(Mal)adaptive sibling self and other communicative resilience in the context of parental substance use.

This article focuses on how adult siblings of parents with substance use disorder (SUD) experience and enact communicative resilience (CR) within their family context. Using the Communication Theory of Resilience (CTR), the study identifies five pervasive and co-occurring resilience triggers—expectancy violations, conflict, neglect, parentification, and anxiety—and examines how siblings engage in five CR processes both for themselves and others, revealing that these processes can be adaptive, maladaptive, or ambivalent. The research advances CTR by applying the other-resilience heuristic, exploring relationships between self- and other-resilience, and introducing the concept of strategic resilience to help individuals prioritize responses amid overlapping triggers. Findings highlight the complex, often simultaneous challenges siblings face and suggest practical implications for family-centered counseling and social work interventions aimed at supporting resilience in families affected by parental SUD.