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