6 ms·

How people learn to become resilient (2016)

93 points by singold 6y ago

psychtrauma 6y ago
'Resilience', in this sense, is usually presented as a positive personal trait to be proud of. However, (after a lot of therapy), I see it more as a simple reflection of the undue trauma I faced and was required to handle.
- majormajor 6y ago
  If you are saying you don't think your own resilience is anything to be proud of, I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it. I too know the "what the fuck else am I supposed to do" feeling in response to people saying stuff like "how did you deal with something like that?" or "you're so strong" but I think it does a disservice to yourself to ignore that crumpling under the pressure was a possibility, and one that was avoided if you're still here.
  - psychtrauma 6y ago
    > I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it. I would have previously agreed with you, and I think that is an important viewpoint that is useful to contemplate deeply. But, I now wish to reject the point of view that I should be proud because I faced my individual trauma somehow 'better' than those other people. Those other people shouldn't have faced that trauma either.
    - GenerocUsername 6y ago
      Trauma is the natural state of the universe. To think life should be free of trauma is a hyper-modern and sheltered view of the world enabled by our extreme comfort provided by modern technology and the invisible labor from less privelidged people and those who lived and died before us. Trauma is the natural state, and our resilience has and always will be a defining characteristic of successful people... Of whom we are descendents.
      - wiggumspiggums 6y ago
        I'd recommend checking out a book called "The Body Keeps the Score". It talks about how people's minds and bodies can stop functioning normally due to traumas like sexual abuse, war, etc. I would have thought that since traumatic experiences have been around forever, humans would have adapted to dealing with those better by now. And yet the medical evidence laid out in this book seems to show that healing from traumas is difficult. To me, that means there is something "unnatural" about trauma (or at least the most awful cases). I'm probably not doing the book enough justice. Here's the goodreads profile for anyone who wants to explore further: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-score https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-...
      - haswell 6y ago
        > Trauma is the natural state of the universe. As a survivor of sexual abuse on a lifelong journey of survival, it’s difficult to communicate just how strongly I disagree with (and am repulsed by) this statement and the sentiment behind it. It lacks awareness of the many kinds of trauma, and trivializes the experiences of those who’ve been subjected to things that are anything but natural. Do not mistake the prevalence of something for being “natural”. Trauma, by definition, is the opposite, prevalent though it may be. And even if you could lump all kinds of trauma into the same category, my conclusion would be very different than yours. If trauma is the natural state, then we should be doing everything to change that state, not throw up our hands and conclude “oh well, that’s just the way things are, and the best survive”. Imagine taking this stance on slavery, or more broadly: racism.
        Dudeman112 6y ago
        >Trauma is the natural state of the universe. I agree with everything you said. Also: fuck the natural state of the universe. The natural state of the universe is shit and we should seriously fight against it. There is no fairness or justice or good in the laws of the universe. Nature is a bitch. But that's not so bad, because we can be fair and good and make the environment better.
      - KittenInABox 6y ago
    - gonetherapin 6y ago
      hi, made this throwaway (or maybe one to keep?) to agree with you. i'm not happy or pleased that my therapist calls me resilient. she uses the word as something positive but i'd rather not be "resilient" at all. the experience and effects of trauma are something i could do 1000% without. and i'm sure most people who have survived such an ordeal can attest to that fact.
      - akoncius 6y ago
        contradiction: I have a personality type which crumbles on every occurrence of some challenges in life, and I’m havin nearly panic attacks about almost everything. part of that emotion is “why me, I don’t want this problem in my life”. and frequently for short periods of time I’m on the verge of giving up. what my therapist is trying to teach me that all events in my life are kinda inevitable, and it’s up to me to decide how to handle them, and I thing therapist is trying to develop some resillience in me by explaining that some trauma in my life is just unavoidable. getting older is unavoidable. diseases (albeit preventable) unavoidable. economic crisis inevitable and so on and so on. so having resiliency is a good thing, regardless if you prefer to have that trauma or not. and you should be proud that you handled it well.
      - akoncius 6y ago
        on the other hand: you said you would rather not be resilient at all.. so how would you prefer to react to the exact same trauma you experienced previously? assuming that you cannot choose to not have that trauma at all.
        watwut 6y ago
        The person you are responding to would prefer to never having to go through trauma and would be fine with never building that additional resilience. That trauma is not good price for the supposed resilience he got. And I can add that another benefit for him would be time and money saved on therapist. Therapy takes time and a lot of money. Being in situation where you don't need it is better, even if you lose on tiny bit of resilience.
    - majormajor 6y ago
