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Resilience frameworks blame individuals with anxiety instead of the systems that cause their distress.

You cannot beat an anxiety disorder by toughing it out—that is the entire point of the diagnosis.

Widespread anxiety in institutions (such as higher ed) signals institutional failure, not individual weakness.

"Resilience" has become one of the most popular words in mental health discourse. It sounds empowering—like something we should all aspire to. The basic definition seems fine: "the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties." Who wouldn't want that?

But among mental health professionals and researchers, the word has a different reputation. Some researchers call it a "weasel word." And they're right. Resilience, as a framework for thinking about anxiety, is neoliberal, boot-strappy nonsense that blames the individual for their suffering.

When we tell someone struggling with anxiety to "be resilient," we are telling them to get over it. We are telling them they are too weak to handle what everyone else can handle. We are putting the problem on the person rather than on the troublesome conditions that produced their distress. And that is not only unhelpful—it is harmful.

Resilience Blames the Person, Not the Problem

Viewing resilience as a positive character trait is deeply problematic. As psychology researchers Fisher and Jones argued, when we view resilience as an individual trait,........

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