Resilience. What does it really mean? How do we know we’re resilient? What are the factors and practices that determine resilience as a trajectory after adverse events and experiences? Is resilience something we learn or something we earn? George Bonanno is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University's Teachers College and internationally recognized for his pioneering research on human resilience in the face of loss and potential trauma, listed as one of the top 1 % of the most cited scientists in the world. He is the author of The Other Side of Sadness, and his most recent book The End of Trauma. As a boy, he dreamed of adventure, of traveling the world, sleeping in fields, reading books and painting. By 17, he hit the road, hitchhiking, painting, and working across the United States. Soon, he found himself taking care of people, juvenile offenders, older adults, at one point working directly with severely psychotic patients at Northampton State Psychiatric Hospital. That made a profound impression on him, he noticed that some of the patients recovered surprisingly quickly after leaving the hospital. Nine years after finishing high school, he got a scholarship to study at Hampshire College, and was soon designing his own psychological experiments - which led to his first peer-reviewed publication. He went on to get his PhD in Clinical Psychology at Yale University. Years later, he founded the Loss, Trauma, and Emotion lab at Columbia University in New York City, expanding his research to include the study of resilience following 9/11, military combat deployment, traumatic injury, life-threatening medical events, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, divorce, and job loss. The lab has been doing groundbreaking research on what he has discovered is the key process underlying human resilience: flexibility. In this episode, he describes the research behind the Flexibility Mindset, and the flexibility sequence. One of the most fascinating aspects of the science of flexibility and resilience-building is what happens in the ‘right now’... what we have the opportunity to harness and practice in the present moment that both integrates the past and opens up the vista of our future. This conversation is fascinating, hopeful, and packed with the science and practice of resilience from one of the most renowned researchers of our time.
George Bonanno is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University's Teachers College and internationally recognized for his pioneering research on human resilience in the face of loss and potential trauma, listed as one of the top 1 % of the most cited scientists in the world. He is the author of The Other Side of Sadness, and his most recent book The End of Trauma.
Dr. Bonanno has been honored by the Association for Psychological Science with its highest award, the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award for his “lifetime of significant intellectual achievements in applied psychological research and their impact on a critical problem in society at large." He has published hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles, many appearing in leading journals. He has been listed by the Web of Science among the top one percent most cited scientists in the world.
~ "INSIDE THE PSYCHOLOGIST'S STUDIO": Lisa Feldman Barrett interviews George Bonanno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF-PfFLnLb8
~ “Loss, Trauma and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?” (American Psychologist)
https://www.tc.columbia.edu/faculty/gab38/faculty-profile/files/americanPsychologist.pdf