The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life's Hurdles

by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte

Book Overview

Resilience is a crucial ingredient-perhaps the crucial ingredient-to a happy, healthy life. More than anything else, it's what determines how high we rise above what threatens to wear us down, from battling an illness, to bolstering a marriage, to carrying on after a national crisis. Everyone needs resilience, and now two expert psychologists share seven proven techniques for enhancing our capacity to weather even the cruelest setbacks.

The...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767911911
• ISBN13: 9780767911917
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Harmony
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Exactly right

All self-help has the same message -- you can only make positive choices in your life if you can figure out what choices you are making without any thought and then changing course by adding understanding. Most processes expect you to figure out why you do what you do by yourself and then layer their method on top to solve your issues. This process has so many different ways to explore your old habits that you can not help but change and make better choices. My only caveat is that you read this book over a long period of time; perhaps one chapter a week to truly process all of the information.I also suggest reading that chapter before bed and letting your subconscious mull over its lessons overniight. Excellent!

Resilient Thinking is Constructive Approach to the Negatives

I agree that 7 is a lucky number, not just for book titles or subtitles. The authors focus on "the thinking rather than feeling side of the human psyche, but their intent is to ultimately affect readers' emotional reactions through helping them reprogram their thoughts." New directions in cognitive therapy, such as this book, are helping people live better lives. I recommend this book highly -- it is almost as good as my favorite, The Positive Power of Negative Thinking by Julie Norem. Resiliency is a good name for adaptive, constructive strategies for dealing with negative thoughts and feelings. For those of us who don't want to be optimists, being 'resilient' is as good a label as 'constructively pessimistic' or any other.

The Best of Self-Help

As a psychologist, I have read a lot of self-help books. Typically, I'm disappointed by the flimsy substance and empty "pump up" aphorisms. I was prepared to think the same of The Resilience Factor -- but I was wrong. The Resilience Factor is based on years of scientific research into the "ingredients" of resilience and seven skills that can increase your resilience no matter how resilient (or un-resilient) you are today. The authors describe the work they have done with children, parents, and corporate employees and how these skills can improve your productivity and happiness. Better yet, the book is filled with vivid, compelling case studies (and a lot of humor) which makes the book a pleasure to read. I will recommend this book to all of my clients (and my family and friends). It's a must-read.

Useful Psychology

Usually, I am highly skeptical of any psychology book. Most times, these works are either a smattering of feel good nonsense or a rattling of facts about theory that cannot be applied to life outside of the ivory tower unless you have a PhD.This is NOT the case with The Resilience Factor.The authors do a fantastic job identifying and conveying skills that a regular person can use in his or her day to day life. Each of the seven skills that they mention are rooted in past psychological research studies which they explain in layman's terms. What's more, they tell you how anyone can actually implement these skills in a useful way. The Resilience Factor is a must read!

more than i learned in four years of college....

in less than four hours... when i first picked up this book, i thought "yeah right, seven skills to overcome ALL that life throws at me..." however, i found myself immersed and intrigued by this wonderful book. reivich and shatte have written a book that is not only interesting, but extremely useful/helpful to the mass population. "the resilience factor" taught me new ways to think about and deal with those seemingly persistent roadblocks in life. i highly recommend this book to *anyone* and *everyone!* far from being a self-help book, it is instead a practical guide to effectively and consistently overcoming "life's inevitable obstacles."