Resiliency in the Black Family

RESILIENCY IN THE BLACK FAMILY

W. HENRY GREGORY, JR. Ph.D.

April, 2007

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify and explore the processes by which some Black families rebound from hazardous adversity. Nine families were interviewed for this study. The families experienced suicides, murders, illness and death, incarcerations, child sexual molestation, and the threat of children being taken by the department of social services. A constructivist approach to inquiry was used in this study because of its emphasis on power sharing among investigators and participants and the utility of its theoretical foundations.
Five resilience processes, previously identified in the general population were identified as well as four previously unidentified themes. Together the nine themes may imply a culturally specific pattern of handling adversity that exist in Black families. The five previously identified processes are: (1) positive outlook; (2) spirituality; (3) connectedness; (4) open expression of emotions; and (5) meaning making. The four new processes are: (1) tenderness: empathy, compassion and forgiveness; (2) remembering; (3) gratitude and humility; and (4) dreaming and clairvoyance.

INTRODUCTION

Resilience is the ability to rebound from adversity strengthened by the experience. It refers to manifest competence in the context of significant challenges to adaptation or development (Masten & Coatsworth, 1999). To identify resilience two judgments are required: first, that there has been a significant threat to the individual (or system) typically indexed by high-risk status or exposure to severe adversity or trauma; and secondly, that the quality of adaptation or development is good (Masten & Coatsworth, 1999). Resiliency entails more than merely surviving, getting through, or escaping a harrowing ordeal (Walsh, 1998). Survivors are not necessarily resilient; some become trapped in a position as victims, nursing their wounds and blocked from growth by anger and blame (Wolin and Wolin, 1993). Resilient people learn from their experiences and heal from painful wounds. They take charge of their lives, living fully and loving well. Resilient people build on their experience of adversity and become stronger, more effective people.
This study examines resilient responses in Black families to a range of hazardous adversity. While all families exist under greater stress in today’s society, Black families are particularly vulnerable. Black families are increasingly faced with growing problems: isolation from the economic mainstream; public schools that are becoming more unsuccessful; violence that abounds in our communities; and more children being raised in families by women alone (McAdoo, 1998). This study supports a competence based approach to assisting Black families by delineating the processes that currently work for some Black families in dealing with difficulty, stress and adversity.
The families in this study have experienced a variety of hazardous adversities and are in various stages of recovery from the destabilization of their trauma and are doing relatively well. Among the hazardous adversity experienced by these families there are two murders, two suicides, two incarcerations, sexual molestation of a child, an illness and related death, and a threat of termination of parental rights.
Qualitative methodology was chosen to support this inquiry because it offered the opportunity to hear from families in their own words about their struggles and the resilient processes that helped them recover from their adversity. Specifically, a constructivist methodology was used because it emphasizes power sharing in the research process. To this end this study used the process of member checking to formally and informally consult with the participants in the study to see if there was congruency between the researcher’s interpretations of their stories and their own.

Resiliency
Much of the early work on resiliency arose from the study of risk as investigators realized that there were children flourishing in the midst of adversity (Anthony, 1974; Garmezy, 1974; Murphy & Moriarty, 1976; Rutter, 1979; Werner & Smith, 1982). Such studies countered the predominant modernistic view that family and environmental risk factors and negative life events produce childhood and later adult disorders.
Reflecting Western culture’s heroic myth of the rugged individual, most interest in resilience has focused on the strengths found within individuals who have mastered adversity. These qualities have usually been viewed in terms of personality traits, temperament, disposition and coping styles (Kobasa & Pucetti, 1983; Walsh, 1998) that enable a child or adult to overcome harrowing life experiences. Resilience from this perspective is seen as inborn, as if resilient persons were born with a biological hardiness or acquired it by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. This fosters the expectation that they must become self-reliant and survive through fierce independence. The unfortunate corollary to this ethos is a contemptuous view of those who don’t succeed as deficient, weak and blameworthy when they can’t surmount their problems on their own (Walsh, 1998).
Resiliency has been studied in a wide variety of situations throughout the world, including war, living with parents who have severe mental illness, family violence, poverty, natural disasters, and in situations with many other risk factors and stressors (Haggarty, Sherrod, Garmezy, & Rutter, 1994; Luthar & Ziegler, 1991; Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990).

Relational Resiliency
Resiliency research is beginning to approach the issues involved in the development of resilience from a larger relational perspective that sees the resilience as a product of human interaction and the meaning assigned to it. A relational rather than an individualistic or linear mode of adaptation may be key to understanding resiliency (Jordan, 1992; Miller, 1988; Surrey, 1985) particularly for many ethnic minorities whose worldviews can be so relationship oriented (Nichols, 1976). A relational perspective assumes the centrality of relationships in human development.

Black Family Resiliency
Black families are likely to suffer a greater number of chronic stressors and possess fewer physical resources to help cope with problems than White families (Kessler & Neighbors, 1986). While Black families experience difficulties that are common to all families, they face unique psychological, environmental and economic stressors precipitated and maintained, in part, by discrimination and racism. Survival for the Black family has necessitated the development of strengths and competencies that can be useful in handling adversity. The larger issue is that an understanding of the dynamics involved in Black family resiliency has implication and consequences for the entire society.
Hill (1972, 1997), who arguably may be seen as the father of the competency/strengths movement in mental health, identified five strengths of Black families that Black families use to survive and prosper. His initial offering on this published in 1972 “The Strengths of Black Families” was based on the same 1960s census data as the pathologically oriented work of Daniel Moynihan (1965) which contained the thesis that weaknesses in the Black family, are at the heart of the deterioration of the Black community. Hill (1972) reaffirmed his findings with “The Strengths of African American Families: Twenty-Five Years Later” (Hill, 1997).
• Strong kinship bonds
• Work orientation
• Flexibility in family roles
• Achievement orientation; and
• Religious orientation