      Perhaps this is a difference of trauma types. "Shouldn't" is an interesting word for e.g. getting cancer. We would all be better off if nobody had to ever face that, but... what would "they shouldn't have gotten cancer" really mean, there? That they should be bitter over being unlucky? That would be a very different statement to make about a trauma inflicted by another human, though.
    - Fellshard 6y ago
      You reject it, sure. But you are providing no cogent reasons for doing so — merely saying 'I changed my mind' is no argument that will persuade others, unless you're expecting your prior trauma somehow credentials you to authoritatively create truth.
      - psychtrauma 6y ago
        Indeed. I have no reason to argue and no real need to persuade others - I just wish to observe and live my truth.
        Fellshard 6y ago
        Then it is meaningless to communicate it to anyone else. But I don't think that's what you think; there's an internal contradiction there. I will leave it at that.
        psychtrauma 6y ago
        Your claim is that all meaningful communication is arguing? I can and do recommend therapy to everyone.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  I tend to think of resilience as a psychical equivalent of the calluses on your fingers that you get from playing the guitar. Developing them is painful, but they give you power to try and do something bigger.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    IOW "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
    - majormajor 6y ago
      This is certainly wildly untrue for many sorts of trauma. What doesn't kill you can leave you less capable, weaker, more vulnerable, etc... You might have to be resilient to deal with the trauma without collapsing, and then find that you still have to be resilient to deal with your new, permanently changed life after the fact too.
    - watwut 6y ago
      That is motivational, but inaccurate.
    - Dudeman112 6y ago
      No one ever became stronger by getting their legs crushed by a ton of metal. In fact, I'd argue they mostly became weaker.
  - rzzzt 6y ago
    For me, resilience is more like bending tree branches. The green ones return to their original shape easily once force is removed, the dry ones keep their form as long as possible, but snap abruptly if too much force is exerted. Repeated bending results in microfractures, then breaking in either type.
- troelsSteegin 6y ago
  In the article Konnikova (and Seligman) describes resilience as a product of methods that can be taught. The framing is that resilience is an interpretive skill. The Konnikova article links to a NYTimes article [0] which in turn (in the reader comments) links to a HuffPost article [1] by a medical school specialist on PTSD. Quoting from that: "The American Psychological Association defines resilience as 'the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of threat.' ... Resilience is common and can be witnessed all around us. Even better, we learned that everyone can learn and train to be more resilient. The key involves knowing how to harness stress and use it to our advantage. " The problem with resilience as a skill is that "resilience" may be a skill you don't have before you need it. How can one be expected to have total control over one's "construal"? Trauma, like grief, is personal and subjective. Emotion is immediate. We feel the way we feel. In a crisis, should one feel worse because you are not yet deploying the resilience? Resilience is not one sure trick but an interpretative mindset set that may or may not be available to you when something that you may or may not be able to understand has happened to you. One could view therapy as a process of developing over time a resilient response to experienced trauma. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-emptiness-of-resilience.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-emp... [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666
- throwaway3b03 6y ago
  We either read different articles, or have almost contradictory viewpoints. I have deep background in developmental trauma, developmental psychology, and trauma is in fact what destroys the resilience mentioned in the article. You don't become resilient due to going through trauma, you are resilient when your body is in a certain physiological state (which is reflected throughout, from brainwaves, to vagal tone, to digestive system functioning, to immune system etc). Trauma is an event that takes the body out of that state into a state of fear/fight-or-flight. This state can become chronic if the perceived state of danger is maintained (even if the actual physical danger may no longer be relevant, the thought patterns developed could continue for the rest of person's life for instance). Some people go their whole lives with the coping behaviors developed in response to that trauma (whether it's workoholism, addiction etc). Also important to mention is that there's a window of time between birth (and even before) and the very early childhood when the brain structures related to affect regulation are developed. Trauma in that period is likely to affect a person severely for a lifetime. In other words, trauma is what makes a person less resilient. Lack of stressors does not make a person less resilient, on the contrary. Learned helplessness is an extremely common outcome of severe trauma, which is quite the opposite of resilience.
  - type0 6y ago
    The impact of trauma is important, monoamine oxidase A is one of the genes that is often shaping the outcome. https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-syrian-refugee-stress/ https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-syr...
rednerrus 6y ago
Someone smarter than I am should draw parallels from this to modern social justice movements.
- ericmcer 6y ago
