George Bonanno
Encyclopedia
George A. Bonanno is a professor of clinical psychology
at Columbia University
, Teachers College. He is known as a pioneering researcher in the field of bereavement and trauma. The New York Times on February 15, 2011, stated that the current science of bereavement has been "driven primarily" by Bonanno. Scientific American
summarized a main finding of his work, "The ability to rebound remains the norm throughout adult life." His contributions to the field, summarized in his book, "The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After a Loss," include the following:
to be at the core of human grief and trauma reactions. Bonanno's finding of resilience overturns what has been the status quo assumption of a person's experience of grief and trauma in the West
since Sigmund Freud
nearly a century ago. Bonanno's contribution to the field is to have found resilience through rigorous research and not through anecdotal evidence, theorizing, or simple but unreliable methodology.
Controversy. Many in the field of bereavement have found Bonanno's finding of persistent resilience in the face of potentially traumatic events controversial. Many therapists and psychiatrists, who tend to treat the chronically affected, find it hard to imagine that no treatment is needed for most people who have experienced a loss or even an extreme stressor event, such as during 9-11 or childhood sexual abuse. Further, in contrast to Freud's and his followers' ideas and prevailing popular theories, it is difficult for many people to accept laughter
as a more healthy response than crying. Another difficult concept, especially in the face a potentially traumatic event when people feel pulled to help in some way, is to realize that offering treatment to otherwise well people can cause harm, by producing the symptoms they hope to avoid.
Other critics have claimed the opposite, that far from being misguided, the idea that humans are resilient is so obvious that it is simplistic. Others have countered that it may seem simple, but the idea has escaped researchers for the century between Freud's work and Bonanno's. Policy and treatment for the past century has relied on the false idea that humans are not resilient, a costly mistake in human and monetary terms.
Resilience Overturns Stages Model. That people are resilient even when facing extreme stressors or losses contradicts the stages model of grief. Many resilient people show no grief. They therefore have no stages of grief to pass through. Until Bonanno, therapists and psychiatrist
s considered the absence of grief a pathology
to be feared, rather than a healthy outcome.
Importance of Resilience. Resilience has profound implications for people's concepts of themselves, especially after suffering a severe stressor event. The idea also has important implication for how the therapeutic community thinks of bereavement and treats bereavement. Bonanno's research has shown that universal counseling by grief counselors after potentially traumatic events does more harm than good. Resilience being an inherent part of human experience after major stressor events also may have important implications for public policy, such as how to best treat veteran
s who have served in war
situations and whether to counsel large populations after major stressor events, such as tsunami
s or mass shootings
.
The four trajectories and the percentages of people who tend to fall into each category are summarized and expanded upon in his book, "The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After a Loss," The book also includes graphs of the trajectories.
The four trajectories and the percentages of people who tend to fall into each category are expanded upon in his book, "The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After a Loss," The book also includes graphs of the trajectories.
The four trajectories are as follows:
, China
; among war survivors in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and in Israel. He has done multi-dimensional studies of emotion regulation, stressful life events, resilience, and adjustment among college students; a study of emotion and well-being among survivors of childhood sexual abuse (in collaboration with researchers at NIH); and several recent studies of resilience and adjustment in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York City (funded by the National Science Foundation
).
Rigorous Methodology: The fields of bereavement and trauma research rely often on simple measures, such as self-report questionnaires. Self-report measures are simple and inexpensive to give, but are unreliable for several reasons. Of concern to the fields of grief and trauma, self-report measures are biased by how the subject feels at the moment he or she answers the questionnaire. If the subject feels bad at the time of answering the questionnaire, the subject will remember the loss as more devastating. If the subject feels good when taking the questionnaire, the subject will report that the loss was less difficult to endure. This subjectivity can change rapidly.
Recognizing that any single simple measure cannot be accurate, one hallmark of Bonanno's research methodology has relied on several independent measures simultaneously. This ensures convergent validity
of any findings. For example, his research studies often simultaneously use, among other measures, skin temperature, heart rate, the Facial Action Coding System
or "FACS" pioneered by Paul Ekman
, empty chair studies, longitudinal measures over months or years, cortisol
, physician and friend reports, and Stroop
tests.