METHOD
Constructivist Inquiry
Constructivist inquiry was selected as the research strategy of this study because of its unique approach to power sharing throughout the research process (Lincoln & Guba, 1989). At the core of constructivist theory is a view of human beings as active agents who, individually and collectively, co-constitute the meaning of their experiential world (Neimeyer, 1993). In the research process this means the researcher is seen to be an influential participant who shapes the data s/he collects by their interactions with the research participants.
The constructivist understands that what is observed is always influenced by the observer. From this point of view there is no such thing as objectivity. The principle of science as objective is a myth (Nobles, 1995). The knower always influences what is known, so consequently we are both subject and object of our own personal knowing and aware of only a few of the processes that underlie our efforts (Mahony, 1991). The knower always takes his investments and values into the process of knowing. Kuhn (1970) asserts that science is never value-free, but proceeds within (and promotes) a certain paradigm.
All constructivist methods come from the basic assumptions of the model. To be constructivist, the research must, at a minimum, attend to the following (Rodwell, 1998):
• Natural setting. The research is done in the usual context of the phenomenon because reality cannot be understood in isolation from the context that gives it meaning.
• Human instrument. Primary data gathering is performed by the human because an a priori nonhuman instrument cannot be devised with sufficient adaptability to adjust to the various realities encountered in the inquiry. Also, only the human instrument is capable of grasping meaning in interaction.
• Tacit knowledge. The tacit/intuitive/felt knowledge is legitimate to understand nuances. It should be used in addition to propositional knowledge for communication of meaning.
• Qualitative methods. Methods using words and observations are more adaptable and capable of dealing with multiple, less aggregatable realities because they expose more directly the nature of the transaction between the investigator and the participants.
• Purposive sampling. Sampling is done to increase the scope and range of data exposed in order to look for multiple realities.
• Inductive data analysis. Data are analyzed from raw units of information to subsuming categories in order to make sense in the context of the investigation.
• Grounded theory. Theory emerges from the inquiry based on inductive data analysis because no theory, developed a priori, could encompass the specifics of the multiple realities of a particular context.
• Emergent design. The research process emerges from the experience rather than being totally developed beforehand. This is because no inquirer can know about the many realities that will emerge to devise an adequate design before entering the process.
• Negotiated outcomes. The inquirer negotiates meanings, interpretations, and the final products with the human sources of data because the participants own their data and because their constructions of reality are of interest.
• Case study reporting mode. The case study is preferred for being less reductionistic and more adaptable to multiple realities.
• Idiographic interpretation. Data are interpreted in terms of the particulars of the case rather than in terms of lawlike generalizations. Different interpretations will be menaingfull for different realities.
• Tentative application of findings. Findings have no broad application because realities are multiple and different. They may not be duplicated elsewhere.
• Focus-determined boundaries. What is the real question and who knows the answer are based on an emergent focus that allows the multiple realities to shape and define the research.
• Trustworthiness. Research rigor is related to the quality of the research product and is analogous to positivist standards of validity and reliability.
• Authenticity. Research rigor is related to the quality of the research product and is attentive to the interaction dimension of the inquiry. It has a qualitative-change focus. (The participants should be self-assessed as better off because of the interaction.)

A multiple case study/multiple site design was used in this study. The sampling strategy for the selection of families for interviewing was a combination or mixed strategy (Patton, 1980) that was both serial and convenient. No sample element was chosen until data collection from the preceding element had been accomplished. The selection of families was also convenience based. Two families were selected who did not have any prior connections or knowledge about one another. After these two families had been selected, then the serial processes of subsequent selections took place.
The interviews were collected in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area and occurred over a 7 month period. All family types were considered for this study if they met the adversity criteria and if they could have at least two generations represented in the interview. Three structural family types (i.e., two-parent intact family, single parent family; blended family) were represented in the sample. The sample was also selected contingently and purposively in the sense that elements were chosen in ways that best illuminate, clarify, and expand on issues identified in previous interviews.

Study Participants

The hazardous adversities that qualified the families for this study, according to Calhoun & Tedeschi, (1999), are the most difficult to cope with and resolve and they represent the most potent type of life challenge. The family adversities all occurred within the within the last seven years and were followed by adequate adjustment. Family members present for the interview represented at least two generations. Member checks to verify the accuracy of researcher interpretations were completed by telephone and in person and all families were given a fifty-dollar stipend for participating in the interviews.
The data in this study was categorized using a blended methodology that included the use of a categorization framework developed by Froma Walsh (1998) supplemented by the use of grounded theory (Rodwell, 1998). Walsh’s (1998) framework organizes major research findings and clinical insights in the area of family resiliency.

Key Processes in Family Resilience

I. Belief Systems

A. Making meaning of adversity

1. 1. Affiliative value: resilience as relationally based
2. 2. Systemic: the plurality of causality
3. 3. Family life cycle orientation: normalizing, contextualizing adversity and distress
4. 4. Sense of coherency: crisis as meaningful, comprehensible, manageable change
5. 5. Appraisal of crisis, distress, and recovery: facilitative versus
   constraining beliefs
6. 6. Remembering: validation and affirmative of self

B. Positive outlook

1. 1. Active initiative and perseverance
2. 2. Courage and en-courage-ment
3. 3. Sustaining hope, optimistic view, confidence in overcoming odds
4. 4. Focusing on strengths: humility and gratitude
5. 5. Mastering the possible; accepting what cannot be changed

C. Transcendence and spirituality

1. 1. Larger values and purpose
2. 2. Spirituality: faith, rituals, and communion
3. 3. Inspiration: envisioning new possibilities, creativity, heroes
4. 4. Transformation: learning and growth from adversity
5. 5. Experiencing dreams and clairvoyance

II. Organizational Patterns
A. Flexibility

1. 1. Capacity to change: rebounding, reorganizing, adapting to fit challenges over
   time
2. 2. Counterbalancing by stability: continuity, dependability through disruption

