A Content Analysis of Counseling Psychology Literature: Resilience Against Oppression Among People of Color

The researchers analyzed articles from two flagship counseling psychology journals (i.e., Journal of Counseling Psychology and The Counseling Psychologist) to examine current understandings of resilience. There were 54 articles included in the final analysis that spanned the years 1997-2022. The researchers conducted a content analysis to identify, analyze, and report patterns across counseling psychology journals with regard to how resilience has been defined, the racial/ethnic groups that were of focus, and the forms of oppression that were studied or addressed. Five themes were generated that are a direct representation of the topics within previous literature on resilience in the field of counseling psychology. Those topics included: (a) ways of coping, (b) ethnic and racial identity, (c) advocacy/collective action, (d) personality factors, and (e) ability to endure stress and thrive. Implications for future research, clinical applications, mentoring, and advocacy are discussed. Public Significance Statement Resilience is often understood as an individual's ability to cope with and adapt to adverse situations. When working with people of color in the United States, applying resilience in this way harmfully places the responsibility on the person to overcome oppression. This deters us from recognizing systemic barriers that hinder marginalized people from thriving, while sending the message that dealing with oppression must be an individual-level act. We argue for the need to shift our understanding of resilience away from individual processes to focus on group and communal ways of healing, as a means of aligning with our values as counseling psychologists and working to disrupt systems of oppression.