Interdisciplinary Psychology:

I am more than what I think

The Resilience Factor promises to help readers learn the ABCs of increasing resiliency by teaching seven skills that are grouped together into two subcategories, the "know theyself skills" (p. 66) and the "change skills" (ibid). There are three "know thyself skills," the ABCs of resiliency, Avoiding Thinking Traps, and Detecting Icebergs. There are four "change skills," Challenging Beliefs, Putting it in Perspective, Calming and Focusing, and Real-time Resilience (p. 146).

The ABCs of resiliency comprise of Adversity, Beliefs, and Consequences (p. 66). Readers are given exercises throughout the book for dealing with adversity by making lists of the ABCs, finding the connection between beliefs and consequences. The ABCs of resiliency are at the heart of Reivich and Shatté's program.

The book is broken into three sections, Part One focuses on Commitment to Change and basically puts forth an argument in favor of following the model proposed by Reivich and Shatté. This part of the book offers arguments in support of why resiliency matters, offers tests for readers to determine their own resiliency, and lays the groundwork for the rest of the book.

Part Two focuses on Mastering the Seven Skills listed above. The various chapters in this section provide more exercises for readers to work on the program, with most of the exercises involving making lists as a way to analyze the ABCs of resiliency. In this section, Reivich and Shatté expose the strong cognitive background of their program, and acknowledge the work of psychiatrisy Aaron Beck.  Beck was also a mentor to psychiatrist David Burns, author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy.  It bothered me that Burns is not mentioned in The Resilience Factor. However, Reivich and Shatté did share Beck's concept of cognitive distortions by listing the eight thinking traps Beck discovered through his work with depressed and anxious patients.

Part Three focuses on Application of Skills by helping readers figure out how to apply this newly proposed skill set in marriage and long-term relationships, in parenting, at work, and in life. Most of this section describes various case scenarios and dissects how former clients of Reivich and Shatté have used the authors' program to successfully navigate adversity by applying their newly learned resiliency skills.

This book is highly reminiscent of Aaron Beck's work, so I was pleased to see homage paid to him even if David Burns was left out. I consider this book intellectually honest because it included many citations, particularly in the first section. Yet certain aspects of this book annoyed me.

The tone of the book is very corporate, which isn't surprising since Reivich and Shatté created this program after receiving a request from a corporation to teach employees how to be more resilient. Dare I say it, the authors sound like used car sales people at times, or like they are making a pitch for a late-night television infomercial. This contrasted highly with both Compton's and Seligman's books. I think the difference here is that Reivich and Shatté spend a lot of time pitching their product, whereas both Compton and Seligman seemed to leave the words "I" and "we will" out of their text, allowing their material to stand on its own.

Another problem I have with the material is the expressed belief that humans are what we think (p. 66). I find this too rigorous, and as disturbing as psychologist B. F. Skinner's assertion that humans are how we behave. There was an inclusivity expressed in both Compton's and Seligman's work that is not found here. This book represents too much of a hard-sell that we are the sum total of our thoughts, and through following the work of Reivich and Shatté, we will have better thoughts, better resiliency and better lives.

I have to reject the idea that we are what we think. I believe our thoughts are vitally important, and I will probably always argue in favor of people, particularly Westerners, learning how to harness our mental thoughts and thinking processes more effectively. But I cannot accept the notion that our thoughts define us because this is too narrow, and too rigorous, of a viewpoint for me. It doesn't allow room for peak experiences, for transpersonal phenomena, for spirituality, or for higher levels of achievement in the human realm.

Another problem I have with material that is so strongly rooted in the cognitive tradition is that it enforces our "doingness" while ignoring our "beingness." I think there is a danger that such work leads troubled people to engage in too much mental rumination, which can aggravate both depression and anxiety. To be fair, Reivich and Shatté did include calming and focusing exercises in the "change skills" portion of the book, and these exercises are based more on being than doing, but there was still an analytical aspect to these processes. The reason "doing" versus "being" disturbs me is that I feel it is another attempt to control, and I remain convinced that the root of many psychological imbalances is an intolerance of ambiguity and a desire to gain more control of one's mental functioning. I don't believe this is the best path for all people. I am highly analytical. I learned David Burns's system for challenging beliefs back in the 1990's and it didn't make me less emotionally volatile. It probably helped me to become more empathetic of others. But for me personally, I have only become more balanced and less emotionally volatile by allowing my mind to shift from doing mode to being mode through vipassna meditation.

In other words, there isn't one panacea for all emotional issues. Each person must find the style of work that best suits them. When thinking about who we are, I tend to view humans as multi-dimensional and individually unique despite our similarities. I look to eyewitness testimony as evidence that this is so. In any situation, if two or more people perceive of the same event, they will not recall the event exactly the same way. To me, this is hard evidence of our uniqueness and that we each have our own reality if you will. Which is why there will never be one psychological process, physical activity, proper diet, set of dreams, or spiritual belief system that works for all people. While I appreciate the enthusiasm the authors have for their product, I think their enthusiasm expresses the limitations of their belief systems.