Fostering Resilience for Loss and Irrelevance

The author has written a sensitive and erudite interpretation of the battle between resilience and irrelevance in the diamonic tradition of the greats in Humanistic Psychology, such as Rollo May, Erick Fromm, and Victor Frankl. Well done. Eugene Taylor, PhD, author of The Mystery of Personality: A Psychodynamic History (Springer, 2009). My life is not what I expected it to be. The world makes no sense to me. Who am I? Does it matter? For many individuals, the cumulative impact of challenges, disappointments, and adversities takes an existential toll in the forms of depression, anxiety, or feelings of failure. Fostering Resilience for Loss and Irrelevance adds a new dimension to the literatures dealing with resilience and loss by focusing not only on timeless situations such as loss of a loved one, but also such contemporary phenomena such as rapid technological changes and widespread economic uncertainty. Drawing on these contexts, the author explains different manifestations of loss of resilience, and how human adaptability can be enhanced through clinical, philosophical, and creative means. Included in the coverage: Loss of relevance: the role of societal pressure. Influences on the construct of meaning. Relevance and resilience: a case study. Rehabilitating the psyche after loss of relevance. Expectations versus reality: a humanistic and practical approach. Case examples of building resilience through writing. For psychotherapists, schools and institutes of psychology, career coaches, and human resource managers as well as individuals interested in self-exploration, Fostering Resilience for Loss and Irrelevance offers powerful steps toward fostering this necessary quality and can be applied readily to most age brackets.