B. Connectedness

1. 1. Mutual support, collaboration, and commitment
2. 2. Respect for individual needs, differences, and boundaries
3. 3. Strong leadership: nurturing, protecting, guiding children and vulnerable
   members
4. 4. Seeking reconnection, reconciliation of troubled relationships

C. Social and economic resources

D. Mobilizing extended kin and social support; community networks

E. Building financial security; balancing work and family strains

III. Communication Processes
F. Clarity

1. 1. Clear, consistent messages (words and actions)
2. 2. Clarification of ambiguous situation: truth seeking/truth speaking

G. Open emotional expression

1. 1. Sharing range of feelings (joy and pain; hopes and fears)
2. 2. Mutual empathy; tolerance for differences
3. 3. Responsible for own feelings, behavior; avoiding blaming
4. 4. Pleasurable interactions; humor
5. 5. Tenderness: Empathy, compassion, and forgiveness

H. Collaborative problem solving

1. 1. Creative brainstorming; resourcefulness
2. 2. Shared decision making; negotiation, fairness, reciprocity
3. 3. Conflict resolution
4. 4. Focusing on goals; taking concrete steps; building
   success;learning from failure
5. 5. Proactive stance: preventing problems, crises, preparing for future challenges

The processes that are in bold in the framework were found in the participant families. Most of the collected data fit into Walsh’s framework, and consequently are presented as a subset of the collective Walsh processes. Grounded theory was used to categorize new material that did not fit into Walsh’s framework or that were not included in her categorical definitions.
Cross-case analysis was used to organize and understand the collected data. Through the examination of relationships (causes, consequences, influences, etc.) the subsequent theory was developed. Four peer reviewers (Lawrence Dong [Ph.D.], Tracy Garrett, Ph.D., Kristal Owens, D.Min., Jannette Gregory, LCSW-C) cross-checked my interpretations of the data with their own. Differences in perceptions and interpretations were discussed at length until a consensus opinion was reached.
Member-checking, the process of testing interpretations with members of the stakeholder group from which the original constructions were collected (Guba & Lincoln, 1989) was also used. Member-checking processes verify that the constructions collected are those that have been offered by respondents. It was used continually, during both the data collection and analysis stages to verify researcher interpretations and to insure that accurate voice was given to the families. The member-checks were formal and informal and sometimes very involved depending, in part, on the needs of the family.

RESULTS

All of the interviewed families demonstrated and/or reported the use of some combination of family resiliency processes. The processes however, were not equally distributed among the families. Each family revealed a customized pattern of resiliency processes that seemed to adapt to their specific challenges, resources and experience. Families with similar adversities seem to use the similar resiliency processes and patterns.
Five major processes were identified from the interviews: positive outlook; (2) spirituality; (3) connectedness; (4) open expression of emotions; and (5) meaning making. These five major processes are a subset of previously identified observations (Walsh, 1998) from researchers and clinicians using various populations. Processes five through nine are previously unidentified, to the best of my knowledge, and add definition and cultural specificity to the first group of processes: (6) the expression of empathy, compassion and forgiveness; (7) the use of remembering to validate and affirm a sense of self; (8) the use of gratitude and humility to support cognitive reframing; and (9) the experience of dreams and clairvoyant experiences to provide clarity, comfort and communion with departed loved ones.

Defining Quotes

Positive Outlook
These families were consistently positive in their interviews. Their view of life seemed more optimistic than pessimistic although doubt and negativity would creep into their conversations at times and family members would respond to the weakened person with support and encouragement. Several of the families (Oliver, Boyd, Anderson, Yerman, and Kempler) scheduled the interviews to accommodate the schedule of a specific family member who they thought would benefit positively from processing their adversity in the interview.
The positive outlook was frequently expressed as courage. For example, the mothers in both the Thompson and Boyd families refused to take medication to temper the effects of the losses of their sons to suicide and murder, respectively, stating in almost the same manner that they wanted to go through the experience, endure the pain, and learn the lessons involved in the deaths of their children. The mothers refused to numb themselves to their experiences, choosing instead to confront their grief, Thompson saying, “I knew I was in depression…I’m going through it, I’m not going over it. I’m going through this. It was like going through the ‘eye of the storm’…because my fear was if I didn’t go through it, that I would be back to revisit it and I didn’t want to keep doing this forever. So, I figured I would just hold on and go through it.”
Positive outlook also appears as initiative and perseverance in these families. Whether it is the Boyd family’s mother who says, “I went right back to work (immediately after her son’s shooting) because I was self-employed and I had to keep a roof over my head,” or the Andersons’ father who was determined to carry on in spite of his pain and the unresolved conflicts around his daughter’s suicide, saying, “I needed to function and I really needed to function more efficiently than I ever functioned,” there is a commitment to continue in the face of overwhelming adversity. It appears that when understanding and skills are insufficient and healing has not occurred to the depth necessary to mediate the effects of crisis, initiative and perseverance can sustain a family for at least short amounts of time. One could argue as to whether or not this determination to go on might have been a diversion from the pain, nevertheless the behavior is adaptive and resilient.
There is hope and an optimistic view of the future in these families that encourages confidence. It can be seen in the 14-year-old survivor of incest in the Gordon family who says, “I’ve learned from mom’s mistake…when I get older I won’t have to (go through the same things). I have a lot of wisdom.” It can be seen in the Coleman mother who says, “I’m a more assertive person now, a more take-charge person…I used to just cry. That’s not me now.” It can be seen in the son in the Oliver family who professes as a consequence of his struggles, “that I have learned to take care of myself.”
Positive outlook also includes acceptance of what cannot be changed. The Kempler and Oliver families demonstrated this process when they accepted, albeit reluctantly, the incarceration of loved ones by continuing to invest in and support their family member in spite of feeling hurt and disappointed by the loved one’s criminal behavior that was antithetical to the family’s values. The Oliver son relates about his father’s incarceration, “I didn’t do anything to anybody to deserve it. I didn’t do anything to anybody to all of a sudden have to go through this. So, overnight, my life had to change and for no reason at all, and at an age where I really…didn’t understand…all of a sudden, just out of the blue, I had to become the man of the house, and I’m not even a man yet.” Once the Coleman mother accepted that she could not change the involvement of the Child Protective Services in her life, it freed her to experiment with new behaviors to meet her family’s need. She says, “In all honesty, I can do the best that I can do, and that’s all that I can do. When you aim toward that mark, but I know that I might not always make the mark, but as long as I’ve done what I’m supposed to do (I’m okay)…I had the opportunity to step back and look at it, and it was like, I could put a little more effort into this.” These families made choices to find meaningful ways to participate actively in the situations (incarcerations and threats of removal of children) in which they had limited power and could not control the outcome of events. Once they let go of the illusion of control, they made the best of difficult circumstances by empowering themselves to act affirmatively.

