In the context of the professional growth of teachers, the notion of resistance to change has negative connotation, but it may also be seen as a positive factor and source if bew knowledge and enrichment so long as it is conscious, recognised and controlled. The author of the texts offers a number of suggestions on how to think about this phenomenon, grasp it and work with it in school practice. The precondition for controlled resistance is an effort to distinguish between and understand its possible sources. Resistance is the natural reaction of individuals to change and its sources are not always clear. We can look for them both in the personal psychological sphere at the cognitive and emotional level, and an in the social and a contextual sphere. There are indeed both internal and external sources of resistance which mutually condition each other and cannot be separated from each other. From the point of view of sources, therefore, resistance can arise at different psychological-social levels, to which a whole scale of external expressions of resistance relate, from passivity and flight to explicit expression of protest and aggression. In her account the author mentions a number of psychological theories of the motivation behind human behaviour and resistence in the face of a change of attitude (the principle of equilibrium, cognitive dissonance, incongruence and so forth) and offers a typology of expressions of resistence. The article is based both on Czech and foreign secondary sources and on some provisional results of the research project Psychological ASpects of the Further Education of Teachers (GAĚR 2003-2005). She devotes particular attention to possible he devotes particular attention to possible structural harriers (of time, funding, armosphcre at educational events, view of job opportunities) and school barriers to professional growth (application of finding in practice, co-operation with colleagues and so on) from the point of view of teachers and in some cases school directors. The concluding discussion then focuses on the thematic areas that are attracting the attention of school leaders and politicians in their efforts to identify and direct teacher resistence: encouragment for teachers to take responsibility for their own professional growth (the personal level), support for a cooperative and learning environment (the school level) and clarification of the rules for the further education of teachers (the level of school policy). It would appear that the theme of resistance deserves the focused attention of specialists, for exploration of the phenomenon could have very positive results. It is useful to perceive and exploit resistance as a force that effects attempts at development and growth and helps to narrow the gulf between reform initiatives and educational practice.