerged about 30 years ago when a group of pioneering researchers began to notice the phenomenon of positive adaptation among subgroups of children who were considered “at risk” for developing later psychopathology (Masten, 2001) .

The deceptively simple construct of resilience is in fact rife with hidden complexities, contradictions, and ambiguities. These have been recognized in earlier reviews of the relevant literature (Kaplan, 1999) . More recent reviews have reaffirmed many of these difficulties and have offered suggestions in some cases for resolution of these problems ( Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000 ; Olsson, Bond, Bums, Vella-Brodrick, & Sawyer, 2003 ). By and large, however, problematic aspects of the concept of resilience persist.

Resilient children are not simply “born that way,” nor are they “made from scratch” by their experiences. Genetic and environmental factors loom large as protectors against a variety of risks to healthy development, ranging from resistance to bacteria and viruses to resistance to maltreatment and rejection. However, the old view that genes and environments compete for control of human development has been replaced by the view that genetic and environmental influences operate together to produce individual differences in development. The question is no longer whether and to what degree genes or environments matter, but how genes and environments work together to produce resilient children and adults.

Although it may appear to represent an oxymoron within classical resiliency studies to argue that the more we can sustain and maintain (healthy) vulnerability in boys and young males the more resilient they will become and remain, that is precisely the argument of this chapter. Indeed it remains at the heart of the deconstruction of our classic model of stoic separation-based models for healthy boyhood for which the hope for genuine resiliency for young (and, for that matter older) males may lie ( Pollack, 1995a , 1995b , 1998 , 1999 , 2000 ).

This chapter, mainly theoretical in orientation, also reviews recent research on resilience and gender. The theoretical orientation represented here is known as relational-cultural theory (RCT). At the core of this work is the belief that all psychological growth occurs in relationships, and that movement out of relationship (chronic disconnection) into isolation constitutes the source of much psychological suffering. Moving away from a “separate self” model of development, RCT also suggests that resilience resides not in the individual but in the capacity for connection. A model of relational resilience is presented. Mutual empathy, empowerment, and the development of courage are the building blocks of this resilience. Although this chapter seeks to explicate the importance of relational resilience for girls, it also suggests that growth-fostering connections are the source of resilience for both boys and girls.

Since the mid-1980s, a number of investigators from different disciplines—child development, pediatrics, psychology, psychiatry, and sociology—have focused on the question why some children cope successfully with major adversities in their lives, while others develop severe and persistent psychopathology. The resilience these children display is conceived as an end-product of buffering processes that do not eliminate risks and stress in their hves, but that allow the individual to deal with them effectively (Rutter, 1987) .

We begin this chapter with the recognition that concepts and their defining constructs in clinical psychology must contain certain characteristics in order to be subjected to experimental testing and applied to benefit our constituency. The study of any topic, in this case resilience, requires that we define the construct, devise a way to measure it, and demonstrate if, how, when, and where it can be useful. Constructs have to be sufficiently defined so as to be operationalized in a way that is reliable across time, subjects, and researchers. Once a concept is operationalized in a reliable manner, then its validity can be examined. Finally, when we have sufficiently operationalized a concept and there is evidence that it can be measured in a reliable and valid way, then application in clinical and educational settings is reasonable.

The number of children in the United States who grow up in conditions of chronic poverty and social disadvantage remains a tragedy of epidemic proportions. Currently, approximately one out of every five children under age 18 lives in poverty (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2003). Further, the overall numbers grew by approximately 400,000 from 2001 to 2002, to exceed 12 million children and youth who now live below the poverty line. When those who are considered “near poor”—calculated by the U.S. Census as those who have household incomes of less than 1.25 times the poverty income level—the percentage of all children below the age of 18 in the United States who experience serious economic hardship each day edges close to one fourth (22.3) of all children and youth. Poverty rates among minority children are even higher, with this level of severe economic disadvantage affecting approximately 30% of both Hispanic and African American children (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2003). Studies of the effects of poverty and other forms of socioeconomic disadvantage have underscored the potentially devastating impact that these conditions can have on the emotional, physical, and intellectual development of children and youth (cf. Mrazek & Haggarty, 1994 ; Felner et al., 1991 ; Felner, Silverman, & Adan, 1992 ).

Family violence, which refers to child maltreatment and intimate partner violence, is a widespread problem in the United States. In 2002, the most recent year for which figures are available, 896,000 children were found to be victims of maltreatment, including physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and neglect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Sciences, 2004). A recent survey found that approximately 1.5 million women and 834,700 men are victims of intimate partner violence annually (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998) . Many victims of partner violence live with children. A U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics special report found that between 1993 and 1998, the average number of victims of intimate partner violence who lived with children under the age of 12 was 459,590 (Rennison & Welchans, 2000) .