  "Unfortunately, the opposite may also be true. “We can become less resilient, or less likely to be resilient,” Bonanno says. “We can create or exaggerate stressors very easily in our own minds. That’s the danger of the human condition.”" It isn't that difficult to draw parallels lol.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ceh123 6y ago
  >Werner wrote. Perhaps most importantly, the resilient children had what psychologists call an “internal locus of control”: they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the orchestrators of their own fates. In fact, on a scale that measured locus of control, they scored more than two standard deviations away from the standardization group. This sort of reasoning is exactly why I intentionally moved away from leftist frameworks that (although many of them I would argue are more correct) focus heavily on systemic critiques. This is my main problem with a good amount of leftist philosophy and why I much prefer the frameworks of post-modernists. Even when the systemic analysis might be correct, if your goal is to improve your life it is far more important to move the locus of control into yourself rather than examine things outside your control that might be working against you. Edit: e.g. if you want to get a new/better job it's far more productive after receiving a rejection letter to ask questions like "what did I do wrong?" and "what can I do differently next time?" than it is to worry about what systemic factors make you less likely to get the job. I also want to be explicit that this is not a critique of the validity or importance of systemic critiques, more so just what I found to be practical in my life.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    I don't follow your conclusion here. So... you don't think that there are systemic problems worth correcting? Or you think there are, but you don't want to because the disadvantaged should just be resilient instead? It's one thing to say that there are alternative therapies to pulling down statues and burning shit in the street. It's rather another to reject the goals of a movement because you don't like their tactics.
kian 6y ago
The only prescription this article appears to make is "Positive Construal" -- thinking of potentially traumatic events as opportunities for growth, learning, and forming tighter social and community bonds seems to prevent them from becoming actually traumatizing.
- mikelyons 6y ago
  Is that where "builds character" comes from?
  - watwut 6y ago
    It is how you learn to cope. It does not mean you necessary end up as overall better person. This is about people who are on edge of being dysfunctional due to issues happening to them.
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  "In research at Columbia, the neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown that teaching people to think of stimuli in different ways—to reframe them in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the initial response is emotionally “hot”—changes how they experience and react to the stimulus. You can train people to better regulate their emotions, and the training seems to have lasting effects." For some additional prescriptive details.
- watwut 6y ago
  People naturally build bonds with others in traumatic circumstances. It is called trauma bonding. One unfortunate side effect is that it makes out harder for abuse victim to leave abuser. Unfortunately, that mechanism works regardless of who caused the initial issue.
ericmcer 6y ago
In this sense, privilege just lets you circumvent having to learn to be resilient. You can choose the amount of stressors you want to let in. I have two friends who come from wealthy backgrounds, one is putting in 70-80hour weeks doing residency at a hospital, the other doesn't work and couldn't deal with the bay area rental market, so their parents purchased them a $1.5m home. I guess what I am getting at is there is a blend of self-respect, self-expectation, discipline, morality or something involved. At a certain point a person decides to stop trying to fight and be comfortable with whatever hand they have.
- kiba 6y ago
  As opposed to people experiencing trauma and failing to meet the challenge? I guess no matter what backgrounds we have, we have our own ways of failing.
- oceanplexian 6y ago
  I would argue that privilege comes in other forms than wealth, and at a certain point no amount of wealth might make up for a rough childhood, or broken relationships, and those things can drive people too. Some people don’t work 70-hour weeks because of the money, or even because they enjoy it, but because on some level they are broken and it’s an acceptable “addiction” that lets them avoid confronting their inner demons
  - iliketosleep 6y ago
    You make a good point. It's interesting how people seem to automatically equate hard work as automatically being a positive (or even as some kind of morality). In reality, without fully understanding an individual's true motivations, it's hard to make any kind of proper judgement.
    - chrisweekly 6y ago
      Yes. See also a great little book from ages ago called "The Hacker Ethic" by Pekka Himanen, which examines and critiques this "Protestant work ethic".
currymj 6y ago
a major part of 12-step programs is getting people to shift to an external locus of control. they're supposed to accept that they have a permanent problem that it's totally beyond their power to fix. somehow this helps people make difficult, lasting changes in their lives that were previously beyond them, which is exactly the opposite of what should happen according to the research profiled in this article. I think it's probably valuable to have an accurate locus of control -- the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Unfortunately this idea that an internal locus of control is always the superior, correct attitude is already floating out into pop psychology in schools and workplaces. I'm sure the actual research is nuanced and interesting but that's not what's reaching people.