Spirituality
Spirituality for families includes: larger values and sense of purpose; faith, communion and rituals; inspiration, envisioning new possibilities and creativity; and transformation through learning and growth from adversity.
Transcendent beliefs provide meaning and purpose beyond ourselve, our families and our adversities. The need to find greater meaning in our lives is most commonly met through spiritual faith and cultural heritage. It may also be expressed through ideological views, such as deep philosophical, psychological or political convictions
Mrs. Anderson used the suicide of her daughter to propel herself into work with adolescent females via the coaching of cheerleading. Ms. Johnson, propelled by the murder of her son, began to evangelize and work in a street ministry with addicted persons. Mrs. Thompson, whose son committed suicide, has taken up the mission of publicizing her son’s artwork to touch and inspire young people. The behavior of these three women memorializes their departed loved ones, gives meaning to their lives, and satisfies the mothers’ need to rise above the pain of loss.
Suffering invites us into the spiritual domain. Spirituality and religion, when it is not too narrowly defined, provide comfort and support to families when understanding and knowledge are insufficient. The mothers in the Johnson, Anderson, Oliver, Thompson, Boyd, and Yerman families all volunteered that they prayed in response to their crisis. Ms. Johnson says, “I love the woman God has made me…through all the pain, I realize I’m still a blessed child of the Creator.” The mother in the Boyd family echoed the behavior of most families saying, “I prayed and prayed and prayed.”
Among the strongest resiliency processes for these families may be their ability to use their adversities as catalysts for transformative learning. All the families reported learning important lessons as a result of dealing with their adversities. The Gordon mother, whose daughter was sexually abused, says, “I learned how to deal with reality a lot more.” The Boyd mother responds to her son’s murder, saying, “I learned that God is good and that J.’s time is finished here.” The mother in the Yerman family expresses her lessons metaphorically, saying, “Then it’s like going down the road, when the road is blocked, then you have to go down another one. So you don’t just stop when stuff hits you and you’re confronted with something. You just don’t sit there and accept it you find a way to do something else, or another way of doing things.” Her daughter sums up her lessons this way, “I have learned to value people…I’m a lot more loving than I would have been, if all this hadn’t happened, a lot more approachable. I’m a lot more affectionate. I’m a lot more giving with myself to people, than I would have been. I’ve learned to value life and make the best of it and that’s including myself.” The Kempler father responding to his son’s incarceration shares, “I think some of the lesson is to actually, as a parent, to give folks…strategies. Sometimes we leave it up to children to go on and make their own decisions…at least we could be more involved.” His younger son says, “ I learned to make the right decision and to always stay close to the family.”
These families seem to see life as a school and adversity as instructive. While there was a question on the interview guide that was asked about the lessons learned, most of the families volunteered the answers before they were asked. To some extent, the progress of the healing process seemed directly proportional to the clarity surrounding the lessons learned. Families who expressed an intense need to know answers that were either unclear or unavailable had members who continued to struggle with their adversities. The mother in the Gordon family and the father in the Anderson family fit into this category as she continues to assess the practicality of her religious affiliation and they both question their responsibility for their respective adversities.
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Meaning Making
Meaning making for families includes: affiliative value; normalizing and contextualing adversities within a family life cycle orientation; a sense of coherency; and facilitative appraisal of crisis. Meaning making is the process of understanding adversity and attributing causal factors and influence to it. Resilience is fostered when we gain a sense of coherence rendering crisis experience more comprehensible, manageable and meaningful.
The families in this study promote resiliency in their lives by attempting to understand the context in which their crisis occurs and the systemic influences that help create the environment, occasion and the event itself. They view behavior as resulting from many variables rather than from one cause. For instance, the Boyd family attributed the shooting death of their son to issues related to the absence of fathering, the youngster’s poor judgment and anger, the dysfunctional behavior of the shooter’s family, a racist society that provides minimal support for Black males, the sometimes unsuccessful parenting strategies of mom as a single parent, and other influences. Family members trying to understand their son’s death attribute many reasons, saying, “I believe it could’ve been an accident…the reason for both my sons’ births and J’s death was to bring me closer to the Lord…it’s another symptom of racism …They tried to cover it up, mother and all of them…and now, J. played a part, he sneaked out…So I don’t totally blame his death on D…J was partially responsible too. If he wasn’t there, it wouldn’t have happened.” They could have added an inadequate education system, poor gun control laws, violence-glorifying television, and so on. When we look at causes, it seems that there are no innocent bystanders; we all are complicit.
The adolescent suicides in the Anderson and Thompson families, both professional families, created many questions, but the Thompsons seemed to fare better in part because a suicide note was left that explained the adolescent’s perception of his distress and professed his love for his family. Nevertheless she wanted to know “why K. hadn’t gotten in touch with (after his death)…because I felt we were so close.” The Andersons, without a note, had to devise their story and contextualize their experience without the benefit of the distressed adolescent’s perception. They used personal speculations and the professional help of therapists to assist in the process. Therapy in response to trauma and adversity is to some extent a contextualizing process. For instance, the Gordon adolescent who was sexually abused acknowledged how her therapist assisted her, saying, “Therapy has some part in how I dealt with it and how I really know that I was right in telling and it would be wrong for me not to tell…I learned in therapy if anybody touches you in any way, you tell.” Her mother credits therapy with helping her, sharing, “So those therapy sessions allowed me to really get in tune with myself, with those issues that needed to be addressed like what made me get involved with this kind of person (husband); so that I could be a lot more, make a lot better decisions for my children, and for myself.”
Families like the Johnsons who have facilitative belief systems are eventually able to define and frame a problem situation in a way that will influence positively how they will handle it. Ms. Johnson was able to reframe her experience of seeing her son’s alleged killer, saying, “I’m looking for this husky person, and here is this child looking almost like my child…This child looked almost a half inch taller, a little bit thinner than D., light complexioned, he was lighter than D. and not a bad-looking kid.” This reframe allowed her to feel and act differently in response to her son’s killer.

