升级版你：如何摆脱困境

西方人对变化的看法中一个有趣之处在于，他们认为变化是不寻常的，这使得他们特别难以应对生活并非线性发展的事实。

One of the interesting things about the view that the West seems to have of change, which is that it's unusual, is that it leaves you uniquely ill prepared for the fact that life is not linear.

实际上，变化是持续不断的，而当我们预期不会有任何变化时，却总是对此毫无准备。

That actually there are a lot of changes that happen constantly, and we seem to be blindsided by that when we anticipate that there aren't going to be any changes.

但从被困住的角度来看，你现在可以看到一种情况：比如，你正经历一段长期的低谷，很容易产生‘我永远也走不出这个低谷’的感觉，因为我会觉得，如果已经连续下了九天雨，第十天也一定会下雨。

But from the point of view of being stuck, you can now see a situation where, in fact, you're going through a period of an extended slump, for example, and it's easy to feel, you know, I'm never gonna get out of the slump because, again, I feel like if it's been raining nine days in a row, it's gonna be raining the tenth day as well.

当然，这进一步加剧了我‘我永远也摆脱不了这个困境’的感受。

And, of course, that then contributes to my feeling of I will never get out of this rut that I'm in.

是的。

Yeah.

因此，这是一种双重陷阱：当事情变糟、你感到被困住时，你会措手不及；而在这种困顿之中，你又无法想象它会有结束的一天。

And so that it's a sort of double edged trap there where you are blindsided when things go badly and when you experience stuckness, but also in the midst of that stuckness, you can't imagine it ever ending.

你提到女演员布丽·拉尔森在网上发布的一段视频。

You write about a video posted online by the actress Brie Larson.

她因在电影《房间》中的表演获得奥斯卡最佳女主角奖，并在《惊奇队长》等大片中担任主角。

She won an Academy Award for best actress for her role in the movie Room, and she's had leading roles in blockbuster movies like the Marvels.

在这个视频中，她谈到了自己成功的秘诀。

In this clip, she talks about the secret of her success.

我被拒绝了98%到99%的时间。

I got told no 98 to 99% of the time.

我知道这很难让人完全理解。

I know it's, like, hard to, like, fully wrap your brain around.

就连我自己都觉得难以想象，我参加过成千上万次试镜，这简直太疯狂了。

It's even hard for me to wrap my brain around to think of the fact that I've been on, like, thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of auditions, is sort of crazy.

所以，亚当，这意味着大量的失败，而这并不是你心目中一位成功影星该有的样子。

So that's a lot of failure, Adam, and not what you think of when you think about a very successful movie star.

我们常常只关注巨大的成功。

So often we focus on colossal success.

但对于像布丽·拉尔森这样取得如此成就的人来说，坦诚地谈论自己的失败，甚至坦言自己有98%到99%的时间都在失败，我认为这非常打动人，也带来了真正的希望。

But for someone with Brie Larson's degree of success, to be transparent about her failures, and the fact that by her own account, it's ninety eight to ninety nine percent of the time that she's failing, I think is really disarming, and offers a real note of hope.

因此，毫不意外，人们对这个视频反响热烈，我觉得这是一份非常有趣的证据。

And so not surprisingly, people really latched onto that video, and I found it a very interesting piece of evidence.

我在想，这里是否有一个重要的洞察：成功往往意味着对失败的持续容忍。

I I'm wondering if there's an important insight here, which is that succeeding often means a sustained tolerance for failure.

我的意思是，这听起来很矛盾，但赢家并不是那些从不失败的人。

I mean, it sounds paradoxical, but, winners are not people who never lose.

他们是那些能够忍受足够长时间的失败，直到事情终于向有利方向发展的人。

They're people who can tolerate losing long enough for things to break their way.

是的。

Yeah.

有很多研究考察了不同领域职业生涯的发展轨迹。

And there's a lot of research looking, for example, at the course of careers in various different pursuits.

他们研究艺术家、电影编剧、小说作家以及其他人群，探究这些人的艺术生涯中，最成功的时期出现在什么时候。

They look at artists, they look at film writers, they look at book writers and other people, and ask where is the most successful period of that artist's life's work.

答案是很难预测。

And the answer is it's hard to predict.

有些人职业生涯早期就取得了最大成就，有些人则在中期迎来高峰，还有一些人是在职业生涯末期，也就是晚年才达到巅峰。

There are people they describe as having early in their careers, they have their biggest successes, some during the summertime in the middle of their careers, and then some during the fall or the wintertime at the end of their careers.

因此，你并不一定知道这些时期何时会出现，但你必须留在游戏中，继续坚持，即使面对拉森所描述的98%到99%的失败率，也要坚持下去，直到成功出现。

And so, yet, you don't know necessarily where those periods are going to arise, but you have to stay in the game, keep pushing even against maybe 98 to 99% of failure, as Larsen describes, for the successes to emerge.

也许是因为我们对成功的模式是这样理解的：我买了一张彩票，第一次尝试就中了头奖，这就是那个模式。

Now perhaps because our model of success is the model of, you know, I buy a lottery ticket and I hit the jackpot on the first try, That's the model.

我们很多人认为我们必须一举成功。

Many of us think we have to achieve success, you know, in one fell swoop.

所以我们把全部家当都押在某一件事情上，我们说这将是金券，但当然，如果那一件事失败了，我们就没有任何退路了。

So we so we bet the house on some one thing, and, you know, as we say this is gonna be the golden ticket, but of course, if that one thing fails, we've left ourselves nothing to fall back on.

是的。

Yeah.

我认为我们文化中这种对成功与失败的二元对立观点，确实非常、非常有害。

I think this sort of binary view of success and failure in our culture is really, really damaging.

因为按照那种非常狭隘的定义，真正的成功其实非常、非常罕见。

Because success, really, by that very narrow definition, happens very, very seldom.

因此，我们需要一种彻底的观念重塑。

And so there needs to be a stark reframing.

我认为最好的起点之一是停止将成功视为一种非黑即白的即时结果，而应将其视为一种日复一日所采用的过程、旅程或体系。

I think one of the best places to begin is to stop thinking about success as this kind of binary, instant outcome, and to think of it more as a process or a journey or a system that you employ day after day.

因此，成功不应被定义为写完一本十万字的书，而应是每天醒来写300个字，或坐上一小时写作，看看能产出什么。

So instead of saying success is writing 100,000 words of a book, success needs to be something like waking up and writing 300 words today, or sitting for an hour and writing and seeing what comes out of that.

因为这样一来，你至少将其定义得更狭窄，意味着成功会更频繁地发生。

Because then at least you make it a narrower definition that means success happens much more often.

而且你还把成功的领域转移到了你可以掌控的事物上，而不是那些超出你控制范围的东西。

And you also move the domain of success into something you can control rather than something that's outside of your control.

没错，是的。

Exactly, yeah.

你把控制权拉回到内在，这非常有价值，对吧？

You bring the locus of control inside, which is really valuable, right?

因为这能赋予你力量，而不是让你束手无策，说我不知道自己能做些什么。

Because it's empowering as opposed to forcing you to throw your hands up and say, I don't know what I can do about this.

我完全受制于各种外部限制，而我对此几乎无能为力。

I'm at the mercy of all sorts of external constraints that I don't have much rollover.

我认为这非常有希望，能帮助人们向前迈进。

And I think that's really hopeful and helps people move forward.

你知道吗，我记得几年前曾和另一位亚当谈过。

You know, I remember talking some years ago with another Adam.

这位是宾夕法尼亚大学的亚当·格兰特。

This is Adam Grant at the University of Pennsylvania.

他告诉我，成功的艺术家和高产的艺术家之间存在很强的相关性。

And and he told me there was a strong correlation between artists who are successful and artists who are prolific.

你也研究过类似的观点。

You you've looked at the same idea as well.

你能谈谈为什么多尝试一些机会，反而更有可能打出高质量的击球吗？

Can you talk about how, in some ways, taking more shots on goal makes it more likely to also take really good shots on goal?

是的，完全正确。

Yeah, that's exactly right.

质量和数量之间有着很强的关联。

That quality and quantity are related strongly.

你尝试的次数越多，就越有可能取得成功。

That the more times you try, the more likely you are to hit on a success.

这背后有诸多原因。

And there are lots of reasons for that.

其中一个原因是，通过更多尝试，你能学到什么有效、什么无效。

One is that obviously by trying more, you learn what works and what doesn't.

因此，你最终产出的作品会随着时间推移变得更强。

And so what you produce ultimately gets stronger over time.

但有时候，很难预知什么会成功。

But also, sometimes it's hard to know what will succeed.

比如说，做一件事有十种不同的方法。

And so let's say there are 10 different ways to do something.

如果你只试三种，那么你命中目标的概率就是十分之三。

If you try three of them, you have a three in 10 chance of hitting whatever the jackpot is.

