The Trauma Script

In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam interviews psychologist George Bonanno about the science of resilience and how people respond to tragedy, grief, and trauma. Bonanno shares personal anecdotes and research findings that challenge conventional wisdom about grief, including the debunking of the widely accepted Kubler-Ross stages of grief. The discussion covers various patterns of response to adversity, such as chronic grief, recovery, delayed onset, and resilience, with resilience being the most common. They explore why popular understanding often clashes with scientific evidence, the role of trigger warnings, and the importance of behavioral flexibility in coping with life's setbacks. Bonanno emphasizes that most people are more resilient than commonly believed and that focusing too much on human frailty can be unhelpful.