Resilience in the Face of Stress- Anxiety, Depression, Loss
Parker-Pope1, “Much of the scientific research on resilience — our ability to bounce back from adversity — has focused on how to build resilience in children. But what about the grown-ups?
While resilience is an essential skill for healthy childhood development, science shows that adults also can take steps to boost resilience in middle age, which is often the time we need it most. Midlife can bring all kinds of stressors, including divorce, the death of a parent, career setbacks and retirement worries, yet many of us don’t build the coping skills we need to meet these challenges.”
Sheryl Sandberg’s story2, “I have terrible news,” she told her children, after flying home from Mexico. “Daddy died.” The intimacy of detail that fills the book is unsettling; there were times I felt that I had come across someone’s secret knowledge, that I shouldn’t have been in possession of something that seemed so deeply private. But the candor and simplicity with which she shares all of it — including her children’s falling to the ground, unable to walk to the grave when they arrive at the cemetery — is a kind of gift. She was shielded from the financial disaster that often accompanies sudden widowhood, but in every other way she was unprotected from great pain.”
Levitan3, To the Editor: “How to Build Resilience in Midlife” (Science Times, Aug. 1) highlights the importance of resilience in good mental health. A notable decrease in a person’s usual resilience can be an early sign of a developing depression.
Someone who has always had good coping skills but who is now overwhelmed by even minor stresses should raise suspicions that he or she may be suffering from depression. If a professional evaluation confirms the presence of depression, both psychotherapy and antidepressants can be effective in diminishing symptoms and restoring healthy resilience.”
This is where Counseling on Demand comes in. Physician-prescribed antidepressants can put you in a better frame of mind to work with your therapist.
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1. Tara Parker-Pope, How to Build Resilience in Midlife, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/well/mind/how-to-boost-resilience-in-midlife.html 2. Caitlin Flanagan, Sheryl Sandberg Finds Comfort for Herself and Offers It to Others, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/23/books/review/sheryl-sandberg-option-b.html 3. STEPHAN J. LEVITAN, NEW YORK, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. A Lack of Resilience, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/opinion/a-lack-of-resilience.html
