Resilience through Supportive Relationships: Scientific Support for Lasallian Education

Camela M. Steinke, PhD

ABSTRACT

A large body of research indicates that supportive relationships are a key component of resilience, the ability to adapt to significant adversity and transform potentially toxic stress to tolerable stress.  Resilience is integral to helping individuals ameliorate the impacts of harm and hardship, which has been linked to negative behavioral, emotional, and physical health outcomes.  Recent discoveries in molecular biology, genomics, and epigenetics help illuminate the causal mechanisms of this relationship.  This supports long standing practice evidence of the importance of relationships in surviving and healing from difficult life experiences.  St. John Baptist de La Salle recognized the importance of supportive relationships, and his recommendations about the need for relationships in the lives of young people are now supported by neurobiology.

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Resilience through Supportive Relationships: Scientific Support for Lasallian Education

Keywords: Resilience; Supportive Relationships; Neurobiology; Guardian Angels; Adverse Childhood Experiences; Toxic Stress