COMMITMENTS : In Tough Times, Finding the Possibilities Within

Some people can bounce back from misfortune and rise above adversity--and it involves a state of mind that can be learned.

“There’s no simple formula to explain how it’s done,” says Susan Fine, director of therapeutic activities at the Payne Whitney Clinic in New York, in the current issue of Redbook. “It’s a process in which one digests, reviews, alters one’s perspective, protects oneself from reality to gain some strength, then changes one’s life mission.”

Researchers can identify personality traits that makes this task easier--optimism, adventurousness, courage, self-understanding, humor, the capacity to work hard and the ability to endure or find outlets for emotions.

These qualities may not be apparent until crisis hits. Fine is regularly surprised at which of her patients rise above adversity.

“Some people would say that those people are different, that ‘they are resilient and I’m not,’ ” said Irma Gottesfeld, a supervisor for the American Assn. for Marriage and Family Therapy. “But what they are actually doing is finding the possibilities that were always there within them.”

Research shows that some people are born with genes that predispose them to resilience. Genes, however, are not necessarily fate. Stephen Suomi, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Maryland, who has conducted studies with rhesus monkeys, said:

“Really good early social rearing can overcome some genetic problems. Really poor early social rearing can have effects over and above genetic resistance.”

*

Getting through trauma is a complicated process. Fine said people who tend to cope best are those who can look beyond the downside and find some meaning or challenge in the situation.

“The main characteristic of resilient people is that they believe that bad events are temporary,” said Martin E.P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Optimists have a big edge over pessimists.

Seligman has tested more than a million Americans and found that optimists are rarely depressed and, in lab experiments, fail to be discouraged when others give up on difficult tasks.

There are behaviors that make for resilience--facing problems rather than dodging them and finding ways to tolerate emotions long enough to understand them.

For some, physical exercise can serve as an emotional release; for others, keeping a journal helps to put a traumatic incident in perspective.

In a series of one-hour sessions of learned-optimism training, Seligman and fellow researchers teach people to recognize each time they make a pessimistic statement and then to dispute it.

“If you become good at disputing yourself,” Seligman said, “you can feel better right away.”