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  For what it's worth, I don't think the twelve step program should be universally lauded such as it is. Does it help people? Absolutely. Could there be a better way? Probably.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    hard to attack something that is already the status quo and free.
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      It’s not hard to attack it. Cold turkey strategies can be a recipe for disaster.
      - leetcrew 6y ago
        I'm personally skeptical of AA due to a.) the fact that it is structured in a way that makes it impossible for it to evaluate its own efficacy and b.) the general cult vibe. it's difficult to attack because, among other things, it is already integrated with the justice system. it fills the role of "okay, you're guilty of {drug-related offense}, but since it's your first time we're gonna cut you a break. we can't just let you get off scot-free, so you gotta go to these meetings and get this slip signed. maybe you'll end up turning your life around in the process." any discussion of a replacement probably has to start with "how much does it cost?" and "who's paying?".
maverickJ 6y ago
Interesting article. One place where one needs to build resilience is in how we work and how we learn new things. The key thing is developing skillsets that enable us to go through life. Some key tools are: 1. Understanding how humans work: On why the early stages of work tend to be stressful. 2. Pushing through pain points: On the power of mental reframing. 3. Seeking motivation from within: Especially on large projects where you’re just a cog in the wheel. This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/humans-and-work-three-practical-tools https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/humans-and-work-thre... explores this further.
TameAntelope 6y ago
Off-topic comment: newyorker.com hasn't loaded successfully for me in Chrome for probably a few years now. Literal white page that flickers with the article for a second before going blank. I figured it was anti-ad-blocker tech, but even disabling ad blocker and going to incognito does nothing. Calls to "https://dolphin.condenastdigital.com/engines/atmo https://dolphin.condenastdigital.com/engines/atmo" are the calls that seem to fail with "ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED". I don't see a similar call being made in Firefox, which does load successfully. Is my Chrome getting fingerprinted and somehow punished for running uBlock, or is newyorker.com just broken for Chrome in certain cases? Either way, it makes using my subscription that much harder...
- lostandbored 6y ago
  I am using Brave, which is Chromium based, and I had no problem loading the article. Sucks to hear you having that issue.
cambalache 6y ago
I cannot wait to see n-gate.com take on this thread. People one-upping each other by humblebragging how they recovered from severe trauma and how they are not actually better for having done so.
paulpauper 6y ago
No mention of IQ anywhere in the article. I am sure IQ plays a major role in terms of outcomes. Often children from disadvantaged backgrounds and abusive/negligent parents who pull themselves up tend to also be smarter than average.
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  The article actually says the opposite, that these kids weren’t particularly smart. “Though not especially gifted, these children used whatever skills they had effectively” At least that’s how I interpreted the above quote.
dang 6y ago
Discussed at the time: How People Learn to Become Resilient - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11083526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11083526 - Feb 2016 (25 comments)
inv13 6y ago
I had the same nearly the same situation, like 70% to 80% of the sandwich kid mentioned in the beginning. Its impossible to read a summary of what have happened with me, because it would be so long that I would never end. A short summary of the beginning would be something like this: I just never accepted anything coming from adults, teachers. I saw when they said something to me, than the next second do the very opposite. And I realized that when my parents divorced, that everything that I learned from them needs to be erased. They could not tell why they divorced, a specific reason. Because it never really is about one thing from what I can tell now. It was not something I come up with, it was more like a realization, hard truth, something that hit me hard, or something around these lines. And then I just proceeded to build up a mental image about the world from the ground up. I guess we all do that while growing up, but I really just couldn't accept anything anyone told me to do, or think the way they want me to. Cant say that I 'am a very successful person. Sometimes I can be spot on, even on very large scale questions, using my own version of the world. I was able to make a really good investment choice, when everyone was shitting themselves, and running around like a beheaded chicken that the world was about to end. 2008 financial crisis and Covid. (I was in 7th grade in 2008 with really shitty grades) And sometimes I miss by a mile, usually when around topics where feelings must be involved. That is the part that I am trying to get better since I've realized. I think its more about some things can make you or brake you. Resilience is understanding the real reasons why something happened. Like someone got angry at work when I asked him to send some documents for me. If the person is rude and got, to some extent angry at me, than I could translate that as that person not liking me, or that the person has some difficulties at home. In the first choice we could grind on about why is that, what have I done wrong, where in the other, you just move on. At least in my experience.