如果你试遍全部十种，其中一种一定会成功。

If you try all ten, one of them is going to succeed.

因此，你需要经历这些失败，才能最终在整体上获得成功。

And so you need to have those misses in order to ultimately have the success in aggregate.

所以，这在任何追求中都是一个非常重要的原则。

And so it's a really important principle in any pursuit.

你具体做什么其实并不重要。

It doesn't really matter what you're doing.

但尝试多种方法、进行实验、判断主导方法是否正确，或者是否应该尝试一些不同的方式，才是前进的方向。

But trying multiple approaches, experimenting, figuring out whether the dominant approach is the right one or whether you should try something a bit different is the way forward.

我们已经探讨了多种方式，说明我们的思维如何成为自己最大的敌人，导致我们陷入困境。

We've looked at several ways that our own minds can become our worst enemies and cause us to become stuck.

当然，有时问题并不在我们自己的思维中。

Of course, sometimes the problem is not inside our own minds.

我们只是在应对一个确实非常困难的问题。

We're just dealing with a problem that is really difficult.

但事实证明，在这种情况下，我们仍然有一些该做和不该做的事来摆脱困境。

But it turns out here too, there are things we can do and things we shouldn't do to get unstuck.

您正在收听《隐藏的思维》。

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

我是 Shankar Vedanta。

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

这是《隐藏的思维》。

This is Hidden Brain.

我是 Shankar Vedanta。

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

亚当·奥尔特是纽约大学的心理学家，研究我们如何陷入困境以及如何摆脱困境。

Adam Alter is a psychologist at NYU who studies how we get stuck and how to get unstuck.

他分析了我们内心构建的多种心理陷阱，这些陷阱会让我们难以脱身。

He has examined a number of mental traps we construct that can make it hard for us to extricate ourselves.

但有时，挑战并不来自我们自己的内心。

But sometimes the challenge is not inside our own minds.

我们所面对的问题本质上就是极具挑战性的。

The problems we face are inherently challenging.

但在这里，我们的思维在找到突破途径方面似乎也扮演着重要角色。

But here again, it turns out that our minds can play an important role in finding our way to breakthroughs.

亚当，在你进行的一项调查中，你询问了人们关于他们陷入困境的经历。

Adam, in in a survey that you conducted, you asked people about their experiences getting stuck.

你的其中一位受访者谈到了学习弹钢琴的经历，另一位则谈到了努力成为优秀艺术家的过程。

And one of your respondents talked about trying to learn to play the piano, and another talked about trying to become a good artist.

你能告诉我他们跟你说了什么吗？

Can you tell me what they told you?

是的。

Yeah.

他们都解释说，自己在初期取得了一些稳定的进展，但最终遇到了他们所说的平台期，无法再进一步提升。

So they both explained that they had made some steady progress earlier on in the experience, but ultimately hit what they described as a plateau, that they couldn't improve further.

他们达到了某个特定阶段后，就似乎不再有进步了。

They reached a particular point and then did not seem to continue to improve beyond that point.

这是关于弹钢琴的那个例子。

So here's the one about the piano.

我一直在努力学习弹钢琴。

I've been trying to learn how to play the piano.

我一开始进步稳定，但过去几年里，我觉得自己完全没有进步。

I was making steady progress, but in the last couple of years, I feel I haven't improved at all.

我继续练习基本功，但感觉自己陷入了瓶颈，这让我担心自己永远无法提高了。

I continue to practice the basics, but I feel stuck, and it's making me worry that I'll never improve.

我觉得自己是在浪费时间。

It feels as if I'm wasting my time.

然后这个是来自一位艺术家的说法。

And then this one's from an artist.

我遇到了瓶颈，似乎再也无法进一步提高了。

I've hit a plateau and can't seem to improve further.

我需要刻苦练习，才能提升画肖像和风景画的技巧。

I need to practice to put my nose to the grindstone to improve my skill in drawing portraits and landscapes.

我需要学会如何更有创造力，并为我的问题找到创造性的解决方案。

I need to learn how to be more creative and to find creative solutions to my problems.

如果你有一个锻炼计划，并且已经坚持了一段时间，那么你很可能遇到过平台期效应。

If you have an exercise program and have been doing it for a while, you have very likely encountered the plateau effect.

对几乎所有运动项目运动员的研究也显示了这一点。

Studies of athletes in nearly every sport show this too.

亚当引用了一项研究。

Adam cites one study.

这项研究追踪了大约15,000人，历时约七年，考察了他们参与的一个非常简单的训练方案，并试图了解该方案随时间推移的有效性。

This is research that looks at roughly 15,000 people over about seven years and looks at a very simple training regime that they took part in and wanted to understand the effectiveness of this regime across time.

研究人员发现，在第一年，有时甚至是两年内，对于那些反应特别积极的受访者来说，人们变得更健康、更快乐，在某些方面也更有活力。

And what the researchers found was that for the first year and sometimes two years in some of the respondents who were particularly responsive, people became fitter, they became healthier, they became happier in certain respects.

但超过这两年的过程后，在剩下的三、四、五、六、七年里，继续使用完全相同的方法并没有带来太大的益处。

But beyond that two year process, there weren't great benefits to using exactly the same approach in the remaining three, four, five, six, seven years.

因此，通过一遍又一遍地重复做同样的事情，反应性会下降，无论是身体对训练计划的反应性，还是你学习钢琴、绘画或素描所采用的方法。

And so by doing the same thing over and over and over again, responsiveness declines, whether it's physical responsiveness to a training regime, or whether it's the approach you've been using to learn the piano or to draw or paint.

亚当，是什么导致了这种平台效应呢？

And what explains this plateau effect, Adam?

对于身体来说，其中一个原因是你会产生适应性。

One for the bodies in particular is that you become habituated.

因此，你的肌肉可能会适应你所做的事情，不再像之前那样做出同样的反应。

And so your muscles perhaps adapt to what you're doing, and they stop responding in the same way as they did earlier on.

它们实际上已经变得擅长应对你给它们的挑战。

They effectively become experts at coping with what you're throwing at them.

但肌肉的专长问题是，它们不再需要那么努力地去完成你要求的动作。

And the problem with expertise with respect to muscles is they stop needing to try quite so hard to do what it is you're asking of them.

因此，由于你没有进一步拉伸它们，它们也就无法继续进步。

And so as a result, because you're not stretching them further, they don't continue to improve.

有氧耐力和其他各种形式的健身也是如此。

And that's true of cardio fitness as well, and various other forms of fitness.

所以，通过改变训练方式，你重新引入了某种压力，从而带来更大的进步。

So by changing things, you then reintroduce some stress into the situation, and that leads to greater improvement.

其实，钢琴、艺术或其他任何领域都是同样的道理：你可以一遍又一遍地做同样的事情，随着时间推移你可能会更熟练，但最终这种熟练感对你来说已经没有真正的价值。

And really, it's a similar idea with the piano, or with art, or with any other domain, that you can do the same thing over and over and over again, and you might become more comfortable with it over time, but eventually that comfort just has no real value to you.

你需要改变现状，其中一部分就是让事情变得稍微难一点。

You need to change things, and part of that is just making things a little bit more difficult.

无论是尝试一种新技巧，还是以其他方式挑战自己，如果不这样做，你最终会陷入停滞点。

Whether it's trying a new technique, or stretching yourself in some other way, without doing that, you're basically going to hit this point of stagnation.

我想谈谈我们有时会遇到的另一种挑战。

I wanna talk about another kind of challenge we sometimes encounter.

有时候，我们面对的问题如此复杂，以至于我们被眼前众多的选择搞得不知所措。

Sometimes the problems we're confronting are so complex that we find ourselves bewildered by the number of options before us.

而像乱扔意大利面一样盲目尝试，只会制造混乱，而不是获得洞见。

And now throwing lots of spaghetti at the wall, you know, produces a mess rather than an insight.

你能谈谈这个观点吗？有时候减少自己的选择反而是一种值得采取的策略。

Can you talk about this idea that sometimes reducing our own options can be a worthwhile strategy?

是的。

Yeah.

我本科时学过法律，他们很早就教我们一件事：你总会面对太多信息。

I studied law as an undergraduate, and one of the things they taught us very early on was you will always have too much information.

你会了解到某个案件的具体事实。

You know, you'll get facts about a particular case.

其中大部分都是无关紧要的。

Most of them will be extraneous.

它们其实并不关乎案件中最关键、最需要理解的核心部分。

They're not really relevant to the kernel of the case that's really important to understand.

你最重要的任务是找出真正重要的内容，并加以简化。

And your biggest job is to find what really matters, to simplify.

我认为这是一种在任何情境下都极其宝贵的技能，因为我们每天面对的许多事情本质上都是复杂的。

And I think that's an incredibly valuable skill to use in any situation, because so many things that we grapple with every day are complex by nature.