In addition, he is known for developing new research techniques, such as a measure of ambivalence
and the "empty chair" study with researcher Nigel Field.
Clinical psychology
Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Teachers College. He is known as a pioneering researcher in the field of bereavement and trauma. The New York Times on February 15, 2011, stated that the current science of bereavement has been "driven primarily" by Bonanno. Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
summarized a main finding of his work, "The ability to rebound remains the norm throughout adult life." His contributions to the field, summarized in his book, "The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After a Loss," include the following:
- Introducing rigorous scientific methodScientific methodScientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
s of research to the field of bereavement and trauma; - Describing for the first time, a natural resilience as the main component of griefGriefGrief is a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions...
and trauma reactions in people who face major losses, such as the death of a spouse, the loss of a child, having suffered sexual abuseSexual abuseSexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
as a child, or losing a loved one in severe stressorStressorStressor is a chemical or biological agent, environmental condition, an external stimulus or an event that causes stress to an organism. An event that triggers the stress response may include for example:...
events, such as the World Trade CenterWorld Trade CenterThe original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
collapse of 9-11-01; - Replacing with scientific findings the major concepts of grief that are theoretical, unsupported scientifically, but remain popular among practitioners and the lay public today, such as Kübler-Ross modelKübler-Ross modelThe Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as The Five Stages of Grief, was first introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying....
of the stages of grief and the idea of grief work based on the Freud'sSigmund FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
ideas; - Demonstrating scientifically that some practices common in grief counselingGrief counselingGrief counseling is a form of psychotherapy that aims to help people cope with grief and mourning following the death of loved ones, or with major life changes that trigger feelings of grief ....
, trauma counseling, and among therapists after potentially traumatic events are harmful. These practices include asking people to talk about a loss or to cry about a loss. These practices are common parts of public policyPublic policyPublic policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
and are based on the underlying assumption that people are not resilient; - Showing that genuine laughter and smiling, rather than crying, is a healthy response to a loss or stressor event; not crying is protective;
- The first and only researcher having obtained and used pre-loss data to understand the processes of grief;
- Based on pre-loss data, outlining four trajectories of grief;
- Demonstrating that absence of grief or trauma symptoms is a healthy outcome, rather than something to be feared as has been the thought and practice until his research;
- Coining the phrase "coping ugly" to describe the idea that copingCoping (psychology)Coping has been defined in psychological terms by Susan Folkman and Richard Lazarus as "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing" or "exceeding the resources of the person".Coping is thus expending...
with grief takes many forms, some of which seem counter intuitive. - Because resilience is natural, suggesting that it cannot be "taught" through specialized programs and that there is virtually no existing research to design resilience training nor is there existing research to support major investment in such things as military resilience training programs;
Resilience
Bonanno's research found psychological resiliencePsychological resilience
Resilience in psychology refers to the idea of an individual's tendency to cope with stress and adversity. This coping may result in the individual “bouncing back” to a previous state of normal functioning, or using the experience of exposure to adversity to produce a “steeling effect” and function...
to be at the core of human grief and trauma reactions. Bonanno's finding of resilience overturns what has been the status quo assumption of a person's experience of grief and trauma in the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
since Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
nearly a century ago. Bonanno's contribution to the field is to have found resilience through rigorous research and not through anecdotal evidence, theorizing, or simple but unreliable methodology.
Controversy. Many in the field of bereavement have found Bonanno's finding of persistent resilience in the face of potentially traumatic events controversial. Many therapists and psychiatrists, who tend to treat the chronically affected, find it hard to imagine that no treatment is needed for most people who have experienced a loss or even an extreme stressor event, such as during 9-11 or childhood sexual abuse. Further, in contrast to Freud's and his followers' ideas and prevailing popular theories, it is difficult for many people to accept laughter
Laughter
Laughing is a reaction to certain stimuli, fundamentally stress, which serves as an emotional balancing mechanism. Traditionally, it is considered a visual expression of happiness, or an inward feeling of joy. It may ensue from hearing a joke, being tickled, or other stimuli...
as a more healthy response than crying. Another difficult concept, especially in the face a potentially traumatic event when people feel pulled to help in some way, is to realize that offering treatment to otherwise well people can cause harm, by producing the symptoms they hope to avoid.
