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
00:01:41 Jerome L. Singer’s influence on George
00:05:42 Society’s skewed view of trauma
00:08:15 Explaining the PTSD diagnosis
00:10:38 People are more resilient than you think
00:14:23 Resilience VS growth
00:19:50 The resilience paradox
00:24:44 The flexibility mindset
00:29:58 The flexibility sequence
00:34:50 How to be more flexible
00:38:11 Goal-directed self-talk
00:47:50 The resilience blind spot
00:50:06 What 9/11 teaches us about resilience
00:53:10 We’ll overcome the COVID-19 pandemic
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