**2.3 Resilience**

As mentioned earlier, the effects of disasters are influenced by a variety of variables, including disaster type, degree of destruction, duration, timing (time of day, day of week, season), and individual indicators, including age, gender, marital status, education, pre-disaster mental health, social and economic status, and resilience. Many of studies explained these variables [35, 36]. Nevertheless, the role of resilience in the effects of disasters has not been addressed much. Therefore, in this section, we describe the role of resilience in disasters.

First, we want to ask you to check **Figure 1**. This figure shows a building that was not destroyed in an earthquake in Iran because it was strong against the earthquake, although other buildings have been completely destroyed. We have shown this image from another angle in **Figure 2**. The building captured in the shot is a real-life example of resilience: the ability to become strong, happy, or successful again after a difficult situation or event [37]. This means you will be happy, strong, successful,

*Psychological Reactions after Disasters DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109007*

#### **Figure 1.** *The building that was not destroyed in an earthquake.*

**Figure 2.** *The building that was not destroyed in an earthquake.*

and outstanding under high-risk conditions. We imagine that resilience is displaying outstanding strength against problems, and it is the kind of post-traumatic growth (PTG). On the contrary, PTG is positive psychological alterations, and performance improvements over pre-crisis levels enable the individual to adapt to the new environment through cognitive restructuring. It means you have grown compared to before in five aspects including: "Recognizing Personal Strength" occurs when a person feels more confident. "Finding Unknown Possibilities and Opportunities" is experienced when people find a new way of life that would not be available if they did not experience a traumatic event. The domain of "Experiencing Positive Changes in Relationships" that shows a sense of kindness or closeness to others. "Appreciation of life" seems to have more appreciation for each new day of life. Finally, the scope of "Spiritual and Existential Change" understands personal growth that has a much better understanding of spiritual issues [14]. In PTG, you will grow more than before, but in resilience, you come back to the before situations or not negative changes after disasters. Several major studies have documented resilience as the "ability to go on with life," "Bend, but not break," or rebound from adversities; learn to live with ongoing fears and uncertainty [38, 39].

Now that we know the importance of resilience, we should know that psychosocial support is one of the factors that influence the resilience and PTG.
