Becoming Resilient
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. - William James
One of my longer term clients recently said to me, “it’s strange to think of you as my psychiatrist, as I think of you more as my life coach, or my success coach.” He was referring to the treatment of, not only his anxiety and depression, but also the dissolving of his inner obstacles - the negative core beliefs that used to stand in the way of his success.
Now enjoying the career and accomplishments that before he had only dreamed of, he has used techniques based in an approach best termed as positive psychiatry, to move beyond recovery to authentic achievement in alignment with what he truly values. Through hard work and daily practice, he has achieved the type of career success that before he thought was out of reach. He has maintained this success in the context of dramatic world change, emanating a resilience that stems from a true source of power, himself and his now positive core beliefs about self.
In Europe, and New York, therapists are seen as key to success. The ability to develop emotional intelligence through years of therapy is coveted. Many people attribute their success to their therapist. Just as athletes have sports coaches, high performance professionals have a therapist to “up level their game.” In this way, they create resilience through the training of the mind in the process of a psychiatric approach that develops positive character strengths.
Resilience
Resilience is defined as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties”, “the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity,” and in the Merriam Webster Dictionary, is defined as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”
Resilience can also be a process of adjustment, transformation, and even growth in response to something stressful.
I first became interested in resilience when, in early medical school, we were asked to do a research project. I had chosen to work at a refugee clinic, and we did a photojournalist study with recently arrived refugees from Burma. I wished to study what made them strong, resilient, in the face of transitioning to a new country after surviving extreme circumstances in their home country. With an intimate knowledge of refugee history in my own life, I had long been impressed by a certain ability to tolerate stress in those I knew who had once been refugees.
I discovered that I was not able to do a project on resilience. The rationale is that there was not enough research on resilience to create a body of repeatable evidence on resilience. So, instead we studied the degree of negative symptoms occurring in refugees. However, I kept my research on resilience close, especially the Connor Davidson Scale of Resilience, curious if I could use this in future with clients. I wanted to know what made people strong, adaptable, creative, innovative, and able to bounce back from severe circumstances; whether the severe circumstances be a sense of inner stress, or significant witnessing of trauma. I remained curious about what creates an adaptive intelligence.
There is an ability of the mind and heart to become adaptive, and developing this skill creates a kind of intelligence. This adaptive intelligence can find an ease, a flow, and a present and focused response to ongoing change; from here, you can navigate the territory of the change with a sense of effortlessness and a maintained even nature, while keeping your intention clear on the desired outcome. Similar to flow state, this state of adaptive intelligence allows for an agility and grace in moving through the constant change that is the dynamic mystery, challenge, and potential beauty of life.
To create this adaptive intelligence, you need to practice. Practice starts to create an internal compass that can help you discern which choices lead to more stability, or adventure, or calm - towards the way of life you wish to create.
One way to create an adaptive intelligence, is to experience the benefits of psychotherapy. Positive psychiatry, which includes the development of character strengths as part of its approach to psychotherapy, can increase inner strength, confidence, and ease as you power up your adaptive intelligence.
“Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power. “ - William James
Positive Psychiatry
During my psychiatric training, I was exposed to positive psychiatry. However, not many people were practicing from a positive psychiatry perspective, so I thought perhaps it was too different and somehow therefore not conservative enough to be reliable. Initially, I chose to study more mainstream and biological psychiatry, interested to further understand the anatomical structures underlying thought, mood, and behaviour. However, I also studied with a marvellous psychoanalytic psychiatrist who had over sixty years of experience. Here I learned the power of the mind to create and repeat core beliefs throughout our lives in subconscious manners unless the core beliefs were brought to light through therapy.
Positive Psychiatry is described as “the science and practice of psychiatry that seeks to understand and promote well-being through assessments and interventions involving positive psychosocial characteristics.”
Practicing positive psychiatry involves developing positive character traits, including resilience, optimism, personal mastery and coping self-efficacy, social engagement, and wisdom - including compassion. The biology of positive psychiatry is part of the approach, where aspects of the brain, the nervous system, stress science, and positive emotions are brought into the way in which clients are encouraged to train a new way of being that support well being. Promising empirical data suggests that positive traits may be improved through psychosocial and biological interventions, including research showing that envisioning a positive future actually creates resilience and optimism. “Positive psychiatry has the potential to improve the health and well-being of individuals with or without mental illnesses”, says researcher Graham Eglit and colleagues from UCLA.
