by Police - Bureau of Police Research and Development

The Indian Police JournalStress ResiliencyResilience is the ability to bounce back, to thrive and increasecompetence in the time of crisis. Resiliency describes the process experience, especially highly stressful events (O’Leary & lckovics,1995; Rutter, 1987). Resilient people can competently handle differentkinds of situations and function smoothly to solve problems. There arethree dimensions of stress resiliency (Thomas & Timon, 1974):• is the habit of focusing upon the negatives atthe expense of the positives. The result is an unnecessary degreeof distress and discouragement.• Necessitating occurs when we think it is necessary or imperativethat we do something - which we “need to” or “have to” do acertain task. Necessitating becomes a way in which we placegreater demands upon ourselves.• Low skill recognition refers to a tendency for us not to recognizethe role of our own abilities in producing our successes. Thisexaggerated sense of dependence can leave us feeling vulnerable task demands are more likely to be experienced as excessive and,therefore, be a source of stress.Resiliency is described as “a class of phenomena characterized byor risk”. People who are resilient face situations with a positivea sound mental health. Being resilient to stress is very important inPolice personnel as their job carry high levels of stress and resilienceis essential for sound mental health and optimum functioning. It isexpected that mental health will be better in Inspectors, who are stressresilientas compared to those who are predisposed to stress.Thus, the objectives of the present study were to assess the effect ofmeaningfulness in life and stress resiliency on the mental health of• Police personnel with high level of meaningfulness in life wouldshow good mental health as compared to Police personnel withlower levels of meaningfulness in life.142 January - March, 2013