George Bonanno || The New Science of Resilience
The Psychology Podcast
iHeartPodcasts
4.4 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2021
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today we have George Bonanno in the podcast. Dr. Bonanno is Professor of Psychology, Chair |
| 0:19.5 | of the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, and Director of the Lost Traum |
| 0:23.0 | in a Motion Lab Teachers College Columbia University. He's the author of the other side |
| 0:27.6 | of Sadness and the End of Trauma. George, so great to finally chat with you on the |
| 0:31.9 | Psychology podcast. It's great, so I'm very, very happy to be here. I'm happy to do you |
| 0:36.6 | invited me. Thank you. You know, we have a lot to talk about in this topic that you study |
| 0:42.2 | is extraordinarily germine to the moment that we're living. It's interesting because I think |
| 0:48.3 | that if I read your book correctly, you said you started writing it before the pandemic hit, |
| 0:53.6 | so you almost had that kind of add that extra chapter at the end about the pandemic. Is that |
| 0:57.4 | right? How did that come about? Yes, while I was working on the book and I planned to be in |
| 1:04.4 | Europe for sabbatical and touring around Europe and giving lectures and working on the book further, |
| 1:10.4 | so I started the book and I was going to do the bulk of it and then the pandemic hit and I had |
| 1:16.8 | the shuffle on home right quickly. So I thought, okay, this would probably, it would probably make |
| 1:21.8 | sense to include this whole experience in the book as it began to become clear that it was going |
| 1:27.2 | to be a long haul. So I began keeping a diary and that was a fortunate decision because then the |
| 1:33.7 | last chapter of the book is about the pandemic. Yeah, yeah, so it's good that you kept the diary, |
| 1:38.8 | right? Yep. Well, before we get into your seminal work on resilience and the way this idea |
| 1:45.3 | isn't your new book, let's go back a second because we both shared a mentor, Dromo Singer. |
| 1:50.9 | Yes, yes. So, you know, may he rest in peace? Let's talk about that work you did with him a |
| 1:57.7 | little bit and how did it lead to work and interest in resilience? Well, that's a very interesting |
| 2:03.8 | question. How do you go from daydreaming to resilience? Yeah, well, I didn't do daydreaming work |
| 2:09.5 | with Jerry. I worked on really personality and experimental, but there is a connection. I worked |
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