As each of us has learned only too starkly, in times of prolonged crisis, we naturally operate with a heightened sense of fear, anxiety, loneliness, and grief. We fall back on our default coping mechanisms to deal with the situation at hand but what do we do when these coping strategies no longer work?
How do we navigate the intense pain and trauma that the pandemic has brought upon us?
What tools and frameworks should we use now?
Are there new ideas and concepts in counseling and psychotherapy that could help?
Do these go beyond the cliched feel-good advice that feels too glib right now?
I turned to the very wise Nivedita Singh for some answers. Nivedita is a Trained Counsellor and Psychotherapist from The Albert Ellis Institute New York and works with children, adolescents, parents, and families. She brings a compassionate and empowering approach to the therapeutic process; whether it is through enhancing coping skills (thereby reducing suffering) or by helping individuals identify and leverage their potential (helping them achieve their goals).
That she is a close family friend and someone who always encourages and champions my ambitions, and offers sage advice, means I often turn to her gravitas and expertise to make sense of the world. This is a long, unedited interview with her. Have the patience to stay till the end: the quiet rewards will be worth it.
- Interview Begins -
Thank you so much, Nivedita for agreeing to do this and taking out time for sharing so generously with us.
1. Grit and resilience have become oft-repeated concepts that sound more and more like preachy, not-very-useful guidelines. Do you agree that's true? If so, what concepts are more useful for us to introduce into our vocabulary to navigate life's highs and lows?
Over the past year, Grit and Resilience have been overused to the point where they have not merely lost their sheen and novelty, but also their impact. People have started to disengage from them while labeling them as hackneyed and preachy.
I would place Grit on the back burner for now. Grit espouses passion and perseverance in the face of adversity for realizing long-term goals. While we are hardwired to work towards goals, from an evolutionary perspective, we are also hardwired to hyper absorb negative things around us.
Today, as the pandemic continues to test our collective mettle, wrecking medical, emotional, and economic havoc, the future feels nebulous and illusive. We’re a far cry from goal-seeking aspirations. Rather than a grit enabling template people today are left clutching onto a survivors toolkit that enables them to surmount the weeks and the days.
Resilience, on the other hand, still has immense value in our current journey, albeit with a slightly altered definition.
Unlike what many think, resilience is not about bouncing back. When a ball bounces back it does so with energy and vigor and with its properties intact. In human beings, the person who emerges from a storm is never the same person that entered the storm. So resilience also epitomizes fragility, brokenness, damage, grace, acceptance, humility, and yet continuing to hold oneself together. It’s about a wobbly, slow, tentative yet deep willingness to strive to be ‘alive’ rather than merely about coming back to life. Resilience is a life force. A deep powerful one at that.
This is a time when the pandemic has incapacitated and maimed us psychologically. It has disfigured our imagination, sullied our hope, rendering us feeling overwhelmed with ‘not much to do’ as opposed to our earlier experience of being overwhelmed with ‘too much to do’. As one stands by the wayside the writing on the wall is fairly clear There’s a huge Crisis of Agency that is waiting to explode around us. Hence, in my opinion, it’s Agency that will be the defining term as we navigate life’s high and low.
I would say, Agency is a cauldron with a brew containing Acceptance, Attention, Ask (ourselves the right questions), Anchor and Act.
We Accept ourselves with humility and compassion whether broken, fragmented, or whole.
We Ask ourselves powerful paradoxical questions like ‘good reasons to not give up on certain emotions even when they are negative’ and also ‘what these emotions say about us that are positive and beautiful’. Asking ourselves whether a certain thought is helping us or hurting us.
We allocate Attention to the strengths we have, nurture them, to the abilities and potential to maximize and the resources to tap, the limits/boundaries to be managed, expectations to set.
We Anchor ourselves in this reality. Grounding is extremely important.
We then move on to Act, set our pace while keeping the pause button handy.
Agency for me is action that is targeted, measured, calculated, aspirational while also being realistic and achievable. An appropriate tagline for this post-pandemic age would be “Short Steps For Tall Feats” keeping in mind that it’s a recovery phase; a phase where we must expect a waxing and waning of internal drivers of human behavior e.g. motivation, self-regulation, self-control, etc., etc.