不管你从事什么工作，这其实都无关紧要。

You know, it really doesn't matter what kind of work you do.

如果你是医生，诊断过程将会很复杂。

If you're doctor, the process of diagnosis is going to be complicated.

如果你是律师，过程也会很复杂。

If you're a lawyer, it'll be complicated.

如果你试图理解金融市场，信息会多得让人应接不暇。

If you're trying to understand the financial markets, there'll be too much information.

因此，我认为，成为巨大成功者与仅仅取得较平凡成就之间的区别，在于学会本能地分辨什么才是真正重要的，剔除那些非绝对必要的部分，并主动设定限制，让原本可能令人不堪重负的复杂事物变得简单得多。

And so I think the difference between being a great success and perhaps a more modest success is in learning how to instinctively figure out what really matters, stripping away what's not absolutely necessary, and really imposing artificial constraints that make what might otherwise be overwhelmingly complex much simpler.

你提到法国艺术家皮埃尔·苏勒热，他通过一种非常独特的自我约束来获得更大的自由。

You write about the French artist Pierre Souleage, who has used a really unusual self imposed restraint on himself in order to grant himself more freedom.

他具体做了什么？

What does he do?

是的。

Yeah.

所以苏勒热谈到，艺术行业非常复杂，极其复杂。

So Solage talked about the fact that the business of art was complex, very complex.

你可以使用的材料多得惊人。

You have just so many materials at your disposal.

你有各种不同的媒介。

You have different media.

当然，一旦你缩小了媒介范围，你仍然需要决定颜色。

And then, of course, once you narrow down the medium, you then still have to decide on color.

因此，索拉日很早就决定，他只使用黑色颜料。

And so what Solage decided quite early on was that he was just going to use black paint.

通过剔除颜色和色相的问题，他为自己留下了一套简单得多的决策。

And by stripping away the question of color, of hue, he would leave himself with a much simpler set of decisions to make.

这样他就能真正专注于精进如何用这一种色调的颜料来创作他的作品。

And so he could really focus and refine his understanding of how to use that one tone of paint to create the works that he was making.

因此，他被称为只使用黑色颜料的艺术家。

And so he became known as the artist who only used black paint.

当你因为陷入令人沮丧的平台期而感到卡住时，解决办法是引入变化。

When you feel stuck because you have hit a dreaded plateau, the solution is to introduce change.

开始一种新的锻炼方式。

Start a new kind of workout.

如果你是散文作家，不妨试试写诗。

If you are a writer of prose, try your hand at poetry.

如果你是音乐家，试试用非惯用手演奏你的乐器。

If you are a musician, try playing your instrument with your non dominant hand.

亚当还研究了将问题重新定义为挑战这一方法，认为它有助于摆脱困境。

Adam has also studied the idea that reframing problems as challenges can be effective in getting yourself unstuck.

他关注了一种在工作场所和教育环境中许多人常遇到的特定问题。

He has looked at one particular kind of problem that many people confront in workplaces and educational settings.

社会心理学中有一个非常著名的现象，称为刻板印象威胁，指的是如果你知道自己属于某个在特定领域被负面刻板印象化的群体，仅仅知道这一点就会带来巨大压力，使你更难表现良好。

There's a very well known phenomenon in social psychology known as stereotype threat, which is the idea that if you know that you belong to a particular group that is negatively stereotyped in a particular domain, just knowing that is overwhelming, and it makes it harder for you to perform well.

一些研究关注了女性在数学领域的情况，这个领域历史上因性别歧视的规范而被视为男性的专属领域。

Some of the research looked at women in mathematics, a domain that was historically sexist norms seen as the domain of men.

当女性被提醒她们是女性，并且正在完成数学任务时，有证据表明这会让她们更难应对，因为她们意识到，除了要克服任务本身的挑战外，还要面对自己属于一个在该领域被负面刻板印象化的群体这一事实。

When women are reminded that they are women and they are trying to complete math tasks, there's some evidence that it becomes harder for them because they recognize that in addition to the baggage of having to overcome the challenges of the task, they also have to deal with the fact that they are part of a group that is negatively stereotyped in that domain.

这就是刻板印象威胁的概念。

So that's this idea of stereotype threat.

但许多所谓的威胁体验本质上是主观的。

But a lot of what's experienced in a threat is subjective.

这是你对情境的感知方式。

It's the way you perceive the situation.

因此，我做的这项研究关注的是普林斯顿大学中一些来自非传统戏剧院校背景的学生，这些学校通常很少向普林斯顿输送学生，我们让他们完成一项数学任务。

And so this research I did looked at trying to take people at Princeton who were like I was from an underrepresented background in the sense that we weren't from theater schools that tended to send lots of students to Princeton, and to ask them to complete a math task.

让一部分人把这看作一种威胁性的场景，一种对他们智力能力的测试；而让另一些人仅仅意识到这不过是一个挑战，是他们正在享受的一件有趣的事，从而降低这种威胁感，证明即使你身处这种代表性不足的背景中，只要你把这件事看作挑战而非威胁，你依然能够完成这项任务。

And to have some of them think about that as threatening situation, as a sort of test of their intellectual ability, and for others to just recognize that this was just a challenge, it was something fun that they were doing, and to turn the dial down on that experience of threat, and to show that even if you're from that underrepresented background in that context, you are still able to overcome that particular task if you see it as a challenge rather than as a threat.

所以，亚当，看起来有时候我们知道我们想要什么，但却因为不知道如何实现而陷入困境。

So it seems, Adam, that there are times when we know what we want, but we're stuck because we don't know how to get there.

但在其他时候，我们陷入困境是因为我们根本不知道自己想要什么。

But at other times, we're stuck because we simply don't know what we want.

我想放一段电影片段，来捕捉这种感觉。

I wanna play you a clip from the from a film that captures this this feeling.

在2003年的电影《迷失东京》中，斯嘉丽·约翰逊饰演的夏洛特是一位感到人生迷茫的年轻女性，她遇到了由比尔·默瑞饰演的过气影星，并向他寻求建议。

In the 2003 movie, Lost in Translation, Scarlett Johansson plays Charlotte, a young woman who feels adrift in her life, and she meets up with an over the hill movie star played by Bill Murray, and she asks him for guidance.

我卡住了。

I'm stuck.

我只是不

I just don't

不知道自己该成为什么样的人。

know what I'm supposed to be.

你知道的。

You know?

我试过当作家，但我讨厌自己写的东西。

I tried being a writer, but I hate what I write.

我还试过拍照，但拍得都太普通了。

And I tried taking pictures, but they're so mediocre.

你知道的。

You know?

每个女孩都会经历一个摄影阶段。

And every girl goes through a photography phase.

所以，亚当，你书中反复出现的一个座右铭是：行动至上。

So a motto that recurs in your book, Adam, is action above all.

那是什么意思？

What does that mean?

是的。

Yeah.

这意味着这本书很大程度上是关于陷入困境的情感体验，以及我们可以用来向前迈进的心理策略。

It means that a lot of the book is about the emotional experience of being stuck and then about the mental strategies we can use to move forward.

但所有这一切最终都是为了服务于行动。

But all of that ultimately is in the service of action.

陷入困境，是指身体或心灵被困在某个特定地方，却渴望身处别处。

Being stuck is about being physically in a particular place or mentally in a particular place and wanting to be somewhere else.

改变这种状况的唯一方法，不是调整你对情境的情感评价，也不是依靠心理策略，归根结底，你最需要做的就是行动，就是朝着某个特定方向迈进。

The only way you can change that is not changing how you emotionally appraise the situation, not with mental strategies, but ultimately, that thing you have to do more than anything else is to act, is to move in a particular direction.

但是，当我们不知道自己想去哪里时，行动又怎么会对我们有帮助呢？

But why would action help us when we don't know where we want to go?

通过行动，你会向自己揭示一些东西。

By acting, you reveal something to yourself.

如果我不确定自己想成为画家、作家、医生还是律师，我可以坐在这里反复思考这个问题。

If I don't know if I want to be a painter, if I want to be a writer, if I want to be a doctor, if I want to be a lawyer, I can sit here and ponder that question.

在某种程度上，这种思考是有价值的。

To a certain point, there's value in that.

但最终，更深入地思考并不能让我走得太远。

But eventually, thinking about it harder and more deeply just doesn't get me very far.

真正能让我前进的方法，是去体验艺术家、画家、医生或律师的生活，采取行动，做一些稍微不同的事情。

What will get me somewhere is to inhabit the life of an artist or a painter or a doctor or a lawyer, to take action, to do something that's a bit different.

即使我走错了方向，即使发现艺术并不是我的天职，法律也不是我的天职，等等。

And even if I'm moving in the wrong direction, even if art turns out not to be my calling, the law is not my calling, and so on.

