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What enables some people to manage a post-conflict healing, a peace without much new threat of violent conflict?
Part of the answer may be in the methods used to wage the conflict. For example, in a 2005 study published by Freedom House, the general tendency to relapse into not conflict following a regime change increased when the insurgency that defeated the old regime was armed and tended to not devolve into war when the insurgency was nonviolent (e.g., Serbia in 2000, Philippines in 1986, fall of communist regimes in Warsaw Pact in the 1989 period, etc.) (Karatnycky & Ackerman, 2005). While the seriousness of the struggles are the same, the lack of atrocities committed by the nonviolent victors might not feed so much into the powerful motive for revenge, which sometimes can go on for years, even generations, when a party lost to violence.
Individuals vary in levels of resilience in context of identity struggle. Psychology researchers found "greater identity resilience is associated with more adaptive reactions, less undesired identity change, and less negative affect after thinking about aversive experiences" (Breakwell, 2021, p. 573).
Being able to manage those aversive experiences is a challenge to many individuals and to identity groups, e.g., those especially on lower status levels in a particular culture at a particular time. Being gay in a homophobic culture, being BIPOC in a racist culture, being a girl or woman in a sexist culture are all situations where identity and culture work to damage resilience for some, if not most, of the downpressed identity groups. When they suffer from that it is also referred to as internalized oppression.
Some practitioners of social activism who are members of historically marginalized groups assert that being an activist for justice is a way to develop "internalized resilience"[1] that can overcome any internalized oppression.
Families of origin in communities with shared identities can also help prepare youth to grow into a resilience based on pride in ancestry, identity, and cultural greatness.
Breakwell, G. M. (2021). Identity resilience: its origins in identity processes and its role in coping with threat. Contemporary Social Science, 16(5), 573–588. https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2021.1999488
Karatnycky, Adrian & Ackerman, Peter (2005). How freedom is won: From civic resistance to durable democracy. New York, NY: Freedom House.
[1] https://www.believeoutloud.com/voices/article/internalized-resilience-embracing-thrivingness/
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