93 points by singold 6y ago

'Resilience', in this sense, is usually presented as a positive personal trait to be proud of. However, (after a lot of therapy), I see it more as a simple reflection of the undue trauma I faced and was required to handle.

majormajor 6y ago
If you are saying you don't think your own resilience is anything to be proud of, I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it. I too know the "what the fuck else am I supposed to do" feeling in response to people saying stuff like "how did you deal with something like that?" or "you're so strong" but I think it does a disservice to yourself to ignore that crumpling under the pressure was a possibility, and one that was avoided if you're still here.
- psychtrauma 6y ago
  > I think you are failing to consider those who faced trauma and failed to handle it. I would have previously agreed with you, and I think that is an important viewpoint that is useful to contemplate deeply. But, I now wish to reject the point of view that I should be proud because I faced my individual trauma somehow 'better' than those other people. Those other people shouldn't have faced that trauma either.
  - GenerocUsername 6y ago
    Trauma is the natural state of the universe. To think life should be free of trauma is a hyper-modern and sheltered view of the world enabled by our extreme comfort provided by modern technology and the invisible labor from less privelidged people and those who lived and died before us. Trauma is the natural state, and our resilience has and always will be a defining characteristic of successful people... Of whom we are descendents.
    - wiggumspiggums 6y ago
      I'd recommend checking out a book called "The Body Keeps the Score". It talks about how people's minds and bodies can stop functioning normally due to traumas like sexual abuse, war, etc. I would have thought that since traumatic experiences have been around forever, humans would have adapted to dealing with those better by now. And yet the medical evidence laid out in this book seems to show that healing from traumas is difficult. To me, that means there is something "unnatural" about trauma (or at least the most awful cases). I'm probably not doing the book enough justice. Here's the goodreads profile for anyone who wants to explore further: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-score https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-...
    - haswell 6y ago
      > Trauma is the natural state of the universe. As a survivor of sexual abuse on a lifelong journey of survival, it’s difficult to communicate just how strongly I disagree with (and am repulsed by) this statement and the sentiment behind it. It lacks awareness of the many kinds of trauma, and trivializes the experiences of those who’ve been subjected to things that are anything but natural. Do not mistake the prevalence of something for being “natural”. Trauma, by definition, is the opposite, prevalent though it may be. And even if you could lump all kinds of trauma into the same category, my conclusion would be very different than yours. If trauma is the natural state, then we should be doing everything to change that state, not throw up our hands and conclude “oh well, that’s just the way things are, and the best survive”. Imagine taking this stance on slavery, or more broadly: racism.
      - Dudeman112 6y ago
        >Trauma is the natural state of the universe. I agree with everything you said. Also: fuck the natural state of the universe. The natural state of the universe is shit and we should seriously fight against it. There is no fairness or justice or good in the laws of the universe. Nature is a bitch. But that's not so bad, because we can be fair and good and make the environment better.
    - KittenInABox 6y ago
  - gonetherapin 6y ago
    hi, made this throwaway (or maybe one to keep?) to agree with you. i'm not happy or pleased that my therapist calls me resilient. she uses the word as something positive but i'd rather not be "resilient" at all. the experience and effects of trauma are something i could do 1000% without. and i'm sure most people who have survived such an ordeal can attest to that fact.
    - akoncius 6y ago
      contradiction: I have a personality type which crumbles on every occurrence of some challenges in life, and I’m havin nearly panic attacks about almost everything. part of that emotion is “why me, I don’t want this problem in my life”. and frequently for short periods of time I’m on the verge of giving up. what my therapist is trying to teach me that all events in my life are kinda inevitable, and it’s up to me to decide how to handle them, and I thing therapist is trying to develop some resillience in me by explaining that some trauma in my life is just unavoidable. getting older is unavoidable. diseases (albeit preventable) unavoidable. economic crisis inevitable and so on and so on. so having resiliency is a good thing, regardless if you prefer to have that trauma or not. and you should be proud that you handled it well.
    - akoncius 6y ago
      on the other hand: you said you would rather not be resilient at all.. so how would you prefer to react to the exact same trauma you experienced previously? assuming that you cannot choose to not have that trauma at all.
      - watwut 6y ago
        The person you are responding to would prefer to never having to go through trauma and would be fine with never building that additional resilience. That trauma is not good price for the supposed resilience he got. And I can add that another benefit for him would be time and money saved on therapist. Therapy takes time and a lot of money. Being in situation where you don't need it is better, even if you lose on tiny bit of resilience.
