Are your high-functioning clients really resilient – or simply coping?

United Kingdom · CPD points & talks · Psychologists

"She never misses a deadline."

"He's always the one everyone turns to."

"She's remarkably capable."

These are the kinds of comments we hear in conversations with colleagues, when discussing potential clients, and in supervision. On the outside, these clients appear resilient. They continue to perform well, support those around them and meet the demands placed upon them. They seem to be coping.

Yet behind the closed door of our consulting rooms, a rather different picture often emerges.

"I can't switch off."

"I'm exhausted - and I'm not even sure when that started."

"I feel as though I'm just about hanging on by a thread."

These are not admissions of failure, nor are they, in themselves, evidence of poor mental health. More often, they are signs that something essential has been running low for some time. Not motivation, nor capability, but resilience.

The difference between how someone appears to be coping, and what they reveal once they no longer feel they have to maintain that appearance, is one I believe deserves far more attention.

It raises an important question.

What if resilience has been misunderstood?

If you asked a room full of therapists, psychologists or coaches to define resilience, I believe their views would include toughness, perseverance, endurance, and the capacity to withstand pressure without breaking. Rarely, if ever, would anyone mention joy. Or curiosity. Or energy. Or renewal.

I find that really interesting.

Much of what we call resilience is really a measure of tolerance. How much pressure can this person absorb? For how long? At what cost? These are important questions, but I am not convinced they are sufficient. By focusing so heavily on what people can withstand, I wonder whether too little attention has been paid to what enables them to recover, adapt and flourish.

During over thirty years of working with clients who are leaders, senior professionals and healthcare practitioners, I’ve noticed something remarkably consistent. The people who sustain themselves well over many years are rarely those with the greatest capacity simply to endure. What distinguishes them is that they have found ways of replenishing what pressure gradually depletes. They understand something many high achievers overlook: energy is not an unlimited resource.

Barbara Fredrickson's broaden-and-build research reminds us that positive emotions are not merely pleasant experiences that follow successful coping. They help build the psychological and social resources we later draw upon when facing challenge. Joy, curiosity and connection are not simply rewards for resilience; they are part of what makes resilience possible in the first place.

Perhaps the question isn't whether our clients are succeeding. Perhaps it's what their success is costing them.

Let’s consider, then, whether enough attention is being given to what replenishes clients - or are they being encouraged to simply become better at tolerating ever-increasing demands?

I believe that real, sustainable resilience is not just about people's capacity to endure. It needs to include developing their capacity to replenish.

This was one of the observations I included in the FUEL Your Resilience® model. Rather than viewing resilience simply as the ability to keep going, the model identifies four interconnected elements that contribute to sustainable resilience: Flexibility, Use your resources, Energise, and Locate your control.

The Energise element is particularly relevant here. I’m not referring to self-care in its broadest sense. Most clients have already been encouraged to "look after themselves", often with little lasting impact. I mean something more intentional: helping people identify the activities, relationships and experiences that genuinely restore their physical and psychological energy, and recognising that these are not optional luxuries - but essential resources.

For one person, this may be meaningful conversation with trusted friends. For another, it might be time in nature, physical activity – or rest, or creative pursuits. The specifics vary enormously. What does not vary is the principle that continually drawing on our energy without deliberately replenishing it is rather like borrowing against a future that eventually demands repayment.

Many of the high-functioning clients we work with are not lacking in competence or determination. If anything, they possess these qualities in abundance. What they often lack is permission to recognise that resilience involves more than continuing to function and push through. They have become exceptionally skilled at concealing their own energy deficit, sometimes even from themselves.

I have found that one small change in the questions we ask can transform the conversation. Instead of asking, "How are you managing?", we might ask, "What is your current way of coping costing you?" The answers are often revealing. Clients begin to reflect not only on whether they are functioning, but on whether the way they are functioning is sustainable.

I’m not suggesting that endurance has no place in resilience. Clearly it does. But a model of resilience that celebrates endurance while neglecting recharging is, in my view, only telling part of the story.

Perhaps resilience is not simply about becoming better at carrying life's demands. Perhaps it is about becoming wiser in how we respond to them. That means recognising our emotions rather than suppressing them, valuing restoration as much as perseverance, and accepting that being fully human is not an obstacle to resilience - but the very place from which it grows.

If these ideas interest you, my CPD-accredited Calabash talk, What Really Builds Resilience? Introducing the FUEL Your Resilience® Model, explores the evidence underpinning this approach and its practical application for counsellors, psychologists, psychotherapists and coaches.