Endurance for life projects : individual resilience in the context of chronic pain

Abstract

Critical scholarship on resilience often holds that discourses focusing on individual resilience reify neoliberal governance. Such critiques rightly address the socio-politics surrounding persons from whom resilience is socially expected. However, they also risk reducing resilience to simply another appendage of neoliberal ideology. This ideological reductionism contradicts itself, by implicitly acknowledging the role of individual agency in dealing with adversity, whilst simultaneously conceptualizing ‘resilience’ as unfolding exclusively in ideological discourse. In equating resilience with neoliberal governance, such critiques meaningfully favour community- based forms of resilience, but stop short of appreciating the mental toughness required by individuals facing adversity, for fear of implicitly endorsing neoliberalism. In this paper, I make the case for individual resilience, by appealing to examples related to chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS). The private, pervasive, unpredictable nature of pelvic pain, alongside often contrasting modes of pain management, make individual aspects of resilience essential in dealing with such adversity. Individual endurance features as indispensable and as complementary to community-based resilience, contrary to ideologically reductionist views. Taking CPPS as an exemplar for understanding similar chronic pain experiences, I argue that documented instances of resilience in this domain ultimately reflect the life projects that sufferers pursue despite their affliction. I conclude that: (1) psychology requires a re-conceptualisation of resilience as embodied ‘endurance for’ life projects, re-orienting individuals' approach to their chronic pain; (2) a focus on individual resilience does not imply neoliberal ideation, but can actually be accompanied by other theoretical counterparts at the societal level, some of which actively resist neoliberalism.