2. What is emotional agility? How do we use it to equip ourselves with greater strength?
Emotional agility is about traversing through our emotional realities, with intention, compassion, and sensitivity. It’s about not ignoring what feels uncomfortable and not selectively latching on to those feelings and emotions that are socially acceptable. In the past few years, social media has changed how we process life. While the digital platforms can be a huge support in terms of connectedness and engagement, it’s more often than not a filtered, glamourized representation of the lives we lead. People only advertise and cheer the good, or maybe, the carefully curated bad.
Today even the mundane and day-to-day has to be ‘Instagram worthy’. It’s precisely this impulse towards self-aggrandizement that Emotional agility attempts at squaring because people are burning at both ends striving to live up to and further enhance the carefully crafted ‘real’ while succumbing to the stress and anxiety of living the ‘real’ real.
Calamitous changes with heightened emotions create complexities for people and the organizational workplaces. In the current unpredictable global landscape, organizational leaders will have to work in collaboration with their cohorts as well as trained mental health/human service professionals to set up guidelines, policies, and procedures that are geared towards facilitating an understanding of emotional agility.
This, along with an application of EA principles to alleviate anxiety, stress and burnout are imperative for the health of the organization and the wellbeing of its co-workers. Done within the larger framework of a strength-based paradigm this will allow employees to perform to the best of their abilities, both in the personal as well as the professional domain, and will go a long way in enhancing employee satisfaction and motivation.
3. Which new discoveries/evolution in psychology and strengths-based counseling are important tools for the world right now?
It’s imperative, in fact vital, that we do not downplay the traumatic nature of the current global pandemic. Trauma isn’t a short-term concern, and the long-term consequences are numerous, especially, when left unprocessed and untreated. The trauma and anguish coupled with the helplessness and uncertainty experienced over the long haul can lead to mood disorders, suicidal ideation as well as substance use disorders, and behavioral addictions. I would recommend institutions and organizations to adopt a Trauma-Informed Approach that understands and considers the pervasive nature of trauma and promotes an ecosystem of healing and recovery rather than continuing with their earlier policies and procedures that may inadvertently end up re-traumatizing.
It’s important to understand that a trauma survivor (which we all are today, having lost our way of life, maybe family, friends, our dreams, aspirations, certainty, future, health, routine, business, etc) is on a continuum from feeling Overwhelmed 🡨---------------------🡪 Overcoming. The trauma response mechanism that one puts in place has to factor in this information and also the understanding that trauma can overwhelm one’s ability to cope. Many become hypervigilant, with an increase in negative thoughts and feelings, have a problem with attention, energy, interest, focus, concentration along with impaired sleep to name a few.
Even if an adult has not been personally affected by the pandemic, in terms of a close member’s life lost, it’s possible to develop vicarious trauma simply from repeatedly watching others suffer. People may struggle with flashbacks, hallucinations, and nightmares. If a person doesn’t work through their trauma experience, these symptoms can become even more severe and debilitating.
Strength-based interventions will help individuals focus on their internal resources, desires, interests, aspirations, experience, etc as opposed to focusing on deficits and shortcomings. This will help facilitate a shift from living with learned helplessness to moving towards learned resourcefulness.
Along with this, I would also emphasize the relevance of Pragmatics. Today, it’s important to be wise and practical as opposed to being idealistic. Wisdom, in the age of information, is a scarce commodity and can add immense value through laying out a realistic schema of optimal human functioning. This can be done through teaching the fundamental pragmatics of life.
Some points that could help develop expertise in the conduct and meaning of life could be points like, an understanding and knowledge of life’s obligations and goals, a comprehension of the messiness of human beings, tolerance of ambiguity, and the ability to work with it, the ability to spot flaws in reasoning, the ability to reframe thoughts, emotions, and information, understanding and clarity about cultural conditioning, an avoidance of stereotypes, being comfortable with messy and ill-structured situations, the ability to take a long view of problems and a refusal to allow the experience to become a liability through the creation of blind spots, and finally, an openness to events and situations that do not fit into logical and traditional categories. An approach incorporating some or all of these can help people get attuned to the complexities of life – past, present, and future – as central to human development.