在最好的情况下，我会学到什么真正有效；在最坏的情况下，我也能排除掉那些不适合我的选项。

I learn something about what either does work in the best case scenario, or in the worst case scenario, I'm eliminating what doesn't.

这非常有价值，远比原地不动、只是空想、陷入自我沉思要宝贵得多。

And that's tremendously valuable, certainly much more valuable than sitting still and just thinking, navel gazing, as it ultimately becomes.

你提到一个关于《纽约时报》拼字游戏的有趣练习。

You write about an interesting exercise involving The New York Times spelling bee.

告诉我这个谜题是什么样的，以及如何通过一个小技巧来更好地完成它。

Tell me what that puzzle involves and the hack to basically try and do better at it.

你会看到一组字母，需要从这些字母中组成单词。

You get a series of letters before you, and you have to make words out of those letters.

当你第一次打开应用时，这些字母会以特定的排列方式呈现。

And the letters, when you first open the app, are in a particular configuration.

有一个中心字母，周围环绕着六个字母。

There's a central letter, and then there are six letters surrounding that central letter.

但有一个按钮可以打乱这些字母的顺序，随机重新排列它们。

But there's a button that allows you to shuffle the order of those letters, to randomly reallocate them.

真正有趣的是，我刚开始玩这个谜题时并没有意识到这一点，但今天我会保持字母的原始排列，打开应用后尝试寻找单词，持续大约十分钟。

And what's really fascinating is I didn't intuit this when I first started doing the puzzle, but what I'll do today is I'll sit with the letters as they arrive, when I open the app, and I'll try to find words for, say, ten minutes.

我会达到某个水平，但通常达不到我期望的程度。

And I'll get to a certain level, and usually it's not as far as I want to go.

有不同的成就等级。

There are different levels of achievement.

我总是试图达到最高级别。

I always try to go for the top level.

如果我稍微差一点达到目标，我就会点击重新排列按钮。

And if I fall a little bit short of that, I'll hit the shuffle button.

它会重新排列这些字母。

It'll reorient the letters.

它会改变它们的顺序。

It'll change the order of them.

但有趣的是，我一直盯着这些字母看。

And what's fascinating is I've been staring at these letters.

它们的位置其实并不重要。

It shouldn't matter where they are.

但当它们被移到新位置时，突然间一大波新单词就出现了，我可以使用了。

But by moving them into a new position, suddenly a whole raft of new words appear and are available to me.

如果在这种极其有限的环境下——你看到的始终是完全相同的七个字母，只是位置稍有不同——这种方法都能奏效并帮你突破瓶颈，那么如果你在生活的其他领域也能采取如此深刻而根本的视角转变，回报将会非常显著。

And if it can work in this very impoverished context where all you're looking at is exactly the same set of seven letters, just in slightly different places, if it works there and unsticks you there, if you can adopt a pretty serious, profound change of perspective in other areas of life, the payback is pretty dramatic.

这种投资的回报非常可观。

There's a great return on that investment.

我想谈谈你个人生活中遇到的一个挑战，我认为这可能是一个基本无解问题的有用例子。

I want to talk about a challenge that you confronted in your own life, and and I think this might be a useful example of a problem that might be basically unsolvable.

你二十多岁末期时，感到纠结于留在美国——那里有绝佳的学术和职业机会，还是回到家乡澳大利亚和家人身边。

You were in your late twenties, and you felt torn between remaining in The United States where you had great academic and career opportunities and returning home to Australia Australia and to your family.

描述一下这两种力量，亚当，以及被拉向不同方向时的感受。

Describe those two forces, Adam, and what it felt like to be pulled in different directions.

是的，那是一个有趣的时刻。

Yeah, this was an interesting moment.

我在美国读研已经五年了，如果一切顺利，我将获得博士学位，然后做点别的事情。

I'd been in The United States for five years in grad school, and if all went well, I would have a PhD, and then I would do something next.

我不太确定那下一步具体会是什么。

I wasn't sure exactly what that next would be.

其中一个选择是回到澳大利亚，回到我之前来自的国家。

One option was to return back to Australia, to return to the country that I'd come from before.

我和家人关系非常亲密，我觉得离开他们五年很难受。

I'm very close to my family, and I felt that it was difficult to be away from them for five years.

另一个选择是在美国继续发展我的事业。

Another option was to keep moving forward in my career in The United States.

于是我这么做了。

And so I did that.

但当我从研究生阶段过渡到纽约大学助理教授的角色时，我又一次感到不堪重负。

But the experience of moving from grad school into the role of an assistant professor at NYU, I found it overwhelming all over again.

我感觉自己有点停滞不前。

I felt a little bit stuck.

我不确定该把我的资源投入到哪个方向。

I wasn't sure exactly what direction to pour my resources.

我感到有点无所适从。

I felt a little bit unmoored.

当时我29岁，一直在思考步入30岁、结束20年代是一种怎样的体验。

And at the time, I was 29 and thinking a lot about what it was like to be at the end of my 20s and moving into my 30s.

于是我决定需要一个宏大的目标，作为指引方向的坐标。

And I decided that I needed some big goal to act as a kind of orienting point.

所以我决定去跑一场马拉松，花四个月时间与一个团队一起训练，并参加纽约市马拉松。

And so I decided that I was going to run a marathon, and to spend four months training with a team, and to run the New York City Marathon.

投身于这个新目标的举动，带来了深刻的解脱感，它为我的焦虑提供了一个安放之处，这确实是一个巨大的转折时刻，我认为它让我得以释放，继续前行，而我刚在纽约市开启这一切。

And there was something profoundly unsticking about that activity of taking on that new goal, that it gave me somewhere to pull my anxieties, And it really felt like a great un sticking moment, and I think liberated me to move forward in my life that I'd just started in New York City.

你为什么觉得跑马拉松能帮你弄清楚该在哪里生活？

Why do you think running a marathon helps sort of figure out where you should live your life?

我的意思是，这两件事看起来完全无关。

I mean, the two things seem completely unrelated to each other.

是的，确实如此。

Yeah, they do.

所以其中一件事就是，我之所以提到自己快30岁，正在想象30岁的生活，是因为这是人生中的一个特殊时刻。

So one of the things that happens, this is why I mentioned that I was in my late 20s just imagining being 30, is that that's one of the moments in life.

我和我的同事哈尔·赫希菲尔德做过一些研究，表明当我们年龄以9结尾时——比如29岁、39岁、49岁等等——正是我们回望人生、思考生命意义的时刻。

I have some research on this with a colleague of mine, Hal Hirschfield, showing that when our ages end in a nine, 29, 39, 49, and so on it's a moment when we zoom back and think about the meaningfulness of our lives.

我们会思考自己是否做出了正确的人生决定。

We think about whether we're making the right life decisions.

在那个年龄段，我们对时间流逝的感受比在24岁、25岁、34岁、35岁这些十年中期时要鲜明得多。

We sort of see the passage of time much more vividly than we do at age, say, 24, 25, 34, 35, in the middle of those decades.

就在那一刻，设定一个目标为我的生活注入了意义，让我重新感受到自己能够向前迈进。

And at that moment, just having a goal imbued my life with meaning and sort of made me feel that I could move forward again.

即使这是一个看似无关的目标，仅仅拥有这个目标就给了我一种动力感，而我觉得在那时的生活中，这种动力至关重要。

Even if it was an unrelated goal, the mere fact of having that goal gave me sense of momentum that I felt was important at that time in my life.

我的理解是，当我们感到停滞不前时，即使在与我们感到困顿不相关的领域中获得一些进展，也能帮助我们打破僵局。

I mean, think what I'm partly hearing is that when we are feeling stuck, feeling like we have movement in some domain of our lives, even if it isn't the primary domain in which we are feeling stuck, can be helpful in unsticking us.

正是如此。

Exactly.

是的。

Yeah.

我认为，那种前进感、那种动感，比这种动感具体代表了什么更为重要。

I think the sense of movement, the sense of velocity is more important than what the velocity specifically and narrowly, concretely represents.

就是一种你没有停滞不前的感觉。

It's just the feeling that you are not stagnant.

亚当·奥尔特是纽约大学的心理学家。

Adam Alter is a psychologist at New York University.

他是《在最重要的时刻摆脱困境的指南》一书的作者。

He is the author of the book Anatomy of a How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most.

亚当，非常感谢你今天做客《隐藏的思维》。

Adam, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

谢谢你邀请我，尚卡尔。

Thanks so much for having me, Shankar.

广告后，解答听众的问题。

After the break, your questions answered.

研究员乔治·博纳诺回应听众对他关于创伤研究的提问和评论。

Researcher George Bonano responds to listener questions and comments about his work on trauma.

我们将讨论他关于人类如何应对人生最糟糕境遇的令人惊讶且充满希望的发现。

We'll discuss his surprising and hopeful findings about how we cope with the worst that life can throw at us.