Connectedness
Connectedness for families includes: mutual support, collaboration and commitment; respect for individual needs, differences and boundaries; strong leadership; and reconnection and reconciliation when needed.
Resilient families tend to balance closeness and commitment with tolerance for separateness and differences (Walsh, 1998). Disconnection is a primary source of stress in people’s lives. Adversity in its most intense form, loss through death, is the quintessential disconnection. Resiliency involves mutual discovery of a path back into connection and building a more differentiated and flexible means of reconnecting (Jordan, 1992).
According to Stinnett and DeFrain, (1985) pulling together is one of the most important processes in weathering crises. The comfort and security provided by warm, caring relationships is especially critical in withstanding separation and loss. The families in this study consistently report having become closer in response to their family crisis.
According to the Kempler father, his family “had some great conversations as a result of this (difficulty). We talked about some things that we might not have talked about.” Their crisis slowed them down and offered them the opportunity to attend to each other. Too often families pass each other in their daily lives without noticing and attending to each other’s needs. Crisis upsets the daily routine and challenges us to reprioritize. Crisis encourages us to decipher the real from the unreal. In this situation, it opened the door for this family to experience deeper levels of intimacy and sharing thereby reinforcing their closeness.
The Yermans report developing a new set of family rituals (i.e. kissing and hugging, regular check-ins, periodic get-togethers) that support their closeness and commitment to being family which has taken on new value and priority in their lives since the death of their loved ones. Nearly all interviewed family members commented that their adversity has brought them closer together and several family members also acknowledge having a clearer more independent sense of self as a result of their experience. The adult daughters in both the Johnson and Thompson families and the mother in the Coleman family all say that they are stronger as a result of their challenge. It is as if their increased sense of connection to the family helps them feel more secure and willing to take risks to actualize their individual power. Genuine closeness supports differentiation among family members.
Several of these families survive and prosper because they have strong leadership. Eight of the nine families are single parent families and, of those, seven are female headed. The Coleman mother who was threatened with removal of her six young children reversed the direction of her family by “taking charge”. Subsequent to her crisis, she began to proactively make decisions for her family, throwing off the victim persona and assuming a more assertive position in her family’s functioning. The Yerman mother, who was physically and emotionally abused through much of her marriage, has not only assumed strong leadership in her family but likewise in her community where noninvolvement is the norm. After standing up to her husband, Ms Yerman has asserted herself in her home by confronting her older sons and putting them out of the home. She took this same posture into the community and began confronting youngsters who were involved in drug trafficking and violence with good results. Both of these women, while clearly in charge in their households, involve their children in the decision-making processes. Ms Yerman reports that she allowed her children to design their brother’s funeral and Ms Coleman actualized collaborative decision making in the interview by continually giving her young children choices.
Besides connecting with each other, family members discussed connections in a number of ways. Ms Thompson says that in response to her son’s suicide she now feels “more connected to…pleasure, beauty and comfort in the little things (in life)”. In her reflective state she is also connecting to her family’s history, legacy and ancestors, as are the Boyds, the Olivers, and the Andersons. All of these families report connecting with and being comforted by ancestors through their memories, clairvoyant experiences and dream life.
Reconnection and reconciliation are important components in these families’ connectedness. During their interview, the Yermans enacted an ongoing reconciliation process between mother and her adult daughter who was semi-estranged responding to difficulty precipitated by the daughter’s relationship with her stepfather. The mother acknowledged daughter’s issues and validated her feelings as they reviewed some of the incidents that separated the daughter from the family. Ms. Yerman also reports having reconciled with one of her sons that she “put out” and is waiting for the opportunity to reconcile with the other. The adult children in both the Oliver family and the Anderson family used the interview as an opportunity to apologize to their parent for their destructive behavior that initially followed the crisis. The Oliver son relates indirectly, “Still to this day, I really don’t talk about it, because there was no reason for it (his behavior). My mother was my best friend.” The Anderson daughter says, “I regret hurting my mom. Me and her got into fistfights, hitting each other and socking each other. I never really said ‘I’m sorry.” Mr. Kempler is valuing the renewed relationship and conversations that he has had with his son since his son’s incarceration and the Gordons continue to work on reviving confidence and trust in their relationship following the sexual abuse of the daughter. The Gordon mother says, “Even with T. (the abused daughter), I’m trying to kind of make up for lost time so to speak and doing it better.”

Open Emotional Expression
Open emotional expression includes: sharing a range of feelings; mutual empathy; responsibility for one’s own feelings; and pleasurable interactions. Effective communication processes facilitate resilient family functioning. Open communication is especially important in dealing with a prolonged ordeal. The families in this study benefit from their ability to show and tolerate a wide range of emotions (Beavers & Hampson, 1993). Open emotional expression creates a climate of trust and acts as a valve with which pressure can be released. Bonds of closeness develop when we allow ourselves to express feelings and show our vulnerability (Goleman, 1994).
The interviews were accented with flood of emotions as family members related their tragedies, remembered the good times and expressed optimism for the future. The interviews were accented with tears, laughter, melancholy moments, cheerful remembrances, intense sadness and hopefulness.
There is a strong sense of mutuality in these families that is expressed as mutual empathy. According to Jordan (1992), the process of mutuality involves openness to influence, emotional availability and a constantly changing pattern of responding to and affecting the other’s state. Mutual empathy creates reciprocal relationships that address the needs of all involved. The families in this study have cores that are composed of very close family members who exist in interdependence. They provide mutual support in terms of finances, empathy, childcare, etc.

