Reference no: EM133224193

Question - Our discussion of Mother Theresa and Hitler highlights, in part, the impact of our environment in the development of our personalities. But does the environment impact all of us in the same way? One of the interesting characteristics of certain individuals is the ability to adapt to stress and adversity. In psychology, we often refer to this as "resilience."

Over the years I have worked with several children who have had this quality in spite of being exposed to some very difficult life circumstances. As an example, I dealt with a 7th grade girl who was an A+ student and was an excellence violin student. She came to school everyday appearing happy and was well liked by adults and other children. Her home life, however, was bizarre. Her mother was periodically psychotic and thought she was giving birth to Jesus during the holidays. Her father had sustained a brain injury and was basically passive and uninvolved. She had two older sisters, one who was psychotic like the mother and the other was a prostitute. As an example of the family chaos, this girl told me she came home one day and her older psychotic sister was cooking garbage on the stove for dinner! In terms of this discussion, how is it possible for this girl to have made such a good overall adjustment in the face of a horrific family environment?