你一定不想错过。

You won't want to miss it.

您正在收听《隐藏的大脑》。

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

我是香卡·韦丹塔。

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

这里是《隐藏的大脑》。

This is Hidden Brain.

我是香卡·韦丹塔。

I am Shankar Vedanta.

作为人类，就意味着容易遭受苦难。

To be human is to be vulnerable to suffering.

几个世纪以来，诗人和哲学家一直告诉我们，幸福的双生面是悲伤。

Poets and philosophers have told us for centuries that the twin side of happiness is grief.

成功的另一面就是灾难。

The flip side of success is catastrophe.

一个充满满足感的人生，也难免会有绝望的时刻。

A life filled with contentment is also going to have moments of despair.

当我们失去挚爱、经历重伤或面对自然灾害时，许多人会以为自己将经历一段可预测的情感历程。

When we lose a loved one, or experience a serious injury, or confront a natural disaster, many of us imagine that we will go through a predictable emotional journey.

社交媒体影响者借鉴早期心理学理论，告诉我们悲伤会以固定模式经历不同阶段。

Social media influencers, drawing from earlier psychological theories, tell us to expect various stages of grief in a fixed pattern.

哥伦比亚大学临床心理学家乔治·博纳诺指出，认为人们以统一方式应对挑战和痛苦的想法根本不符合事实。

The idea that people respond in a uniform way to challenges and suffering is simply not true, says Columbia University clinical psychologist George Bonano.

实际上，人们对困难时期和境遇的反应大相径庭。

In reality, people respond very differently to difficult times and circumstances.

乔治曾是我两期节目的嘉宾，那两期分别名为《创伤脚本》和《如何更具韧性》。

George was my guest on two previous episodes titled The Trauma Script and How to Be More Resilient.

今天，在我们广受欢迎的听众互动环节《你的问题我来答》中，我们再次邀请乔治回来，解答大家关于创伤和韧性的疑问。

Today, in our popular listener segment, Your Questions Answered, we've invited George back to answer your questions about trauma and resilience.

乔治·博南诺，欢迎回到《隐藏大脑》。

George Bonanno, welcome back to Hidden Pray.

谢谢你，尚卡尔。

Thank you, Shankar.

很高兴再次和你交谈。

Nice to talk with you again.

乔治，我想从一位名叫珍妮特的听众的留言开始。

George, I want to start with a note from a listener named Janet.

和许多人一样，她经历了重大而突然的失去。

Like a number of others, she experienced a major and abrupt loss.

她五岁时，父亲自杀身亡。

Her father died by suicide when she was five.

他至少住院了一年，患有精神疾病。

He had been hospitalized for at least a year and had mental illness.

他早已离开家很久，所以我的日常生活并没有因此发生太大变化，而且我也不太爱哭。

He had already been away from the home for so long that it it didn't really change my day to day experience, and I don't tend to cry a lot.

所以我的母亲担心我没有足够地哀悼，这让她感到

So my mother worried that I was not grieving enough and that made

让我觉得

me feel

很糟糕，有点内疚。

bad and guilty kind of.

就像，是的，我为什么没有更难过呢？

Like, yeah, why aren't I more upset?

然后当我十岁的时候，我20岁的哥哥在一场事故中去世了。

And then when I was 10, my oldest brother who was 20 was killed in accident.

但同样，他的缺席并没有影响我的日常生活。

But, again, his absence didn't affect my day to day experience.

而且，我的母亲又因为我没有更难过而感到失望。

And, again, my mother was upset with me for not being more upset.

所以，乔治，珍妮特觉得自己被当成冷漠无情的人。

So, George, Janet felt like she was being made out to be cold and unfeeling.

上次我们谈话时，你跟我讲过你对父亲去世的反应。

When we talked last, you told me about your own reaction to your father's death.

你没有崩溃，而且你感到惊讶，因为眼泪并没有流下来。

You didn't break down, and you were surprised because tears failed to come.

谈谈我们对悲伤的期待，以及他人对我们应该如何哀悼的期待。

Talk about the expectations we have about grief and the expectations that others have about how we ought to grieve.

是的。

Yeah.

珍妮特的例子很好地说明了这一点。

Janet's example is a really nice example of this.

这些显然是痛苦的失去。

These are these are painful losses, obviously.

但我们了解到，每个人哀悼的方式都不一样。

But what we've learned is that everybody grieves in their own way.

哀悼的任务是让我们的内心重新适应一个亲人已不在人世的世界。

The task of grieving is to recalibrate our minds to a world where the person is no longer alive.

但从某种意义上说，我们如何做到这一点是自己的事。

However we do that is our own business in a sense.

没有一种规定的方法是最好的方式。

There is no prescription on the best way to do that.

我们有一些自然的反应，比如悲伤和反思的时刻，这些都会帮助我们完成这一过程，但无论一个人是否外露悲伤、哭泣或不哭泣、行为改变或保持不变，这些都不重要，只要完成了这个任务，只要他们的大脑能够重新调整即可。

We have some natural responses, sadness, moments of reflection in which we do that, but whether or not somebody's outwardly showing grief or crying or not crying or behaving differently or the same, none of those things really matter as long as that task is accomplished, as long as their brains are able to recalibrate.

因此，我知道珍妮特经历了什么，我对她感到非常同情，也对她因为自己没有‘正确’地哀悼而感到内疚感到同情，因为事实上，哀悼并没有所谓‘正确’的方式。

And so, you know, I I feel very sympathetic towards Janet for for what she went through and also for her feeling bad that she was in a sense castigated for not grieving properly when in fact there is no proper way to grieve in that sense.

所以，你的研究发现与我们文化中主导的悲剧模式——悲伤的五个阶段——形成了对比。

So your research findings contrast with our culture's dominant model of tragedy, the five stages of grief.

乔治，我们在之前的对话中也提到过这一点，但请你谈谈为什么这五个阶段并不能准确反映许多人在经历悲剧或挫折时的真实经历。

We talked about this in our earlier conversation as well, George, but talk about why it is that those five stages do not accurately represent what many people go through when they experience a tragedy or a setback.

首先，正如我之前提到的，这些阶段最初是由库布勒-罗斯提出的，用以描述人们面对自己死亡时的反应。

First of all, as I mentioned when we talked before that they they were originally Kubler Ross had proposed those stages as as a descriptor of how people face their own death.

至于人们面对自己死亡时是否真的如此，我并不清楚，因为这方面的研究很少。

And I have no idea with if that's how people what people do when they face their own death because there isn't much work on that.

但这些阶段却被强加到了丧亲之痛上，用来描述人们在哀悼时的行为。

But they got foisted onto to grief onto what people do during bereavement.

而且它们非常规定性，我认为它们之所以流行，正是因为这种规定性。

And they're very prescriptive, and I think they became very popular because they're so prescriptive.

而悲伤是一件神秘的事情。

And it's, you know, grieving is a mysterious thing.

这是一种痛苦的经历，我们希望有一张路线图。

It's a it's a painful event, and we would like to have a road map.

我们希望有一个计划，一种我们可以经历的指导方案。

We would like to have a plan, a kind of a prescription of what we're going to go through.

因此，从这个意义上说，它变得流行了。

So it became popular in that sense.

但研究从未支持过人们会经历这些阶段的观点。

But the research has never supported this idea that people go through these experiences.

有些人根本不会经历这五个阶段中的任何一个。

Some people don't do go through any of these experiences in any of these five stages.

它们只是人们所依赖的一种简便说法。

They're just kind of a handy thing that people hold on to.

我认为它们往往弊大于利。

I think they often cause more harm than than good.

我们收到了许多听众的留言，他们说这个模型——从否认开始，接着是愤怒、讨价还价，最后是接受——并不符合他们的哀伤体验。

We received a number of messages from listeners who said that this model, you know, where you start with denial followed by anger and then bargaining and then acceptance, that this model didn't fit their grief.

其中一条留言来自听众玛丽。

And one of the messages came from listener Mary.

我和丈夫在儿子上加州大学洛杉矶分校一年级时，因一场意外失去了他，当时他年仅18岁。

My husband and I lost our 18 year old son when he was a freshman at UCLA and involved in an accident.

这对我们来说非常突然，也给我们和当时在明尼苏达州上大学三年级的另一个儿子带来了巨大创伤。

It came as very unexpected and, was traumatic for us and for our other son who at the time was a junior in college in Minnesota.

我和乔治·博南诺对话中，最让我产生共鸣的是关于哀伤五阶段的讨论。

And what resonated for me with your conversation with George Bonanno was the discussion about the five stages of grief.

这些阶段的理论在失去孩子或配偶时并不适用，因为这些阶段假设哀伤是一个线性过程，这根本是不现实的。

How that came about does not apply to losing a child or losing a spouse because those stages, it's just unrealistic to think that it's a linear path.

