“An expanded model of family resilience that examines key processes involved in family resiliency and resources that families draw upon to help manage and reduce stress and cultivate resiliency and positive growth, including family belief systems, family organizational patterns, and family communication processes.”

Ecological resilience refers to the extent to which a family can resist disturbance without resulting in structural changes, or how long it takes for resilience to mediate the transition back to stability after a disturbance occurs.

Family stress and resilience theory investigates how families respond to stressors, and how family resilience may prevent these reactions from being negative.

“An evidence-based model that describes indicators of psychological health for individuals, families, and commands and refocuses responsibility for promoting psychosocial health on everyone in the system.”

Resilience is "the capacity to overcome adversity, or thrive despite challenges or trauma."

The military family resilience theory is based in the concept of resilience, the family stress model, family systems theory, and Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory. Thus, the military family resilience theory addresses the ability of family members and the family as a whole to overcome the challenges associated with military life.

Family resilience theory addresses the ability (or inability) of families to come out of a crisis or avoid a crisis altogether. This model has assumed various definitions among researchers and practitioners, but overall has evolved in meaning through a series of waves. The first wave version of the family resilience model was grounded in family stress and coping theory, and identified resilience as an outcome. The second wave version, on the other hand, was grounded in individual resilience, family stress theory, and family systems theory along with the notion of resilience as a process rather than an outcome.

The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS) study was conducted to comprehensively investigate risk factors and protective factors for suicide, suicide-related behavior, and other mental, behavioral, and relational health issues among Army personnel to develop practical and actionable information to guide mental health resilience. The Army STARRS project has five distinct sets of studies: 1) Historical Administrative Data Study, 2) New Solider Study, 3) All Army Study, 4) the Pre-Post Deployment Study, and 5) Special studies.