Cultural Specificity

The following processes emerged from the interviews but were not previously identified in the Walsh framework. There is no claim that these processes are the exclusively characteristic of Black families only that they appear to be prominent processes with these Black families.

The Expression of Tenderness: Empathy, Compassion and Forgiveness
These families tend to become tender in their response to adversity. There is a tenderness that is expressed as empathy, compassion and forgiveness. These feelings of tenderness support the connecting, reconnecting and reconciliation that is part of any long-term relationship. In the face of adversity these families express their tenderness, and deepen their bonds of intimacy.
The Yerman mother not only expressed forgiveness and compassion toward her abusive ex-husband but also empathy directly toward her daughter who had been semi-estranged saying, “Then after you kept coming back, each time, our relationship got better. But I said to myself, ‘this is what I wanted’…So I still struggle to understand your personalities and also to help you all to be alright and not place my values on you.”
The Boyd and Johnson mothers who expressed compassion toward the youths who shot their sons were most impressive to me. They manage to be compassionate and forgiving in spite of or maybe because of their grief. They avoid the traps involved in blaming others for their feelings and thinking of themselves as innocent victims. They own some responsibility for what is happening to them. In this way they claim power in their lives by acknowledging that they have and have had choices. The Johnson mother in reference to her son’s alleged murderer says, “So now my prayer is for him, for God to do something in his life to turn him around that perhaps…he can be a witness to something else. It’s sad, just really sad. So, the bitterness and the anger and the wanting him dead and all that that I felt in the beginning is not there anymore.”
The Boyd mother petitioned the court to get progressive sentencing for her son’s killer. She relates her reason for advocating for him thusly, “He got five years probation, and I asked that he have supervised community service, volunteering and advocating for gun safety education. So he got 100 hours every year, for the five years…He also got court ordered into the Rites of Passage Kollective, at my request, to help see if there was some way to help him move beyond that moment in time where he was immature enough to think it was okay to play with guns and move on to some sense of responsibility.”
Empathy, compassion and forgiveness are also evident in the Kempler’s father interaction around his son’s incarceration. After initially deciding not to assist his son following his arrest for carjacking, the father softened reasoning, “…he wouldn’t be able to handle this by himself. Because he didn’t have enough resources and then you realize often times when people are in those kinds of situations, that’s when they need you the most.” The Oliver mother says of her trials resulting form her husband’s incarceration, “It taught me compassion, a lot of compassion.”

The Experience of Remembering
The experience of remembering to support a sense of self and a sense of spirituality is demonstrated in many ways in these families. The process of remembering (the good, the bad, history, ancestors, lessons, values etc.) assisted the families in clarifying their sense of self and giving context to the value in all of their experience, no matter how unpleasant. Remembering reinforced for these families who they are, where they come from and the strengths that have historically taken care of them.
Remembering seemed to validate the suffering and the recovery from it. It provided a context into which each family could fit as a contributor to a larger story about the family’s long term existence and survival. The families used storytelling, sharing of pictures and artifacts, family histories, and personal reflections to remember and to affirm a sense of self.
The Thompsons, a prime example, began their interview by remembering their ancestors and the family history sharing, “This is down in Tennessee (referring to a painting on the wall), right under the border. That’s where we come from. And it’s not just a physical place, there’s a feeling that is very different than the way we live (now). That’s my great-grandmother on the wall. That’s my grandfather on this wall. (This family has moved into a new residence since the suicide of their son. Pictures and artifacts that reveal the family history adorn the new home.) And I think what happened to me is I started to really think about where we come from. Not just the physical place, but the spiritual place, the emotional place, and what was so important about it to me as I was growing up, that I went down to this farm every summer…after school. And when I look back on it, they were poor people. They didn’t have material things. They had no education…and they maintained great family relationships. My grandfather and grandmother were a couple for 63 years. They raised six children and three of them not their own. They had a ‘family’. It was a different kind sensibility…”
In his pain over his daughter’s suicide the Alexander father remembers, “I come from a long line of strong people…Starting with my wife’s grandfather. We used to call him ‘Daddyo Socko Powell’. He was a man that I could talk to. My father-in-law, who’s still alive, is a man I can talk to. My father passed…I’ve had significant men and women in my life.” He also remembers his daughter saying, “She was smart, she was attentive…She showed me things I thought I knew that she showed me I was incorrect. She showed me she was tough. She showed me that she was capable. She showed me that she was honest, that she was sincere, she showed me that she was a hard worker, and that she was an excellent student…”
The Yerman mother refers to her deceased ex-husband who had been abusive, “I forgive you. You’ve suffered enough, and I forgive you. It’s over. It’s okay now. I remember some of the good things”. It is as if remembering the good things and times, mitigates the suffering.
The son in the Oliver family talks of remembering, “It was a tough time, but I still remember, my mother was the person who taught me how to slow dance, how to hand dance. Just remembering things like that, that helped me out a lot…Things that you never forget, that you know, things that I was taught (like) how prayer changes things, when you really don’t have nothing else to do, just small things like that. Prayer changes things…a lot of the talk I heard that I really didn’t realize how much of it I really digested, until I heard it in my ear again. And I heard these people who were reminding me who I was, what I came from and where I was going.”
The daughter in the Johnson family is motivated as she remembers the bad times too, “I remember seeing my mother standing (prostituting) on the corners, on Pennsylvania Ave. I can recall hurting at that point just seeing her standing there. And I was young, but I still feel the pain…everything she went through was I guess a blessing too, because it made me know that that was not the road that I wanted to take…sometimes I don’t even know where the motivation came from.”