Other critics have claimed the opposite, that far from being misguided, the idea that humans are resilient is so obvious that it is simplistic. Others have countered that it may seem simple, but the idea has escaped researchers for the century between Freud's work and Bonanno's. Policy and treatment for the past century has relied on the false idea that humans are not resilient, a costly mistake in human and monetary terms.
Resilience Overturns Stages Model. That people are resilient even when facing extreme stressors or losses contradicts the stages model of grief. Many resilient people show no grief. They therefore have no stages of grief to pass through. Until Bonanno, therapists and psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
s considered the absence of grief a pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
to be feared, rather than a healthy outcome.
Importance of Resilience. Resilience has profound implications for people's concepts of themselves, especially after suffering a severe stressor event. The idea also has important implication for how the therapeutic community thinks of bereavement and treats bereavement. Bonanno's research has shown that universal counseling by grief counselors after potentially traumatic events does more harm than good. Resilience being an inherent part of human experience after major stressor events also may have important implications for public policy, such as how to best treat veteran
Veteran
A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
s who have served in war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
situations and whether to counsel large populations after major stressor events, such as tsunami
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
s or mass shootings
Spree killer
A spree killer is someone who embarks on a murderous assault on two or more victims in a short time in multiple locations. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders."-Definition:According to the...
.
Four Trajectories of Grief and Trauma Reactions
In 2002 and 2004, Bonanno described the four most common trajectories of grief or potential trauma. This research was based on longitudinal data beginning prior to the loss. In subsequent studies, Bonanno and colleagues identified the same trajectories following other potentially traumatic events, such as the September 11th Terrorist Attack in New York and the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong. Contrary to common assumptions about loss and trauma, Bonanno’s research may indicate that resilience is the most common pattern and that delayed reactions are rare.The four trajectories and the percentages of people who tend to fall into each category are summarized and expanded upon in his book, "The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After a Loss," The book also includes graphs of the trajectories.
The four trajectories and the percentages of people who tend to fall into each category are expanded upon in his book, "The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After a Loss," The book also includes graphs of the trajectories.
The four trajectories are as follows:
- Resilience: “The ability of adults in otherwise normal circumstances who are exposed to an isolated and potentially highly disruptive event, such as the death of a close relation or a violent or life-threatening situation, to maintain relatively stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning” as well as “the capacity for generative experiences and positive emotions.”
- Recovery: When “normal functioning temporarily gives way to threshold or sub-threshold psychopathologyPsychopathologyPsychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...
(e.g., symptoms of depression or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)), usually for a period of at least several months, and then gradually returns to pre-event levels.” - Chronic dysfunction: Prolonged suffering and inability to function, usually lasting several years or longer.
- Delayed grief or trauma: When adjustment seems normal but then distress and symptoms increase months later. Researchers have not found evidence of delayed griefDelayed griefThe terms delayed grief and unresolved grief are variations of grieving after a loss. The meaning of unresolved grief is any aspect of grieving that has yet to be resolved....
, but delayed trauma appears to be a genuine phenomenon.
Coping Ugly
Bonanno coined the phrase "coping ugly" to describe his finding that grief and coping with grief take many forms. Behaviors that may not be healthy ordinarily may be helpful in times of stress, such as self-serving biases.Research Methodology
Bonanno conducted multi-cultural research into grief and trauma, including studies in NanjingNanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
; among war survivors in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and in Israel. He has done multi-dimensional studies of emotion regulation, stressful life events, resilience, and adjustment among college students; a study of emotion and well-being among survivors of childhood sexual abuse (in collaboration with researchers at NIH); and several recent studies of resilience and adjustment in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York City (funded by the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
).
Rigorous Methodology: The fields of bereavement and trauma research rely often on simple measures, such as self-report questionnaires. Self-report measures are simple and inexpensive to give, but are unreliable for several reasons. Of concern to the fields of grief and trauma, self-report measures are biased by how the subject feels at the moment he or she answers the questionnaire. If the subject feels bad at the time of answering the questionnaire, the subject will remember the loss as more devastating. If the subject feels good when taking the questionnaire, the subject will report that the loss was less difficult to endure. This subjectivity can change rapidly.