  - majormajor 6y ago
    Perhaps this is a difference of trauma types. "Shouldn't" is an interesting word for e.g. getting cancer. We would all be better off if nobody had to ever face that, but... what would "they shouldn't have gotten cancer" really mean, there? That they should be bitter over being unlucky? That would be a very different statement to make about a trauma inflicted by another human, though.
  - Fellshard 6y ago
    You reject it, sure. But you are providing no cogent reasons for doing so — merely saying 'I changed my mind' is no argument that will persuade others, unless you're expecting your prior trauma somehow credentials you to authoritatively create truth.
    - psychtrauma 6y ago
      Indeed. I have no reason to argue and no real need to persuade others - I just wish to observe and live my truth.
      - Fellshard 6y ago
        Then it is meaningless to communicate it to anyone else. But I don't think that's what you think; there's an internal contradiction there. I will leave it at that.
        psychtrauma 6y ago
        Your claim is that all meaningful communication is arguing? I can and do recommend therapy to everyone.
inglor_cz 6y ago
I tend to think of resilience as a psychical equivalent of the calluses on your fingers that you get from playing the guitar. Developing them is painful, but they give you power to try and do something bigger.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  IOW "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
  - majormajor 6y ago
    This is certainly wildly untrue for many sorts of trauma. What doesn't kill you can leave you less capable, weaker, more vulnerable, etc... You might have to be resilient to deal with the trauma without collapsing, and then find that you still have to be resilient to deal with your new, permanently changed life after the fact too.
  - watwut 6y ago
    That is motivational, but inaccurate.
  - Dudeman112 6y ago
    No one ever became stronger by getting their legs crushed by a ton of metal. In fact, I'd argue they mostly became weaker.
- rzzzt 6y ago
  For me, resilience is more like bending tree branches. The green ones return to their original shape easily once force is removed, the dry ones keep their form as long as possible, but snap abruptly if too much force is exerted. Repeated bending results in microfractures, then breaking in either type.
troelsSteegin 6y ago
In the article Konnikova (and Seligman) describes resilience as a product of methods that can be taught. The framing is that resilience is an interpretive skill. The Konnikova article links to a NYTimes article [0] which in turn (in the reader comments) links to a HuffPost article [1] by a medical school specialist on PTSD. Quoting from that: "The American Psychological Association defines resilience as 'the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of threat.' ... Resilience is common and can be witnessed all around us. Even better, we learned that everyone can learn and train to be more resilient. The key involves knowing how to harness stress and use it to our advantage. " The problem with resilience as a skill is that "resilience" may be a skill you don't have before you need it. How can one be expected to have total control over one's "construal"? Trauma, like grief, is personal and subjective. Emotion is immediate. We feel the way we feel. In a crisis, should one feel worse because you are not yet deploying the resilience? Resilience is not one sure trick but an interpretative mindset set that may or may not be available to you when something that you may or may not be able to understand has happened to you. One could view therapy as a process of developing over time a resilient response to experienced trauma. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-emptiness-of-resilience.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-profound-emp... [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trauma-resilience_b_1881666
throwaway3b03 6y ago
We either read different articles, or have almost contradictory viewpoints. I have deep background in developmental trauma, developmental psychology, and trauma is in fact what destroys the resilience mentioned in the article. You don't become resilient due to going through trauma, you are resilient when your body is in a certain physiological state (which is reflected throughout, from brainwaves, to vagal tone, to digestive system functioning, to immune system etc). Trauma is an event that takes the body out of that state into a state of fear/fight-or-flight. This state can become chronic if the perceived state of danger is maintained (even if the actual physical danger may no longer be relevant, the thought patterns developed could continue for the rest of person's life for instance). Some people go their whole lives with the coping behaviors developed in response to that trauma (whether it's workoholism, addiction etc). Also important to mention is that there's a window of time between birth (and even before) and the very early childhood when the brain structures related to affect regulation are developed. Trauma in that period is likely to affect a person severely for a lifetime. In other words, trauma is what makes a person less resilient. Lack of stressors does not make a person less resilient, on the contrary. Learned helplessness is an extremely common outcome of severe trauma, which is quite the opposite of resilience.
- type0 6y ago
  The impact of trauma is important, monoamine oxidase A is one of the genes that is often shaping the outcome. https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-syrian-refugee-stress/ https://news.ufl.edu/2019/07/how-genes-resilience-affect-syr...

