Some conversations will stay with you for a lifetime. I just had one with one of my favorite living authors, Donald J. Robertson. No one is better at explaining the connection between ancient philosophy and modern, evidence-based psychotherapy.
There are levels to understanding and integration of concepts just like there are levels to writing. In this discussion, Donald demonstrated why he’s at the top of the heap in both.
Some of the topics we covered include:
* Human resilience
* Stoicism and CBT
* Stoic virtue and core values
* Limitation of strategies without an aligned identity
* Self-awareness and self-efficacy
* Social support
* Impressions of externals and yourself
* Dichotomy of control
* Voluntary hardship/intentional stress
* Acquisition vs application of skills
* Cognitive flexibility and coping flexibility
* Anger and fragility
* Emotional anger vs rational aggression
* Being the example as a parent
* Expressing your feelings and the why behind your actions
* Process vs outcome related goals and feedback
* The benefit of emotional labeling
* And so much more
If I hadn’t had to get my children to swimming lessons, I could have talked to this man for the rest of the day. I feel like he delivered five different master classes relating to resilience in the span of ninety minutes.
A conversation I’ll be listening to again to take notes in order to capture the pearls of wisdom he dropped in each sentence.
Donald is one of the primary reasons I came to Substack in the first place. His account continues to be an endless source of knowledge that I do my best to turn into personal wisdom. Can’t recommend it enough:
Several of his books rank among my favorite. Each one brings its own angle and insights. They’re all worth adding to your bookshelf if you read philosophy in any way:
Here are some of my favorite posts of his on Substack:
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