Dr Long is proud to launch his 14^th book in the series on risk. For free download here: Everyday Social Resilience Being In Risk

This from the back cover:

‘Wherever there is risk there is an equal and complementary need for resilience.

Whilst Risk Makes Sense, things don’t always go as planned. When risk ends well, we often congratulate ourselves for our skill and achievement, when in fact a great deal of luck is involved. When risk doesn’t go so well, we need to adapt and negotiate through a constellation of by-products that were not seen at the time of our ‘leap of faith’.

Our ability to navigate, adapt and learn from the outcomes of risk presents us with the opportunity to develop resilience.

There are many popular approaches to resilience that are individualistic, behaviourist and focused on the brain. We hear about ‘brain-fitness’, ‘mindfulness’, ‘Headspace’, ‘bounce back’ and other discourse in resilience that has a focus on ‘pull yourself up by your boot straps’. This is NOT the approach of this book.

Indeed, this book looks at the Socialitie of human being and presents the importance of a holistic and ecological approach to developing resilience.

In the book, the first discussion is on the every-day. This is the daily grind and mundane routine of daily living and, the stressors that surround this state. Much of the resilience literature focuses on the abnormal and unusual. Much of the every-day is focused on objects.

Then the discussion looks at the Every-day. This includes a disposition, orientation and ‘way of being’ that seeks opportunities for ‘meeting’ (Buber i-thou) where they are available. Much of the Every-day is focused on subjects.

Finally, I present the Everyday. This is where and when ‘real meeting’ is realised, when we connect and find meaning with others in the shared life.

It is in Everyday Social Resilience that we find the real support, care and help that is needed in adversity, suffering and harm. Everyday Social Resilience is most often found in a sense of community and communality, where personhood and ethical relationships are made foundational to engagement. In such an orientation we learn the power of the presence of others and of shared belonging and becoming.

In Everyday Social Resilience we can learn a better way to respond to adversity and recovery than ‘pull yourself up by your boot laces’. We also learn that we never ‘bounce back’ but we learn from events into a better way in movement forward, as a new person, to a new hope and future.

The book concludes with practical tools, methods and skills to help develop Everyday Social Resilience.’