rednerrus 6y ago

Someone smarter than I am should draw parallels from this to modern social justice movements.

ericmcer 6y ago
"Unfortunately, the opposite may also be true. “We can become less resilient, or less likely to be resilient,” Bonanno says. “We can create or exaggerate stressors very easily in our own minds. That’s the danger of the human condition.”" It isn't that difficult to draw parallels lol.
deleted 6y ago
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ceh123 6y ago
>Werner wrote. Perhaps most importantly, the resilient children had what psychologists call an “internal locus of control”: they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the orchestrators of their own fates. In fact, on a scale that measured locus of control, they scored more than two standard deviations away from the standardization group. This sort of reasoning is exactly why I intentionally moved away from leftist frameworks that (although many of them I would argue are more correct) focus heavily on systemic critiques. This is my main problem with a good amount of leftist philosophy and why I much prefer the frameworks of post-modernists. Even when the systemic analysis might be correct, if your goal is to improve your life it is far more important to move the locus of control into yourself rather than examine things outside your control that might be working against you. Edit: e.g. if you want to get a new/better job it's far more productive after receiving a rejection letter to ask questions like "what did I do wrong?" and "what can I do differently next time?" than it is to worry about what systemic factors make you less likely to get the job. I also want to be explicit that this is not a critique of the validity or importance of systemic critiques, more so just what I found to be practical in my life.
- newacct583 6y ago
  I don't follow your conclusion here. So... you don't think that there are systemic problems worth correcting? Or you think there are, but you don't want to because the disadvantaged should just be resilient instead? It's one thing to say that there are alternative therapies to pulling down statues and burning shit in the street. It's rather another to reject the goals of a movement because you don't like their tactics.

kian 6y ago

The only prescription this article appears to make is "Positive Construal" -- thinking of potentially traumatic events as opportunities for growth, learning, and forming tighter social and community bonds seems to prevent them from becoming actually traumatizing.

mikelyons 6y ago
Is that where "builds character" comes from?
- watwut 6y ago
  It is how you learn to cope. It does not mean you necessary end up as overall better person. This is about people who are on edge of being dysfunctional due to issues happening to them.
TameAntelope 6y ago
"In research at Columbia, the neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown that teaching people to think of stimuli in different ways—to reframe them in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the initial response is emotionally “hot”—changes how they experience and react to the stimulus. You can train people to better regulate their emotions, and the training seems to have lasting effects." For some additional prescriptive details.
watwut 6y ago
People naturally build bonds with others in traumatic circumstances. It is called trauma bonding. One unfortunate side effect is that it makes out harder for abuse victim to leave abuser. Unfortunately, that mechanism works regardless of who caused the initial issue.

ericmcer 6y ago

In this sense, privilege just lets you circumvent having to learn to be resilient. You can choose the amount of stressors you want to let in. I have two friends who come from wealthy backgrounds, one is putting in 70-80hour weeks doing residency at a hospital, the other doesn't work and couldn't deal with the bay area rental market, so their parents purchased them a $1.5m home. I guess what I am getting at is there is a blend of self-respect, self-expectation, discipline, morality or something involved. At a certain point a person decides to stop trying to fight and be comfortable with whatever hand they have.

kiba 6y ago
As opposed to people experiencing trauma and failing to meet the challenge? I guess no matter what backgrounds we have, we have our own ways of failing.
oceanplexian 6y ago
I would argue that privilege comes in other forms than wealth, and at a certain point no amount of wealth might make up for a rough childhood, or broken relationships, and those things can drive people too. Some people don’t work 70-hour weeks because of the money, or even because they enjoy it, but because on some level they are broken and it’s an acceptable “addiction” that lets them avoid confronting their inner demons
- iliketosleep 6y ago
  You make a good point. It's interesting how people seem to automatically equate hard work as automatically being a positive (or even as some kind of morality). In reality, without fully understanding an individual's true motivations, it's hard to make any kind of proper judgement.
  - chrisweekly 6y ago
    Yes. See also a great little book from ages ago called "The Hacker Ethic" by Pekka Himanen, which examines and critiques this "Protestant work ethic".

currymj 6y ago

a major part of 12-step programs is getting people to shift to an external locus of control. they're supposed to accept that they have a permanent problem that it's totally beyond their power to fix. somehow this helps people make difficult, lasting changes in their lives that were previously beyond them, which is exactly the opposite of what should happen according to the research profiled in this article. I think it's probably valuable to have an accurate locus of control -- the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Unfortunately this idea that an internal locus of control is always the superior, correct attitude is already floating out into pop psychology in schools and workplaces. I'm sure the actual research is nuanced and interesting but that's not what's reaching people.