Recognizing that any single simple measure cannot be accurate, one hallmark of Bonanno's research methodology has relied on several independent measures simultaneously. This ensures convergent validity
Convergent validity
Convergent validity, is the degree to which an operation is similar to other operations that it theoretically should also be similar to. For instance, to show the convergent validity of a test of mathematics skills, the scores on the test can be correlated with scores on other tests that are also...
of any findings. For example, his research studies often simultaneously use, among other measures, skin temperature, heart rate, the Facial Action Coding System
Facial Action Coding System
Facial Action Coding System is a system to taxonomize human facial expressions, originally developed by Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen in 1978...
or "FACS" pioneered by Paul Ekman
Paul Ekman
Paul Ekman is a psychologist who has been a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He has been considered one of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century...
, empty chair studies, longitudinal measures over months or years, cortisol
Cortisol
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, more specifically a glucocorticoid, produced by the adrenal gland. It is released in response to stress and a low level of blood glucocorticoids. Its primary functions are to increase blood sugar through gluconeogenesis; suppress the immune system; and aid in fat,...
, physician and friend reports, and Stroop
Stroop
Stroop may refer to:* John Ridley Stroop , an American psychologist** Stroop effect, a cognitive effect named after John Ridley Stroop which is used in a psychological test...
tests.
In addition, he is known for developing new research techniques, such as a measure of ambivalence
Ambivalence
Ambivalence is a state of having simultaneous, conflicting feelings toward a person or thing. Stated another way, ambivalence is the experience of having thoughts and/or emotions of both positive and negative valence toward someone or something. A common example of ambivalence is the feeling of...
and the "empty chair" study with researcher Nigel Field.
External links
- Article on Japan earthquake, tsunami, nuclear disasters: Catastrophic loss, and the resilience of the human psyche
- Scientific AmericanScientific AmericanScientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
Magazine article The Neuroscience of True Grit - Time Magazine article New Ways to Think About Grief
- New York Times article Resilience, Not Misery, in Coping with Death
- New York Times op ed piece Grief, Unedited
- New York Times Magazine article Repress Yourself
- The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
Article by Malcom Gladwell Gettting Over It - Project RebirthProject RebirthProject Rebirth, Inc. is a U.S. 501 non-profit organization created to support victims and early responders to catastrophic events through documentary footage recording the rebuilding at the site of World Trade Center following the September 11 attacks and seven years in the lives of people...
Video Using Project Rebirth in a Clinical Psychology Course on Loss and Trauma - Video George Bonanno on the Value of Grief and Grieving
- New York Times Personal Health Column article by Jane Brody Often, Time Beats Therapy for Treating Grief
- New York Times Science Page Article After a Death, the Pain That Doesn’t Go Away
- Bonanno's Four Trajectories of Grief in New York Times Week in Review Down and Out or Up
- Psychology TodayPsychology TodayPsychology Today is a bi-monthly magazine published in the United States. It is a psychology-based magazine about relationships, health, and related topics written for a mass audience of non-psychologists. Psychology Today was founded in 1967 and features articles on such topics as love,...
Can Therapy Make You Worse? - Psychology TodayPsychology TodayPsychology Today is a bi-monthly magazine published in the United States. It is a psychology-based magazine about relationships, health, and related topics written for a mass audience of non-psychologists. Psychology Today was founded in 1967 and features articles on such topics as love,...
Spousal Resilience - Psychology TodayPsychology TodayPsychology Today is a bi-monthly magazine published in the United States. It is a psychology-based magazine about relationships, health, and related topics written for a mass audience of non-psychologists. Psychology Today was founded in 1967 and features articles on such topics as love,...
Bouncing Back - Science News Good Grief: Bereaved Adjust Well Without Airing Emotion
- New York Newsday Article: Youtube, Facebook Memorials Help People Cope
- Los Angeles Times: Bonding with a mate changes brain chemistry, researchers find
- Smiling and Laughter in the Face of Terrorist Attacks is Beneficial
- Smiling and Laughter Must Be Genuine to Aid Coping with Grief
- Financial Times: Coping after a Tsunami
- Washington Post Article: From Wounds, Inner Strength
- Boston Globe: Hurrican Katrina, Majority of People Will be Okay
- Norwegian Coverage of Bonanno's Work