In this episode, I talk to George Bonanno about trauma and resiliency. We start off by discussing what people get wrong about trauma and how this led to the invention of the PTSD diagnosis. George defines what resilience is, how it’s different from growth, and its paradoxical correlation to individual differences. Finally, he elaborates on how the flexibility mindset and sequence help us get through personal traumatic events or global tragedies like 9/11 or the COVID-19 pandemic.
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. He’s the author of The Other Side of Sadness and The End of Trauma.
Website: www.tc.columbia.edu/LTElab/
Twitter: @giorgiobee
Topics
- Jerome L. Singer’s influence on George
- Society’s skewed view of trauma
- Explaining the PTSD diagnosis
- People are more resilient than you think
- Resilience VS growth
- The resilience paradox
- The flexibility mindset
- The flexibility sequence
- How to be more flexible
- Goal-directed self-talk
- The resilience blind spot
- What 9/11 teaches us about resilience
- We’ll overcome the COVID-19 pandemic