Resilience has been defined to include the recovery from traumatic experiences (Block & Block, 1980, and Bonanno (2005), but this assumption had not been empirically tested until now. By using the Ego-Resiliency Scale (Klohnen, 1996), the Trauma Recovery Scale (Gentry, 2006), part of the Traumagram Questionnaire (Figley, 1989), and the Impact of Events Scale -- Revised (Weiss & Marmar, 1997), this idea was tested in a non-clinical sample of 242 social work students from Florida State University. It was found that resilience and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder were inversely related as expected, but not significantly. With a Pearson Product correlation coefficient of -.077, it would only be statistically significant at the .268 level. These findings provide evidence that resilience does not mean recovery from traumatic experiences. This new data will require further research exploration to clarify what is meant by resilience.;Keywords: resilience, resiliency, ego-resiliency, posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD. |