Resilient Relationships Through Relational Neuroscience
How does resilience emerge within relationships?
Relational Resilience
Relational resilience refers to the dynamic capacity of a relationship to maintain, adapt and restore effective functioning in response to stress, disruption or changing demands.
This capacity is expressed and shaped through everyday interactions: how partners regulate emotions together, adjust to one another’s cues and actions, and repair disruptions in connection. Over time, these experiences can strengthen or strain the relationship’s capacity to navigate future challenges.
Research Programme
Resilient Individuals
How do people regulate and adapt within their relational environments?
Resilient Parent-Child Relationships
How do parents and children sustain connection and adapt together under stress?
Resilient Couples
How do partners sustain mutual support as demands change?
Resilient Teams
How do people coordinate, collaborate and perform effectively in professional and learning environments?
How does resilience emerge within relationships?
My research spans individuals, parent–child relationships, couples and teams. I examine how interactional processes, namely co-regulation, coordination and repair, influence relational resources and demands to shape the capacity to navigate stress and adapt together over time.
Relational Neuroscience of Resilience Framework
Azhari and Khoo (2026)
The Relational Neuroscience of Resilience Framework (RNRF) explains how resilience emerges within relationships. Drawing on neuroscience research, it brings together three interdependent processes—co-regulation, coordination and repair—within a broader capacity layer comprising relational reserve, relational demand and a capacity threshold.
Meet Atiqah
I am Associate Professor Atiqah Azhari, an award-winning relational neuroscientist at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), where I lead The Relational Brain Lab.
I study how relationships shape relational resilience. Through relational neuroscience, I investigate how resilience emerges not only within individuals, but through the relationships and interactions between them
Over the past decade, my research has attracted more than S$5 million in competitive funding and been featured in documentaries, keynote speeches and national media.
My research bridges rigorous academia with real-world impact, integrating neuroscience, behavioural science and technology to understand not only how people adapt, but also how adaptation can be strengthened.
Vision
I believe the future of resilience will not be understood by studying individuals in isolation.
It will be understood by understanding relationships.
My long-term vision is to establish relational neuroscience as a scientific framework for understanding how relationships remain resilient under stress, adapt to challenge and recover from disruption—and to translate this knowledge into evidence-based tools and technologies that strengthen individuals, families, teams and communities at scale.