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How people learn to become resilient (2016)

newyorker.com

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Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#21

Post by majormajor »

ceh123 wrote: post #17
rednerrus wrote: post #3

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

>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.…

I think we're all lucky that not everyone's goals are just to improve their own life, but that some people want to improve society too.

If you were ill you'd want the doctor who told you both "here's how to cope" and "here's how we cure this thing," not the one who stopped at the first.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#22

Post by akoncius »

gonetherapin wrote: post #9
psychtrauma wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#23

Post by nxc18 »

ceh123 wrote: post #17
rednerrus wrote: post #3

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

>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.…

To add to this, the article mentions the need to be more specific when facing challenges and stressors.

A big trend, at least in PNW leftist activism, is looking at the entire system while focusing in on flaws. No improvement is acceptable unless it is total and complete, and partial steps are even worse than doing nothing.

Myanmar coup? Time to protest global capitalism. Bad conditions in a jail in Wyoming? Time to protest global capitalism. Trial outcome isn’t exactly what you wanted? Time to protest global capitalism. Frustrated that people aren’t paying attention on the 170th night of increasingly incoherent, demand-free protests about issues over which locals have zero control? Time to protest global capitalism.

Then on Twitter, after every protest, you have to complain when global capitalism wasn’t dismantled. If action was taken in response to protest, you have to tweet that it isn’t enough, because it didn’t abolish all borders, dismantle global capitalism, give all land back, and eliminate all government and corporations.

If people had an internal locus of control, they might think about how they can accomplish things, and that might involve identifying solutions to fix parts of the system, rather than demand the whole thing comes crashing down (with no actual thought on a replacement).

edit to clarify: none of the protest triggers leading to ‘time to protest global capitalism’ is meaningfully connected to or specifically about global capitalism; that’s the point. The folks I’m talking about don’t actually have a solid conception of the world and how they specifically want to change it, they’re just angry and don’t really think they can, so they act out against the entire system (I think in decades past it would have been ‘The Man’). Right now its trendy to hate on global capitalism, and assert that it fundamentally is linked to colonialism and white supremacy, among all other social ills. I’m not defending this thinking, just describing it, since it was so foreign to me and apparently to others.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#24

Post by akoncius »

gonetherapin wrote: post #9
psychtrauma wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#25

Post by wiggumspiggums »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #12
psychtrauma wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

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-...

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#26

Post by kiba »

newacct583 wrote: post #19
ceh123 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

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 tactic…

I don't think that's what he's arguing.

Systematic problems are worth correcting and shouldn't be ignored.

The problem is that systematic problems requiring systematic solution doesn't provide a framework for individual behavior in the meantime.

You can't wait for problems to get fixed. Even if you're working hard or contributing money to those that are working to get problems fixed, you're still stuck in whatever circumstances you are in. It may be a long time for these problems to be fixed, in the meantime we're the heroes(or villains) of our own stories.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#27

Post by kiba »

nxc18 wrote: post #23
ceh123 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

To add to this, the article mentions the need to be more specific when facing challenges and stressors. A big trend, at least in PNW leftist activism, is looking at the entire system while focusing in on flaws. No improvement is acceptable unless it is total and complete, and partial steps are even worse than doing nothing. Myanmar coup? Time to protest global capitalism. Bad conditions in a jail in Wyoming? Time to…

I don't see what global capitalism has to do with Myanmar coup or jail condition in Wyoming?

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#28

Post by nxc18 »

newacct583 wrote: post #19
ceh123 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.…

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 tactic…

The way leftists approach fixing systemic issues is fundamentally incompatible with actually changing anything. The smart leftists work towards positive change by doing disgusting things like engaging in compromise and working with people who aren’t ideologically pure; when they do such things they inadvertently reveal themselves to be something far more horrible, like a liberal or a progressive-but-not-progressive-enough.

Can you explain what exactly you want to see and how burning anything or tearing down statues accomplishes that? As far as I can tell, all it accomplished was status quo, with a lot more people feeling threatened by leftists.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#29

Post by maverickJ »

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-thre... explores this further.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#30

Post by TameAntelope »

currymj wrote: post #20

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 i…

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.
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