"Stress-Hardiness" The Path to Resilience for Lawyers

By Nancy Stek, Assistant Director
New Jersey Lawyers Assistance Program

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Lawyers have a highly stressful profession. Studies confirm we have higher rates of depression, anxiety-related disorders and addiction than the general population. Recognizing and building our “resilience” or “stress-hardiness” provides needed protective factors to counter high levels of stress and strain. Continually working against deadlines in highly charged, adversarial and competitive settings exacts a very high price, unless a lawyer ranks high in hardiness traits.

Dr. Salvatore Maddi, utilizing a set of human strengths that act as buffers against extreme stress, adversity and psychological illness has developed “ hardiness." This framework identifies how some people grow and thrive in stressful situations. For 12 years Dr. Maddi and his team of researchers worked with 400 AT&T employees before, during, and after the greatest divestiture in history. One-third of affected employees not only survived the upheaval but thrived in spite of it. Those who thrived had in common three key beliefs that helped them to turn adversity to advantage. Hundreds of research studies conducted since Dr. Maddi’s original work in the 1980s have consistently confirmed the stress buffering nature of these characteristics referred to as “the 3 C’s.”

CHALLENGE - Those who look at life as a challenge tend to welcome new situations as opportunities to learn, grow, and develop rather than looking at new prospects as threats.

COMMITMENT – Those with commitment give activities their best, not their perfect, effort and have a curiosity about what they are doing instead of a feeling of detachment or isolation.

CONTROL- Those who demonstrate control are motivated to find ways to influence the outcome of stressful changes, rather than lapse into helplessness and passivity.

A fourth “C” also has a powerful impact on hardiness and that is “   Connection” or social support. Social support contributes significantly to the strengthening of attitudes and coping skills. Creating and maintaining a supportive, caring and encouraging environment goes a long way to enhancing and strengthening personal hardiness.

In sum, lawyers know we have a  highly stressful, demanding work environment. As a result, we lawyers have less time to spend on our own physical, mental, and emotional needs. Vicarious trauma or the “cost of caring” as referred to by Dr. Charles Figley in Compassion Fatigue (1995), results from working with difficult and traumatized clients. This also negatively impacts an attorney’s ability to perform and cope. However, applying the 3 C’s to the practice of law while creating social support leads to stress-hardiness: thriving in adversity, seeing the glass half-full and taking an active role in the direction of one’s life and practice. Building stress-hardiness is the path to becoming a resilient lawyer.