The Experience of Gratitude and Humility
These families used gratitude and humility to support the cognitive reframing that facilitates meaning making. Gratitude and humility were expressed throughout the interviews with these families. They expressed gratitude for good times, hard times, lessons learned, relationships, opportunities to experience loved ones before their departures, new insights, pain facilitated growth etc.
The Families commented on being humbled by their adversity and consequently seeing their lives differently. They expressed gratitude for many unusual “blessings”. For instance the Boyd mother says, “I’m grateful for all the headaches J. gave me too…and I’m grateful that He (God) gave me my son back before He took him, because my son was back. The boy that I knew was back.” The Oliver son shares, “I thank God for going crazy, to actually feel what it feels like to be sane”. The Coleman’s mother contributes, “In all honesty, I think it (the adversity) was good for me because I don’t know where I’d be (without it). I don’t think I would’ve accomplished as much as I have accomplished if it had not happened.” The Boyd mother says, “So, we’ve had a lot of blessings too. If J. hadn’t passed, he couldn’t have helped my sister stay here.”
The Thompson mother speaks of her humility, “Folks have said, ‘you’re quieter now; why are you so modest?’ It’s not about being modest…I’m being humble. Because I have been humbled in a big way. Because, everything that I felt I knew, I don’t know. Everything that I was certain about, I don’t know.” In a similar fashion, Anderson father shares, “and over the process, I kind of recognized that I really don’t know what I thought I knew, I’m not as smart as I thought I was, I don’t have the insights that I thought I did, I’m not always going to be the best person, I’m not always going to be the best father, and I certainly don’t know where I’m going all the time.”

The Experience of Dreams and Clairvoyance
These families seem to use dreams, and other clairvoyant experiences to clarify issues, console and comfort themselves and to commune with deceased relatives. Several family members reported having had premonitions related to their adversities and revelations after their adversities that came through their dream life. They reported seeing departed loved ones before and after their experience of adversity and receiving important messages through them that assisted in providing comfort and giving context to the traumatic experience.
The Anderson mother relates an ongoing relationship with her dream life saying, “I would always have these dreams and then I would have this reoccurring dream, that I’d see my mother holding my daughter (both deceased) and they’re not the same age they were when they passed. My daughter’s like, five or six and my mother’s younger. But I would always see them on a hill, and they’re waving to me that it’s okay. They’re together. That’s some comfort to me. And I think the fact that I had a dream a week before my daughter did what she did…
The Boyd mother relates several experiences with her son after his death sharing, ”so I went to a good medium that my therapist recommended to me and J. (her deceased son) came. And he (the departed son) came with my grandfather. My grandfather and I were very close and he told me that he’d been with me since he passed in ’72, because he knew that I was going to have a lot of pain. When J. was shot he went to him immediately, and he’s been with him ever since, which was just so comforting to know that J. was in good hands. My grandmother was there too, and several relatives. And J. said it was an accident, that nobody was mad at him.” She relates further, “I had a therapist who I didn’t know at the time she was a trained by the medium and was also a medium. But I talk to J. fairly regularly in therapy because he came whenever I came. She could see him and I’ve seen him twice…I’ve seen him in a dream. My sister sees him regularly when she’s drifting off to sleep, and she saw him immediately after he passed.”
The Oliver mother hesitantly shares her experience saying, “I had a cousin who passed. We were very close. And this might sound like ‘woo woo.’ But for a long time I couldn’t cry because I was hurt that bad, that I couldn’t cry. And she came to me in a dream, and in the course of the dream she said ‘you won’t feel whole until you do your music. You have to do your music because that’s your ministry. Don’t cry for me.”
The Yerman mother says, “I went to a tarot card reader, and she said, ‘did you have someone in your family die recently?’ I said, ‘Yes, my son.’ Then she said that ‘he wants me (mother) to reach out to someone sick in your family. He wants you to help them.’ I said, ‘he wants me to help his father.’ That sort of helped me to let go of some of that pain.”
The Johnson mother relates what may have been a premonition of her son’s death saying, “one day we were sitting in the kitchen, we were fussing at him about going to school so he can make something of himself. And he was like, ‘why? I’m probably not gonna live past 18’…we knew that there was going to be a major change for him. But the way we was seeing it was like, well maybe God has called you to be a minister or something. This is what we were feeling. We knew there was going to be something different…but we had no idea it was going to be death…Then that same night, the fact that they were just sitting in there talking about death, that same day. ‘Man if I die, my mom’s gonna buy me a suit and tie,’ or “man if I die, I know this, that and the other…and he’d just said it and left out. And then when he left here, he said, ‘Bye mom.’ And I said, ‘D., don’t say goodbye, say see you later. ‘OK mom, see you later.” She never saw him alive again.

