How People Learn to Become Resilient (newyorker.com)

The idea is to practice variations of the skill you want to master instead of practicing same repetitions over and over. Actual paper is unfortunately behind paywall:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215...

> The good news is that positive construal can be taught. “We can make ourselves more or less vulnerable by how we think about things,” Bonanno said. 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.

Sounds like the complete opposite of what some people seem to promote.

The idea that resilience can be learned also implies that resilience can be spread through social groups -- if you spend more time around resilient people who view potentially traumatic events in a more positive light, it may lead you to do the same.

I certainly found this to be true after hurricane katrina; talking to people who had been through other large-scale disasters helped me re-frame the events as a learning experience, and I've subsequently found myself more resilient in the face of other (unrelated) negative events in my life.

Most of this was known to the likes of Diogenes, Rufus, Epictetus, and Aurelius. All that is required to have a good guess at this at least is close observation of our fellows.

The thing I've found most frustrating about the framing and discussion around these things in a clinical setting (in my limited experience, with people who were probably not trained specifically in these concepts) is that it's basically not allowed to say that your understanding doesn't fit on the "locus of control" spectrum (for example, if you reject mind-body dualism, without which the assumed concepts of "internal" and "external" are somewhat absurd). According to the worksheet, I must have some kind of one-dimensional "core belief" about the power of self versus environment. Some of the concepts and research around this seem promising, but in my experience as a patient/client, the practice leaves a lot to be desired.

More broadly, I've been frustrated by a lot of the clinical psychology that focuses on highly stereotyped beliefs. Too much of it reads like just-so stories; Alice looks at Bob's behavior and then treats her own speculations about Bob's beliefs as though they're actual observations.

There is a dark side to the idea of an 'internal locus of control.' It creates a sense that the individual can and should manage the situation, even when the situation is totally unmanageable. I think it's a common problem among high achievers (particularly entrepreneurs), and conversely some 'resilient' people need to accept that there sometimes really IS an external locus of control before their efforts to control the situation break them. Hence the serenity prayer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer) and major parts of eastern spiritual traditions...

I like the article and where it is going, though I think the specific recommendations they make only scratches the surface. There are much better techniques that can be learned from some traditional wisdom lineages, shamanic initiations, and esoteric martial art lineages.

From my own experiences with Vipassana and other practices, it isn't enough to turn something negative into a positive. If you are not careful, that turns into clinging (wishful thinking). Rather, we're talking about being able to look at everything with clarity, with neither aversion or clinging. To be in equanimity with existential anguish.

This is something I am deeply interested in. Resiliency, drawing from all the different traditions and disciplines I had picked up, is something I want to instill in my step-daughter, and any other children I might raise. None of the things we know as "formulas of success" will apply by the time my kid(s) or your's reach adulthood. Our tech is moving too fast for that.

I want my step-daughter to learn how to Choose in face of uncertainty; to act with impeccable intent; to see the world with clarity. To be equally at home lost in the woods as in the middle of the urban jungle; to speak and communicate well with people of high status and the humblest of the homeless, both intimate friends and strangers from exotic culture. Resiliency is the basis to thrive.

What are some recommended books on this topic?

I like this article because it makes me wonder what becomes of people with a similarly bad background like myself (abusive parents and such). I won't say that I think I'm resilient; I don't think I am but for some odd reason my therapist does. Go figure.