4. How are conversations of strength different from toxic positivity? Right now, for most of us, the Theory of Constraints is at work: people are operating from a place of anxiety and fear, but doesn’t the situation demand that? Isn’t paranoia good for public health, for example? And, if we are adopting this mindset in one part of life, how does one not get used to adopting that in other parts of one’s life too? I, for one, have seriously needed to introspect on my default outlook of optimism. I keep asking myself: would we all have been better off if we were less optimistic? It's a foundational, fundamental introspection that I think others might be going through as well.
A strength-based approach is a focus on strengths and values. Interventions involve not just fixing what is broken but nurturing what is best. The paradigm also pushes us to examine the evidence making it the cornerstone of the approach.
For example, if a 60-year-old man learns parasailing, then that represents courage, perseverance, and a commitment to learning. If he then agrees to quit at his family’s insistence, despite being angry and upset about discontinuing, it shows values like a love for family, a sense of responsibility as well as a deep passion for his dreams. In a strength-based approach, one will highlight these strengths while at the same time identifying and staying with his emotions too.
My response would be “AB, I can see how dejected, disappointed, and also angry you are feeling. You’re right, it does hurt when you think people are unnecessarily worried. I know how it feels to work hard and sacrifice one’s dreams for others. I can feel your pain AB, and at the same time, I can see how much you value your family and are willing to go through the discomfort of pain to see them happy. It really makes me admire you”
The same example can represent toxicity if I tell him “AB, Come on, you should not be angry. Your anger is really unjustified because the family is thinking of your well-being and you’re being somewhat selfish behaving like this” Now this is a toxic response. To make it even more toxic, I could go further and try and add perspective, or respond with “It is what it is”, “look on the bright side” or “be grateful for what you have.” etc.
“When positivity, whether directed towards the self or others, is forced to cover up or silence the human experience, it becomes toxic”.
Toxic positivity is basically an avoidance strategy, used to push away and invalidate any internal discomfort. It’s based on the notion that there is a greater purpose behind devastating loss; an assertion that has no scientific or rational basis and takes away our rights to be fallible, as human beings. Suppressing and avoiding emotions is never a good thing as it keeps you from a true breakthrough and you end up doing yourself more harm. When feelings are not processed and metabolized they come out as lifestyle diseases and manifest themselves physiologically as well and behaviourally.
Emotions like pain, worry, heartbreak, and fear are normal and genuine aspects of being human. People experiencing them need acknowledgment, support, and validation to move past it. While it’s okay to be a cheerleader and try to motivate your peers and friends, it is imperative that we examine the message to make sure we are not overdoing it and that it is helpful for the person, and not diluting or minimizing their experience. Overdoing it can cause resistance and unintended stress in the receiver and make it less likely that they will consult us in the future
4 b). Right now, for most of us, the Theory of Constraints is at work: people are operating from a place of anxiety and fear, but doesn’t the situation demand that? Isn’t paranoia good for public health, for example? And, if we are adopting this mindset in one part of life, how does one not get used to adopting that in other parts of one’s life too?
There are too many tabs open in our brain at the moment. It’s like our laptop running on a low battery with a hundred tabs open. It starts to shut down, which is exactly what is happening to people. It’s important to acknowledge that while we are all in the same storm each one has entered it with a different story, a different set of challenges, and different resources.
There has been prolonged uncertainty with no light at the end of the tunnel and with timelines and goalposts changing every day. There is complicated, anticipatory grief, a sense of ambiguous loss, and a deep sense of helplessness with the medical infrastructure and system being overwhelmed. There are severe limitations and restrictions on what we can do, where we can go, who we can reach out to, there are fewer things to interest and excite us, there are space constraints both physical and psychological, there is work pressure and expectations both personally and professionally with no relief or respite. Dreams and aspirations have been thwarted. The way we knew life has changed with doomsayers predicting it will stay this way for another five years.
The overriding emotions are pain, grief, fear, anguish, anger, disillusionment, loneliness, stress, anxiety, guilt, frustration, and the list goes on. I am not sure as to how the Theory of Constraints (TOC) can be applied in this context. I find the theory more apt for manufacturing and supply chain logistics. Where humans with their psychological constructs are concerned, we as mental health professionals have our own set of TICS and TOCS. These are Task Interfering Cognitions and Task-Oriented Cognitions that we find very useful and effective to work with.
Most people are not operating from an exaggerated sense of fear or anxiety but from real fear. Humans were not designed to experience such heightened fear for such a protracted period of time, and with no respite in sight. Anxiety, which is long-drawn, can lead to acute burnout, breakdowns, panic attacks, disassociation and illnesses too.