当失去孩子时，尤其是当孩子正值人生最充满希望、对未来充满憧憬的年纪时，那种感受是完全不同的。

It's a different lens, a different experience when one loses a child, especially when it's at that time of life where you're just so optimistic and looking to the future ahead for them.

一瞬间，你意识到你的未来再也不会是当初所期待的样子。

And in an instant, you realize that your future will never be what you expected it to be.

对我来说，这种失去是持续不断的，因为它失去了我原本以为会成为的样子。

For me, the loss is something that's ongoing because it's the loss of what I thought was going to be the case.

乔治，谈谈玛丽的观点吧，悲伤并不总是线性的。

Talk about Mary's point here, George, that grief isn't always linear.

你说悲伤有时表现为悲伤与其他情绪之间的波动。

You say that grief sometimes takes the form of an oscillation between sadness and other kinds of emotions.

这种波动是什么样的？它有什么作用？

What does this oscillation look like, and what purpose does it serve?

玛丽的这个评论在这方面非常有趣。

Mary's comment is very interesting in this regard.

悲伤因失去的类型不同而有很大差异。

Grief is very different depending on the type of loss.

我们观察到的这种波动，实际上是人们应对失去的一种方式。

The oscillation that we've observed is really part of the way that people seem to deal with loss.

我们向内聚焦于本质上我们需要和解的事情。

We focus inward on what's essentially we need to reconcile.

我们需要接受这个人已经离去的事实，然后我们再次向外聚焦。

We need to come to terms with the fact that a person is gone, and then we focus outward again.

不过，我想谈谈玛丽关于失去孩子有何不同的评论。

I I wanna speak though to Mary's comment though about how losing a child is different.

关于失去孩子的研究要少得多，因为这格外痛苦，而且许多正在经历悲痛的父母不愿意参与研究。

There there's much less research on the loss of a child because it's extra painful, And a lot of parents who are grieving, they don't want to be in research.

但玛丽所说的真正触动我的是，这确实是一种对未来的丧失感，一种，你知道的，我们将如此多的希望、期待、计划以及对孩子的想象都寄托其中。

But what Mary said that really struck me that it is really kind of a loss of your future, a sense of, you know, we wrap up so many hopes and expectations and plans, images with our children.

而失去所有这些，确实是一件非常难以应对、难以和解的事情。

And to lose all of those really is a is a very difficult thing to to work through, to to to reconcile.

我认为，这确实需要很长的时间。

And it does take a long time, I think.

这其中既有对逝者离世的哀伤，也有对他们的人生与我们预想不同这一事实的挣扎。

There's both the grief over the of the person's death and also the the struggle with what it means that their lives are different than we thought.

我们还听到了另一位听众的分享，他也谈到了对想象中未来的失去。

We heard from another listener who also talked about the loss of an imagined future.

她的名字叫艾米丽。

Her name is Emily.

三年前，我从母亲那里遗传了一种神经肌肉疾病。

Three years ago, I inherited a neuromuscular disorder from my mother.

在此之前，我是一名竞技运动员。

Prior to that, I was a competitive athlete.

因为我再也无法靠身体工作，失去了住房，只能四处漂泊，只为求生。

And I lost my housing because I could no longer use my body to work and was jumping from home to home just trying to survive.

我终于有了住所，对此我非常感激。

I finally got housed, and I'm so grateful.

但我想要我过去的生活，我依然渴望找回那样的生活。

But I wanted my previous life, and I I still want that life back.

所以，艾米丽所哀悼的不是朋友或亲人，乔治，但她依然感受到那种可能成为现实的生活的失落。

So Emily isn't mourning a friend or a relative, George, but she still feels that loss of what might have been.

她忍不住想象另一个版本的自己——那个健康的生活。

She can't help but think about the alternate version of her life where she is healthy.

在经历创伤事件后，这种想法有多普遍？这些想法是有帮助还是有害的？

Is there any research on how common this is after a traumatic event and whether these thoughts are helpful or harmful?

有研究，也没有研究，但艾米丽的情况在总体上与哀伤文献中的描述产生了共鸣。

There is and there isn't, but Emily's situation, it resonates in general with the literature on grief.

艾米丽所经历的失去——作为运动员的身份，与失去亲人之间，共同点在于它们都是身份的丧失。

What they share, the loss of, of what Emily is experiencing with the loss of her role as an athlete and the death of a loved one is that they're both the the the loss of an identity.

当我们失去亲近的人时，如果他们是依恋系统的一部分，是我们想象自己人生时不可或缺的角色，那么我们就在失去自我的一部分。

When we lose a person close to us, if they're part of our our attachment systems, they're part of who we think of when we think of our lives, we're losing part of our identity.

在艾米丽的案例中，很明显，她失去的不仅是实际的东西，还有她曾经是谁的那份感觉。

And it's it's very clear that in Emily's case, I mean, they're very practical things that Emily has lost, but also this sense of who she was.

她曾是一名运动员，这在她的生活中占据了重要地位。

She was an athlete, and that was a big factor in her life.

它赋予了她身份。

It provided her It provided her identity.

它为她提供了一个在生活中从事少数人能够做到的事情的角色。

It provided her a role in life doing something that not so many people are able to do.

失去这一点，我认为是非常困难的。

And losing that, I think, is very difficult.

我很高兴艾米丽能够获得住房。

I'm glad that that Emily was able to get housing.

我希望艾米丽能找到其他方式，过上充实的生活。

I hope that Emily can find other ways than to to find a satisfying life.

许多人报告说，他们会不断回到一种‘本可能怎样’的想象对话中，反复问自己：如果这件事没有发生在我身上会怎样？

Many people report these thoughts where they're constantly going back to a what might have been kind of conversation, where they're asking themselves, what if this hadn't happened to me?

如果我没有失去某个人会怎样？

What if I hadn't lost someone?

我认为，这正是许多经历过悲剧的人的典型特征——想象一个一切如常的反事实世界。

I think this is a hallmark of many people who've been through a tragedy imagining this counterfactual universe where things went on as normal.

这是健康的行为，还是不健康的行为，乔治？

Is this a healthy thing or is this an unhealthy thing, George?

我认为在某种程度上，这其实是健康的，因为反事实思维是一种对生活中各种可能性的重新审视。

I think it's probably healthy to us to some extent because it's counterfactual thinking is a kind of a reconsideration of of the different contingencies in life.

但我认为，当我们谈论失去或重大身体疾病时，这些问题最终很难回答。

But I think ultimately, those questions are difficult to answer if we're talking about a loss or a major physical illness.

通常是没有答案的。

There often is no answer.

我本人就经历过这种情况，当时我的面部出现了一个严重的神经问题，需要进行脑部手术。

I experienced this actually myself, where I had a pretty serious neurological problem in my face that required brain surgery.

这种情况极其罕见，我认为在美国，只有不到千分之一的人会遇到这种问题。

And it's extremely rare, less than a thousandth of a percent, I think, of the people in The US experience this problem.

而‘为什么是我’这个问题，是没有答案的。

And you know, the question of why me has no answer.

你知道，生活中有太多随机的因素。

You know, there's just so many random factors in life.

所以我认为，到了某个时候，这种想法会变得非常适得其反，甚至危险。

So I think I think at some point, this becomes very counterproductive and and dangerous.

我们知道，导致对丧失反应更糟糕的一个因素是反刍思维。

And we know that one of the things leading to a worse reaction to loss is rumination.

当我们陷入这种难以摆脱的悲痛时，就会这样。

That's when we begin to get into kind of this intractable grief.

有时，当我们经历痛苦的情境时，会感觉自己孤身一人。

Sometimes when we're experiencing a painful situation, we can feel like we're all alone.

但另一些时候，周围也有很多人正在经历类似的痛苦。

But other times, there are lots of other people around us who are also suffering as well.

我们收到了一位名叫奥黛丽的听众的来信，她说自己幸存于一场发生在宗教场所的大规模枪击事件。

We received a message from a listener named Audrey who says she survived a mass shooting at a house of worship.

自那以来的将近七年里，我学到了很多关于创伤反应的知识。

I've learned a lot about trauma responses in the almost seven years since.

正如乔治·博南诺指出的那样，并非每个人都会有相同的反应。

As George Bonanno pointed out, not everyone responds in the same way.

我发现存在我所描述的层层递进的影响圈。

I found there were what I describe as concentric spheres of affectedness.

那些目击者和幸存者占据了中心的一个层面，向外扩展，失去家庭成员的人、急救人员（无论是否受伤）、可能在场但实际未在场的人、神职人员、建筑内各会众的成员、邻里、城市等等，各自处于不同的层面。

Those who were witnesses and survivors occupy a sphere in the center, and working outward, those who lost family members, first responders, injured or not, people who might have been there but were not, members of the clergy, members of each of the congregations in the building, the neighbourhood, the city, and so on.