Positive Psychiatry dates back at least to 1906 when William James, a physician, psychologist, and philosopher, spoke to the need for a new approach to apply psychology to cure, based on positive emotions and beliefs. William James went on to establish the School of Psychology at Harvard University, and is considered the Father of American Psychology. The basis of a method of “mind-cure” through a focus on positive beliefs was basically ignored until Abraham Maslow and colleagues focused on studying the Humanistic Psychology of creative, healthy people. In the late 1990’s, Martin Seligman and colleagues pioneered the positive psychology movement that focuses on building optimism, courage, and interpersonal skills, among other positive traits.
The evidence-based science outcomes of positive psychiatry have included studies that show: (1) practicing optimism or kindness and using character strengths improves depressive symptoms and enhances well-being, (2) yoga and mindfulness can reduce stress and inflammation and thus improve immune function and health, and (3) lifestyle interventions can decrease depression, anxiety, obesity, and other conditions. Newer research is showing that imaginative envisioning of a positive future, directed in a specific way, can improve optimism, positivity, and resilience. Relaxing and experiencing positive emotions and imaginative experiences, can also soothe the nervous system to the extent that it reduces symptoms of post-traumatic stress, according to preliminary research on a specific type of yoga nidra.
build resilience
Accessing wellness services either through virtual groups or online wellness programs and materials may be a way to start your journey towards greater resilience. For those with a diagnosis, if there is insomnia, mild anxiety, or adjustment issues, then having your family physicians refer you to a virtual group program based in mindfulness principles and positive psychiatry may be a way to restore your sense of happiness and calm within, despite the events occurring around you.
Simple Tools
You may simply start with a few tools to grow, or reset into, greater resilience. A few approaches are listed here:
Move: start the day with vigorous physical activity to potentially stimulate brain growth, help your physiology clear and detoxify, and produce endorphins
Sleep: get to sleep at the same time every night, and wake at the same time every day, trying to get to sleep before 11 pm, and spend very little time in bed when not asleep
Greens: eat a lot of vegetables, especially leafy greens and broccoli, as these are anti-inflammatory and reduce stress
Heart: practice feeling in your heart, positive emotions like kindness, compassion, love, gratitude, confidence and notice if you can feel a difference; measurement devices would show that, if you effectively practice these, you shift the electromagnetic field of your heart
Strength: notice your character strengths, even if these sometimes lead to areas of weakness in you; strengthen the aspects of your character that allow you to tolerate change with ease
Journal: journal at the end of the day first what you noticed as a positive character strength, and then any obstacles you faced and how you dealt with them; come up with five possible ways to deal with an obstacle that you felt was challenging, and write these five ways down
Relax: practice deep relaxation with guided meditation to reset your brainwaves and slow you into the parasympathetic zone, to rest and relax and charge up your batteries
Walk: walk in the woods, by water, through gardens or parks to be in nature; numerous studies show that being in nature can boost a positivity, an optimism, and improve immune function
Imagine: imagine a positive future for your self, something simple and relatively realistic and within your control
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. - William James
I always remember the story of Gandhi, contemplating how to create world peace when he found himself in jail. He could have spent his precious time thinking so many negative things and feeling powerless. Yet, he chose to contemplate how to create world peace. We can’t always be like him, but we can be inspired by him in that, he took a time of adversity and potentially feeling trapped, to instead create positivity.
Enjoy. Wishing you the best always,
Dr. Love
References
2020. Matheson et al. Resilience: safety in the aftermath of traumatic stressor experiences. In: Frontiers in Behavioural Neuroscience.
2015. Jeste et al. Positive Psychiatry: its time has come. In: J Clin Psychiatry Jun;76(6):675-83
2009. Quoidbach et al. Back to the future: the effect of daily practice of mental time travel into the future on happiness and anxiety. In: The Journal of Positive Psychology. 4:5, 349-355
2018. Eglit et al. Overview of measurement-based positive psychiatry. In: Nord J Psychiatry Aug;72(6):396-403
2020. Adam Grant. To build resilience in isolation, master the art of time travel. In: The New York Times May 15, 2020