Paranoia is too loaded a word for any mental health professional to claim it’s good. It’s a symptom of mental illness and can lead to hallucinations, delusions, and a lifetime of misery. Where the pandemic is concerned, there is paranoia in those having underlying vulnerabilities or a genetic loading and at the same time, exposure to prolonged uncertainty, inducing aggravated fear is extremely scary by implication where wellbeing is concerned and definitely fertile grounds for paranoia and other mental illnesses.
4 c). I, for one, have seriously needed to introspect on my default outlook of optimism. I keep asking myself: would we all have been better off if we were less optimistic? It's a foundational, fundamental introspection that I think others might be going through as well.
Our brain has a built-in optimism bias. Optimism is a personality attribute and has been seen to reduce anxiety among different populations. It enhances well-being by creating a sense of enthusiasm and anticipation about the future. Optimism also motivates us to pursue our goals. You’re right, others might be experiencing this dilemma of whether optimism is fine or not, especially amid the pandemic.
There is a flip side to the bias, it often leads us to believe that we are less likely to suffer from misfortune, poor health, setbacks, disappointments, etc and it lulls us into a false sense of complacency. It is also known to elevate our risk-taking behaviors. People might skip their yearly medical examination, not wear their seatbelt, not save money in their emergency fund, or play high stakes when gambling, or smoke and drink heavily because they mistakenly believe that bad things won't happen to them. It’s important that our optimism does not reduce us to a Pollyanna level and we pepper it with a good dose of realism.
Personally, in the context of the pandemic, all bets are off! There are no rules anymore about whether to adopt optimism or pessimism. In fact, I would even be reluctant to recommend that people stop being pessimistic. Maybe they have very good reasons, are suffering from deep personal losses and a pessimistic outlook is helping them more than hurting them. Maybe they are too scared to look at the positives lest it be snatched away from them. I would just sit with such people and offer silent support.
To the rest, I would propose to offer a blended approach that boasts of a more realistic framing of our current environment and experiences. Perhaps a mingling of tempered optimism and upbeat pessimism will give us the Pragmatic Realism we need to help people face the challenges of disenchantment, disillusionment, and disorder encompassing their lives. This might help us in finding meaning amid the chaos.
5. If there was one concept or narrative that you could stop perpetuating around themes of grit, resilience, and change – either because they are unhelpful, completely erroneous, or just lazy – which ones would it be?
I’ve already talked about Grit and Resilience. The one other thing I would like to stop perpetuating around the theme of Change is the exhortation to ‘embrace’ it. I would prefer an invitation to talk about all the reasons I might overtly or covertly be keen to resist the embrace! Maybe I do not care about the outcome.
The outcome might appear to be too tumultuous and anxiety arousing, straight after the experience of being ravaged by the current storm. Maybe I am not ready for it, physically, emotionally, or physiologically. I may not have the bandwidth or the personal or intellectual resources. I may be unclear about my goals and my abilities; about the direction to take and the pace to keep. I may not have a compass or a timekeeper in my life! There are so many reasons for which the outcome could come riding on a nightmare for me. I would first like someone to check in with me to see whether I’ve been able to unpack, understand and metabolize the ordeal.
At the same time, for those who might be drawn towards the change, the price it could extract or the personal investment that the process could demand might well not be within one’s personal resources and means. It might demand drive, dedication, diligence, discipline, and deprivation that one is currently deficient in.
The point being made here is that it’s important to honor the resistance and to roll with it. The motivation to change has very powerful internal drivers. Even if one accepts the importance of embracing change at the cognitive level, there has to be an internalization of that understanding at the gut level.
When we push someone to embrace anything straight after they are emerging out of the most catastrophic change experience of their lives, there is bound to be a pullback. A paradoxical invitation uncovering all the good reasons to stay put and not change is the only way to melt away the resistance and bring it to conscious awareness.
In my opinion, it’s neither erroneous nor lazy but can prove to be ineffective as well as counterproductive. Motivational paralysis resulting in logjams is one of the most visible cardinal symptoms of trauma. This includes trauma experienced both directly or vicariously and has to be addressed with expertise, with empathy, and with compassion, instead of being sidestepped and/or wished away.