在每个层面内部，个体的反应差异很大。

Within each sphere, the response was quite different among individuals.

我观察到的一点是，一旦我们开始彼此会面，所有人都开始更有效地疗愈。

One thing I observed was that we all began healing more effectively once we started meeting with one another.

当整个群体共同遭受某种创伤时，集体疗愈似乎效果显著，这或许可以解释博士的观点。

When an entire group suffers something, healing together seems to be effective, which could explain what Doctor.

博南诺指出了纽约9/11幸存者的情况。

Bonanno pointed out about nineeleven survivors in New York.

他们必须团结一致。

They had to pull together.

乔治，研究表明，当你身边也有人和你一起经历悲剧时，如何从悲剧中疗愈？

George, what does the research show about healing from a tragedy when you have people around you who are also going through the tragedy with you?

这是个非常有趣的问题。

That's a very interesting question.

一方面，这使得人们能够分享一种很少有人经历过的体验。

On the one hand, it allows people to share the experience that maybe very few people do experience.

对于没有亲身经历这一事件的人来说，要真正理解一个人所承受的痛苦可能非常困难。

It may be very difficult for somebody not involved in the event to really understand what a person is struggling with.

因此，从这个角度来看，与经历过事件的人会面、分享经历、互相支持，可能会带来极大的积极影响。

So in that sense, meeting with the people who were in the event, sharing experiences, supporting each other can be extremely positive.

另一方面，我有一个担忧——我完全不是在暗示这在奥黛丽的经历中发生过，但总体而言，我们确实知道，一些围绕悲伤和其他类型事件形成的互助小组，有时反而会产生反效果，因为它们让人不断重新体验同样的痛苦：当别人还在痛苦中时，即使另一个人已经稍微走出来了。

On the other hand, my a concern I have, and I'm not in any way suggesting that this happened in Audrey's experience, but this is a concern in general that we do know also that some of the support groups and that tended to evolve around grief and other types of events can sometimes be counterproductive because they keep people kind of constantly re experiencing the same pain, because somebody else would be experiencing the pain, even if another person has tended to move on a little bit.

因此，存在一种群体思维、围绕这一话题的反复沉思的风险，我认为这种风险是真实存在的，值得我们认真思考。

So there's the danger there of kind of group think, group rumination around the topic that I think is real and needs to be pondered to some extent.

但我对这个问题的总体看法是：是的，这可能非常有帮助，但在某些方面也可能有害。

But my general take on this is yes, it could be very helpful, but it could also be harmful in some ways.

你能不能也谈谈奥黛丽关于悲剧影响人群的同心圆结构的观点？

Can you also talk about Audrey's point about the concentric circles of people affected by a tragedy?

我们对一线工作人员、记者或目击者如何经历压力和悲伤，了解多少？

What do we know about how, you know, frontline workers or journalists or witnesses experience stress and grief?

而且，距离灾难中心越远，人们通常受影响就越小吗？

And is it the case that the further you get from the epicenter of the disaster, the less affected that people usually are?

这是一个有趣的问题，因为这也因事件而异。

Well, that's an interesting question because that also will vary greatly depending on the event.

有一些证据开始积累，被称为‘飓风之眼’效应，即在自然灾害中心附近的人有时反而比其他受影响者表现得更好，因为他们获得了最多的资源，受到了最多的关注，因为他们离中心最近。

There was some evidence beginning to accrue, and it became known as the eye of the hurricane effect that people right at the very epicenter of a natural disaster sometimes did better than all other people exposed to the to this event because they got the most resources, because there were there was the most concern because they were so close to the epicenter.

我们在9·11事件后的学校中实际上看到了这种情况。

We saw this actually after 09:11 in the schools.

位于双子塔附近市中心的学校，那些孩子在某些情况下表现得比皇后区和布鲁克林的孩子要好得多。

The schools that were right downtown near the towers, those kids actually did a lot better than kids out in Queens and Brooklyn in some instances.

而这些学校中有些是资源匮乏的学校，几乎得不到关注和帮助，但市中心的孩子们却获得了大量关注、资源和关心，表现得好多了。

And those schools were some of those schools are low resource schools, they got very little attention and very little help, whereas the kids right downtown got a lot of attention, a lot of resources, a lot of concern, and they did much better.

如果我可以再补充一点，你刚才提到了急救人员和记者。

If I may just say one more thing, you also mentioned first responders and journalists.

我们学到的一点是，当灾难发生时，许多怀着良好意愿的人会涌入现场，但他们可能缺乏应对所面临心理挑战的充分培训。

One of the things we've learned is that when there is a disaster, a lot of people are brought into those events with very good intentions, but they may or may not have much training in the kind of psychological challenges they're going to be exposed to.

他们可能没有心理准备去面对尸体、重伤者，或者大量的痛苦与恐惧。

They may not be prepared to see dead bodies or seriously injured people or a lot of pain and fear.

研究表明，许多前来帮助的人自己也会因这类事件而遭受严重的创伤，这也是我们在思考如何应对这些事件时需要考虑的一个因素。

And the research has shown that many of those people who are coming to help will themselves end up being pretty severely traumatized from that kind of event, which is also a consideration in these kinds of, you know, how to respond to these events.

所以，乔治，在你的研究中，你发现了人们在面对悲剧时的三种主要反应模式。

So in your research, George, you found three main patterns in how people respond to tragedy.

这些模式是什么？

What are these patterns?

这三种模式首先是：长期挣扎、持续症状。

The three patterns are, first of all, struggling, chronic symptoms.

这是一种模式：人们经历了事件后，起初经历了极大的挣扎，却始终无法从事件中恢复过来。

And this is a pattern of people who've gone through the event, they have struggled greatly in the beginning, and they simply cannot seem to recover from the event.

他们会在一段时间内持续挣扎，最终陷入长期的、持久的痛苦。

They continue to struggle over a period of time, and eventually they end up struggling in a prolonged way, prolonged suffering.

如果是创伤性事件，他们会仿佛被困住，不断重历事件，感觉它随时可能再次发生，陷入一种持久的焦虑与恐惧状态。

If it's a traumatic event, they're kinda stuck reliving the event as if it could happen at any moment, and they're in this sort of enduring state of anxious fear in a sense.

我们在少数人身上看到这种情况，但非常痛苦。

We see that in a minority of people, but it's very painful.

我们看到的第二种模式，我们称之为恢复模式。

The second pattern we see, we call the recovery pattern.

这是一种人们最初遭受巨大痛苦的模式。

And this is a pattern in which people suffer greatly initially.

他们有急性反应，然后逐渐开始好转。

They have an acute reaction, and then they gradually begin to get better.

这需要一些时间，但他们逐渐开始恢复以往的功能。

This takes some time, but they gradually begin to regain functioning the way they had previously functioned.

可能需要一年，有时甚至两年，他们才开始感觉生活回到了正常状态。

It may take a year or sometimes two years before they begin to feel like their life is kind of returned to normal.

最后，第三种模式我们称之为韧性轨迹，这基本上是我们看到的最常见模式。

And finally, the third pattern we call the resilience trajectory is basically the most common pattern we see.

这是我们在大多数经历过潜在创伤或失去的人身上看到的模式。

This is the the pattern we see in the majority of people that have been exposed to potential trauma or a loss.

他们一开始会有些挣扎。

They will struggle a little bit in the beginning.

他们感到一些痛苦、悲伤和侵入性的记忆。

They're feeling some distress, some sadness, some intrusive memories.

他们正在感受刚刚发生之事的强烈冲击。

They're feeling the intensity of what has just happened.

这种感受可能持续几天或最多几周，有时会更长一点，但之后他们会恢复到相对正常的功能水平。

They may feel this for days, weeks at the most, sometimes a little bit longer, but then they return to a relatively normal level of functioning.

他们能够与他人亲近，能够集中注意力并完成工作。

They can be close to other people, they can concentrate and do their job.

我们通常将这种状态称为心理健康的稳定轨迹。

And we often refer to this as a stable trajectory of mental health.

这就是韧性模式。

This is the resilient pattern.

当我们回来时，会探讨关于创伤、韧性以及不同类型悲剧的细微差别。

When we come back, nuances in how we think about trauma, resilience and different kinds of tragedies.

你正在收听隐藏的思维。

You are listening to Hidden Brain.

我是 Shankar Vedanta。

I am Shankar Vedanta.

这是隐藏的思维。

This is Hidden Brain.

我是 Shankar Vedanta。

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

关于悲伤和失去，有许多广为流传的说法。

There are many popular sayings about grief and loss.

悲伤是我们为爱付出的代价。

Grief is the price we pay for love.

悲伤就像海洋。

Grief is like the ocean.

它会一波一波地袭来。

It comes in waves.

