You are more resilient than you think - with Professor George Bonanno
Dot to Dot Behind the Person
English - June 24, 2022 10:00 - 50 minutes - 116 MBPersonal Journals Society & Culture Health & Fitness Mental Health #health #happiness #advice #behaviorchange #psychology #behaviourchange #resilience #connection #inspiration #lifestyle Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
I first came across George Bonanno’s work when I was struggling with the death of my Dad 10 years ago. His first book, the Other Side of Sadness helped me to reframe what I was experiencing in an incredibly helpful way and I have since bought it numerous times to comfort other people. One of the things I found most intriguing was how concepts such as the Kubler Ross model of the stages of grief are not actually scientifically founded. In other words we’re clinging on to a model that is made up and doesn’t actually reflect how most people respond. So, I was really excited to have the opportunity to speak to him. In this episode we talk about how resilience works and George’s most recent book The End of Trauma (which in spite of the title is relevant to anyone and everyone). We discuss how normal resilience actually is and how our expectations of traumatic responses come from studying the more severe clinical cases rather than how the ‘average’ person responds.
George was not only in New York during the 9/11 attacks but actually went down to the site to help so he doesn’t just speak from a scientific perspective but from one lived and breathed himself. But another perhaps surprising yet true fact is that we hugely over-estimated the number of people who would suffer from trauma even as a result of that horrific event. Why, well people are overwhelmingly resilient to adversity. What we often interpret as PTSD are signs of a natural process of learning how to deal with a specific situation. We can cope far more effectively if we understand how this process works, which we also discuss.
Bio - Dr. George Bonanno is a professor of psychology, chair of the department of counseling in clinical psychology, and director of the Loss, Trauma, and Emotion Lab at Teachers College Columbia University.
Website: www.tc.columbia.edu/LTElab/
Twitter: @giorgiobee
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If you are curious about who you are, your brain and the influences in your life then please dip into my more recent book Mirror Thinking – How Role Models Make Us Human.
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