Frederic Flach - Resilience: How We Find New Strength At Times of Stress

I read Dr. Frederic Flachs Resilience for the first time while working on the original manuscript as an editorial assistant at Ballantine Books more than 30 years ago. I had recently graduated from Vassar College and moved to New York City to start my career when, six weeks after graduation, my father died suddenly of a heart attack. As I went through the painful, disruptive process of mourning my father, I found the principles of Resilience extremely helpful. And in the years since, as Ive faced myriad challenges, including career changes and family health issues, I have turned to the philosophy inherent in Resilience many times.

First published in 1988, the process outlined by Dr. Flach in his booka cycle of stress, adversity, disruption, and renewalis deeply meaningful still today. Dr. Flach defines resilience as the psychological and biological strengths required to successfully master change. He understood that a cycle of falling apart and subsequently putting the pieces of ourselves and our lives together again in a new form is a central and recurring theme throughout the human life cycle.

Yet Dr. Flachs message is a hopeful one. Becoming more resilient is something that is ever within our grasp through our ability to nurture certain resilient personality traits within ourselves. Among them are: Creativity. The ability to tolerate pain. Insight into ourselves and what we are going through at any particular phase in our lives. Independence of spirit. Self-respect. The ability to restore self-esteem when it is diminished or temporarily lost. A capacity for learning. The ability to make and keep friends. Freedom to depend on others, with the skill to set proper limits on the depth of our dependency. A perspective on life that offers a vital, evolving philosophy within which we can interpret all that we experience and from which we can discover some measure of personal meaning.

At time of writing, we as a society are living through a period of profound disruption in our collective lives, brought on by COVID-19, the new coronavirus. Even long after the quarantine has lifted, we will still be sorting through the pandemics impact on how we do everything: how we educate our children, care for our elderly, structure our work and home lives, and even how we come together for entertainment, sports, religion and holidays. As we struggle to forge a new normal, now is the perfect moment to read Resilience.

Now, as I look forward to the months and years ahead, post-pandemic, I find myself turning once again to Dr. Flachs words for encouragement and guidance: The most encouraging observation Ive made over all these years is that resilience is a strength most of us can develop with thought and practice.

Mary Kathleen Flynn
Editor-in-Chief, Mergers & Acquisitions