你无法摆脱悲伤。

You do not get over grief.

你只能学会与它同行。

You can only learn to walk alongside it.

在哥伦比亚大学，乔治·博南诺发现，科学并不总是支持那些在Instagram上广泛传播的观点。

At Columbia University, George Bonanno finds that science does not always support ideas that go viral on Instagram.

乔治，研究创伤困难的一个原因是，受苦者的经历背景可能截然不同。

George, one of the things that makes the study of trauma difficult is that the origins of people suffering can be very different.

听众劳伦对这一点提出了一个问题。

Listener Lauren had a question about that.

她担心，许多关于创伤的研究都聚焦于单一的重大人生事件。

She worries that much of the research on trauma focuses on single life changing moments.

我发现研究中缺失的是复杂创伤。

What I find that the research is missing is complex trauma.

很多研究只关注单一的人生事件，以及人们在悲伤和失去中的自然韧性。

A lot of it focuses on a single life event, and the natural resilience around grief and loss.

然而，创伤远比这复杂。

However, trauma is far more complex than that.

你在家庭暴力受害者身上可以看到这一点，他们被噤声，压抑自己的创伤，生活在虐待中，并出现健康问题。

You see this in domestic violence victims, who are silenced and swallow their trauma and live in abuse and have health complications.

癌症与之高度相关，心理健康、创伤后应激障碍、抑郁和焦虑也明显高度相关。

There's a high correlation with cancer, and there's obviously a high correlation in mental health, PTSD, depression, anxiety.

我不认为这是因为他们没有遵循某种特定的模式去感受和接纳痛苦以及情绪的起伏。

And I don't think that it's because they're not following a specific pattern to feel and embrace the pain and the ebb and flow.

我认为这是一种不自然的体验，与正常的人类经验背道而驰。

I think that it is an unnatural experience, counterintuitive to the normal human experience.

这就是为什么建立韧性更加困难。

And that is why it's more difficult to build resilience.

而且这非常、非常不同。

And it's very, very different.

虐待与失去亲人截然不同。

Abuse is very different than losing someone.

长期虐待是完全不同的。

Chronic abuse is very different.

乔治，你怎么看劳伦的论点？

George, what do you make of Lauren's argument?

我们在家庭虐待和配偶去世这两种情况下，看到的韧性模式不同吗？

Do we see different patterns of resilience with domestic abuse compared with, say, the death of a spouse?

是的。

Yes.

确实如此。

We do.

我很高兴劳伦提出了这个观点。

And I think I am very glad that Lauren made this comment.

我认为她所说的实际上非常敏锐。

I think this is actually quite astute what she had said.

我想就几点发表一下评论。

There are a few things I want to comment on.

劳伦提到了复杂创伤。

Lauren mentioned complex trauma.

我认为，复杂创伤在某种程度上已经成为描述这种重复性创伤事件的流行词，但相关研究却非常少。

And I think complex trauma has become a buzzword in a sense for this kind of repeating traumatic event, but there's very little research.

在我看来，研究界未能深入理解这一现象，这是一大缺失，我们需要努力去理解它。

And this to me is a kind of a a major sin from from the research world that we need to try to understand it.

但要理解这样的事情非常困难。

But it's very hard to understand something like that.

研究它也很困难，因为你需要长期追踪人们的情况。

It's very hard to study it because you need to follow people over time.

事实是，人们往往会陷入反复发生、极其艰难且具有创伤性的境遇中。

It is a fact that people are find themselves in situations of repeated, very difficult, and traumatic circumstances.

长期虐待就是一个典型的例子。

Chronic abuse is a prime example.

比如，反复暴露于威胁生命事件、贫困和暴力之中。

You know, repeated exposure to life threatening events, poverty and violence.

当贫困与暴力交织在一起时，就会出现同样的情况。

When poverty and violence come together, you have the same situation.

人们可能会对此变得麻木。

People can become inured to it.

人们可能会持续忍受虐待，因为他们看不到出路等等，但他们仍在经历这种非人的遭遇。

People can go on with with enduring abuse because they see no way out, etcetera, but they are still suffering this this sort of inhuman experiences.

当我们从整体上观察这些事件时，发现人们在面对长期性、持续不断的事件时，真的非常挣扎。

What we see when we look at these events across the board is that people are really struggling when they're dealing with chronicity, when they're dealing with these events that don't stop.

他们并不会表现出低症状的健康模式。

And they don't show this low symptom healthy pattern.

他们也不一定表现出创伤或慢性症状，但他们表现出很多其他东西。

They don't necessarily show trauma or chronic symptoms either, but they show a lot of something.

他们在挣扎。

They're struggling.

他们确实存在健康问题。

And they do have health problems.

劳伦指出了这一点，她完全正确。

Lauren had made this point and she's absolutely right.

因为我们的系统——这一点非常重要——我们的应激反应系统，正如我之前所说，是一个非常了不起的机制。

Because our system, and this is a very important point, our stress response system, which is, as I've said before, is a wonderful thing.

它经过了数百万年进化的锤炼。

It was honed by millions of years of evolution.

我们拥有的这个应激反应系统，可以说是由进化设计的，用于应对急性的生活事件。

That stress response system that we have is designed by evolution, if I can say that, for acute life events.

它是为紧急情况设计的。

It's designed for emergencies.

我们的身体并非为应对长期压力而构建。

We are not built for chronic stress.

这在某种程度上是不人道的。

It is somewhat inhuman.

因此，当我们长期遭受虐待、承受慢性压力或身处持久战乱时，我们就会开始崩溃。

So when we are exposed to chronic abuse, chronic stress, chronic war, we begin to break down.

我们体内这些精密协调的系统开始失去同步。

The systems, these finely tuned systems we have that are in sync with each other begin to get out of sync.

它们开始失调。

They begin to we become dysregulated.

这会迅速导致健康问题。

And that is very quickly leads to health problems.

因此，你会看到那些面对长期创伤、长期虐待、长期战争、长期贫困与暴力的人，艰难地勉强支撑着。

So you see people essentially who are in the in the face of chronic trauma, chronic abuse, chronic war, chronic poverty and violence, you see them limping along.

我认为这是最贴切的描述。

And I think that's the best way to put it.

他们或许还在生存，但状态并不好。

They they may be surviving, but they're not doing well.

我们可以对此进行记录。

And we can document that.

但目前真正用于记录这一点的研究还远远不够。

There just isn't enough research really to document that.

但我非常感谢你的提问，劳伦。

But I appreciate the question very much, Lauren.

乔治·B。

George B.

收到了很多关于儿童如何经历丧失、虐待和痛苦的问题。

Received lots of questions about how children experience loss and abuse and suffering.

这是来自一位名叫维拉的听众的问题。

Here's one from a listener named Vera.

我认为这里缺失的部分是关于儿童创伤，这一点在本集中没有讨论，但我认为很多人意识到它具有深远影响，尤其是对那些不像成年人那样表现或应对创伤的儿童，或者他们处理创伤的方式不同。

I think the part that's missing here is in reference to childhood trauma, which was not discussed in this episode and which I think a lot of people recognize as being very impactful, especially for children who who don't exhibit trauma the same way or trauma responses the same way that, say, an adult would, or they don't process it the same way.

我认识的人中有许多这样的例子。

Lots of examples from the lives of people that I know.

因此，如果能回来讨论儿童创伤这一部分，会很有意思。

And so it'd be interesting to come back with a discussion of the childhood trauma element.

乔治，研究对童年时期的潜在创伤事件及其影响和结果与成年人所经历的挫折有何不同，有什么说法吗？

What does the research have to say, George, about potentially traumatic events in childhood and whether their impact and outcomes differ from setbacks that we experience as adults?

维拉提出的问题很有意思。

The point that Vera brought up is an interesting one.

外界对这一点存在一些困惑，我认为部分原因在于，关于儿童与逆境的研究大多聚焦于广泛而有害的环境，如贫困、长期虐待等。

There's some confusion about this out there, and I think that's in part because much of the study of children and adversity focuses on really broad caustic environments, poverty, chronic abuse, etcetera.

而关于成人的研究则主要关注突发性生活事件，即一次性创伤事件。

And much of the research on adults has focused on acute life events, one off traumatic events.

它们呈现出不同的模式。

And they show different patterns.

儿童往往表现出更持久的症状和更多挣扎，即使他们没有发展出创伤后应激障碍（PTSD），他们的状态也不太好。

Children tend to show more enduring symptoms, more struggle, even when they're not, say, developing PTSD, they're not doing that well.

他们可能在学校出现问题，也可能出现成年人身上不太常见的健康问题。

They might show problems in school, they might have health problems that you don't see so much in adults.

但事实证明，这并不是关于儿童和成年人的问题。

But this, it turns out, is not about children and adults.

而是关于事件的类型。

It's about the type of event.