Resilience: individualising a social, economic and environmental phenomenon?

I have recently had an article published in the Nursing Standard that aims to help nurses develop resilience. In writing it however I tried to highlight some of the growing concern about how the term resilience is being used. In particular the way it tends to individualise our experience of difficulty in life, placing responsibility for difficulties squarely on the shoulders of those experiencing them. It is up to us as individuals to develop resilience so that we can cope with whatever is thrown at us.

This neglects to mention that our ability to avoid difficulty and experience wellbeing, is not a result of our individual actions alone. It is contextualised by income, class, community, race, housing, access to health care, exposure to environmental hazards etc. Improving resilience therefore cannot be achieved through individual action alone.

If you have any comments or recommended reading on this topic I'd love to hear from you.

For those with access to the Nursing Standard the full article can be found here: 

Developing resilience: the role of nurses, healthcare teams and organisations