TameAntelope 6y ago
For what it's worth, I don't think the twelve step program should be universally lauded such as it is. Does it help people? Absolutely. Could there be a better way? Probably.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  hard to attack something that is already the status quo and free.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    It’s not hard to attack it. Cold turkey strategies can be a recipe for disaster.
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      I'm personally skeptical of AA due to a.) the fact that it is structured in a way that makes it impossible for it to evaluate its own efficacy and b.) the general cult vibe. it's difficult to attack because, among other things, it is already integrated with the justice system. it fills the role of "okay, you're guilty of {drug-related offense}, but since it's your first time we're gonna cut you a break. we can't just let you get off scot-free, so you gotta go to these meetings and get this slip signed. maybe you'll end up turning your life around in the process." any discussion of a replacement probably has to start with "how much does it cost?" and "who's paying?".

maverickJ 6y ago

Interesting article. One place where one needs to build resilience is in how we work and how we learn new things. The key thing is developing skillsets that enable us to go through life. Some key tools are: 1. Understanding how humans work: On why the early stages of work tend to be stressful. 2. Pushing through pain points: On the power of mental reframing. 3. Seeking motivation from within: Especially on large projects where you’re just a cog in the wheel. This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/humans-and-work-three-practical-tools https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/humans-and-work-thre... explores this further.

TameAntelope 6y ago

Off-topic comment: newyorker.com hasn't loaded successfully for me in Chrome for probably a few years now. Literal white page that flickers with the article for a second before going blank. I figured it was anti-ad-blocker tech, but even disabling ad blocker and going to incognito does nothing. Calls to "https://dolphin.condenastdigital.com/engines/atmo https://dolphin.condenastdigital.com/engines/atmo" are the calls that seem to fail with "ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED". I don't see a similar call being made in Firefox, which does load successfully. Is my Chrome getting fingerprinted and somehow punished for running uBlock, or is newyorker.com just broken for Chrome in certain cases? Either way, it makes using my subscription that much harder...

lostandbored 6y ago
I am using Brave, which is Chromium based, and I had no problem loading the article. Sucks to hear you having that issue.

cambalache 6y ago

I cannot wait to see n-gate.com take on this thread. People one-upping each other by humblebragging how they recovered from severe trauma and how they are not actually better for having done so.

paulpauper 6y ago

No mention of IQ anywhere in the article. I am sure IQ plays a major role in terms of outcomes. Often children from disadvantaged backgrounds and abusive/negligent parents who pull themselves up tend to also be smarter than average.

TameAntelope 6y ago
The article actually says the opposite, that these kids weren’t particularly smart. “Though not especially gifted, these children used whatever skills they had effectively” At least that’s how I interpreted the above quote.

dang 6y ago

Discussed at the time: How People Learn to Become Resilient - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11083526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11083526 - Feb 2016 (25 comments)

inv13 6y ago

I had the same nearly the same situation, like 70% to 80% of the sandwich kid mentioned in the beginning. Its impossible to read a summary of what have happened with me, because it would be so long that I would never end. A short summary of the beginning would be something like this: I just never accepted anything coming from adults, teachers. I saw when they said something to me, than the next second do the very opposite. And I realized that when my parents divorced, that everything that I learned from them needs to be erased. They could not tell why they divorced, a specific reason. Because it never really is about one thing from what I can tell now. It was not something I come up with, it was more like a realization, hard truth, something that hit me hard, or something around these lines. And then I just proceeded to build up a mental image about the world from the ground up. I guess we all do that while growing up, but I really just couldn't accept anything anyone told me to do, or think the way they want me to. Cant say that I 'am a very successful person. Sometimes I can be spot on, even on very large scale questions, using my own version of the world. I was able to make a really good investment choice, when everyone was shitting themselves, and running around like a beheaded chicken that the world was about to end. 2008 financial crisis and Covid. (I was in 7th grade in 2008 with really shitty grades) And sometimes I miss by a mile, usually when around topics where feelings must be involved. That is the part that I am trying to get better since I've realized. I think its more about some things can make you or brake you. Resilience is understanding the real reasons why something happened. Like someone got angry at work when I asked him to send some documents for me. If the person is rude and got, to some extent angry at me, than I could translate that as that person not liking me, or that the person has some difficulties at home. In the first choice we could grind on about why is that, what have I done wrong, where in the other, you just move on. At least in my experience.