DISCUSSION

There are nine processes identified in this study as supportive of Black family resiliency. The processes delineated from the Walsh (1998) framework are: (1) Positive outlook; (2) Transcendence and spirituality; (3) Connectedness; (4) Open emotional expression and (5) Meaning Making. The newly identified processes are: (1) Tenderness: The expression of empathy, compassion and forgiveness; (2) The practice of remembering; (3) The expression of gratitude and humility; and (4) The experience of dreams and clairvoyance.
The families in this study develop resiliency by living a core set of constructions that inform their responses to adversity. These constructs are culturally based and reinforced cyclically.
1. Adversity is instructive. It is life or God’s way of trying to get our attention. It focuses us by delineating priorities and helping us to determine what is real from what is not real. Pain is the teacher and it subsides as we receive our messages and learn our lessons. Adversity seldom comes without warning. When we miss the signs of pending tragedy and are confronted with it, it throws us into an assessment of priorities, actions, and inactions.
2. Submission (adaptation) is key to resiliency. The question becomes “What does the Creator (or life) want of me? What am I supposed to do as opposed to what do I want to do? What change is being required of me? What mission or task is calling me? What am I supposed to learn about myself through this process? What is the message that this experience has for me? When these questions are adequately addressed, the spirit is comforted.
3. Mutuality in all relationships is of optimal value. Mutuality is the harmony with self (internal) and others (external) that promotes connectedness in relationships (Phillips, 1990). Connectedness in relationships validates existence for relationship-oriented people. Ultimately, adversity forces us to balance our experience of disruption with efforts to create or re-create harmony (homeostasis) in our lives by giving love/service to counterbalance the experience of loss.
Reconstruction of Meanings
The families in this study use a process of reconstruction of meaning making to adapt to their adversities. The participant families continually reframed and reconstructed their experiences to make the pain of loss manageable. They dealt with their losses by reconstructing their loss to acquisition. The loss of a child was reconstructed as the learning of a lesson. The threat of termination of parental rights was reconstructed as a “wake up call”. The incarceration of loved ones was reconstructed as an intimacy-facilitating event. Suicide was reconstructed as a catalyst for reflection and assessment of life’s purpose. This reconstruction of meaning making process, although generally unconscious, served to make the adversities not only tolerable but also enlightening. If one’s purpose is revealed and we learn valuable lessons from the adversity then neither the life nor the loss is in vain.
Reconstruction of meaning must be positive and optimistic to be helpful. The reconstruction process is grounded in the ability to look for the good or at least the lesson or message in the situation. Since positivity cannot be faked it begins with the assumption of the positive nature of life and experience.
The experience of loss is neutralized through the giving of love or service. The giving may be memorial such as the continuation of the lost one’s work; it may be ritualistic as the giving of genuine honor and praise during a funeral; it may be the giving of concrete assistance of money and time for incarcerated persons; it may be the giving of community service to prevent continued loss of the same type in the community; it may be the giving of self in reflection on one’s mission that hopefully clarifies purpose and prepares one for higher calling; or mostly it may be the giving of the self to the experience of suffering because when we are connected we share each other’s pain and suffering (Young-Eisendrath, 1996) and thereby do service to one another.

Resilient Responses to Loss

Loss Acquisitional Resilient Response
Reconstruction
Suicide (2) Spirituality, self-reflection Deeper sense of spirituality;
& & connectedness Reflection; Responsibility; Sense of Purpose(memorializing loved one by continuing their work or providing service as prevention);

Murder (2) Spiritual purpose & mission; Deeper spirituality; Sense of purpose (deeper
involvement in one’s own mission); Clarity; Awareness
of contextual issues.
Illness and
Death (1) Purpose & Connection Realization of importance of connectedness Sense of purpose (community service as prevention)

Incarceration(2) Intimacy, closeness Reconnection; Awareness of needs of others;
and genuineness. Focus on lessons learned.
Threat of Awakening, appreciation, Sense of purpose (commitment to existing task);
Termination of & spirituality Deeper spirituality; Reconnectedness; Focus on
Parental Rights lessons learned.

Sexual Abuse( 1) Awakening, reconciliation Acceptance of responsibility; Service to family;
& connectedness Contextualizing participation; Acquiring new
skills: Focus on lessons learned.

The interviewed families and family members seemed resilient to the degree and extent that they were involved in giving love and service. Family members who were not as involved in the giving appeared to suffer under their adversity more than others. Family members who did participate in the giving appeared more comforted and fulfilled during the periods when they were focused on the needs of others while giving love/service. When they were not focused on the needs of others in the giving process, they seemed more vulnerable to self-pity and depression.
The resiliency process proceeds from: (1) experiencing the adversity to; (2) questioning the “why” of the adversity in an attempt to understand and validate self; (3) reconstructing the adversity as an acquisition; to (4) giving love/service to balance the scales and establish internal and external harmony. Once the adversity is reframed to an acquisition it is accompanied by feelings of gratitude and it then becomes logical that the grateful person should give something back to express his/her gratitude. Spiritually, this giving back establishes the giver as a recipient of blessings that must be acted on reciprocally by the morally grounded person with attempts to support the homeostasis of the community through service. The giving of service changes the definition of the giver from being a powerless victim of adversity to being a person with the power to assist his/her community by sharing their power. When we give service we take the focus off of what we have lost and focus on what we have to give. When we give service we take the focus off of ourselves and focus on the needs of others.
All of the participant families in this study are in some stage of neutralizing the pain of loss by giving love and service. What differentiates these families from others who may not appear as resilient is their ability to be adaptive. At some level, all of these families submitted to the need to change. They defined their situation, no matter how unpleasant, as instructive and made efforts to adapt to the situation by defining the positives in the situation. They had enough strength of will to choose to go on and to benefit from their distress.
Families that are less resilient may refuse to give up or change their attitudes and behaviors toward the world. They may have difficulty integrating the new information posed by adversity into their worldview. Such families live in fear, afraid to let go of dysfunctional ways of viewing life and ultimately themselves. Consequently, they hold onto dysfunctional behavior patterns that eventually create more adversity. While the experience of adversity is a natural part of being on this planet, some families become addicted to it. This stagnation manifests as rigidity, which may be central to mental dysfunction.
Adaptability may be the foundation of mental health. Adaptability speaks to the ability to assimilate and integrate new information and experiences into our perception and problem solving behaviors in an ever-evolving environment. The families in this study demonstrated sufficient degrees of resilient behavior that enabled them to adapt to very difficult circumstances with varying degrees of success.

Future Research Implications
This study is an attempt to understand Black family resiliency through the use of qualitative methodology. More study is also needed to determine the influence of varied family structural types on the resilient behavior in Black families. Single parent households dominated this study. Further research that helps to match process prevalence with structural type and socioeconomic status would be useful in identifying sub-cultural tendencies among Black families. Research with similar methodology may also be useful in identifying culturally specific resiliency process patterns among Whites, Asians, Latinos and other ethnic groups.

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