#psychological-flexibility

#psychological-flexibility

In his new book, Notes on Being a Man, Galloway states bluntly: "There's no such thing as 'toxic masculinity...there's cruelty, criminality, bullying, predation, and abuse of power. If you're guilty of any of these things, or conflate being a man with coarseness and savagery, you're not masculine; you're anti-masculine." As a man and a therapist who treats mostly men, this resonates with me and what I've heard from my clients.

We often conceptualize resilience as an abstract or fixed concept-inaccurately believing that you either have it or you don't. We mistakenly assume it is a personality feature that determines how or whether we recover from adversity. What we don't often realize, however, is that resilience is more like a skill, or a set of skills, that can be built and used to enhance our capacity for living.

Humor is used by bullies and perpetrators to increase the pain of betrayal by reinforcing stereotypes and existing power structures. And yet! Humor is a powerful tool of recovery, allowing us to challenge the narrative of the hegemony, compassionately connect to others, and take a new perspective on our pain. Humor plays a significant role in recovery from trauma, betrayal and loss.