Free Girl Called Karen by Karen McConnell, Eileen Brand Page B

more or less successfully whereas others are crushed and never recover. Why? What are the factors that contribute to resilience?
    I have explored the currently emerging body of research, and I have examined my years in social work. Here’s what I’ve learned. Here are the qualities that I found best sustained me:
A sense of personal competence
Consistent emotional support from one or more caring individuals
A sense of playfulness
A spiritual connection to something greater
A capacity for learning and creative expression
A willingness to work on problems with reasonable perseverance
The ability to positively reframe
    Of all of these characteristics, the ability to positively reframe or look at things from different perspectives has been the single most successful strategy for me. I want to spend much more time on the art and ability to reframe, but first let’s explore the other characteristics of resilience.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
My Self Has Value
    T he first aid to resilience is “a sense of personal competence.” How do we accomplish that? Not every therapeutic fad is helpful. Some “ esteem-building methods” have included looking in the mirror and telling yourself how smart and attractive you are, chanting mantras such as “I am important,” or leaving lists on the fridge crowing about your many positives.
    In a 2002 syndicated column, John Rosemond, M.D., asserted that this type of “self-esteem building” produces “counterfeit positive self-assessment” that can set people up for disappoint-ment in the real world. Dr. Rosemond and I are often not on the same page, but on this issue we agree.
    I don’t question that it is a whole lot more productive to face the mirror and describe yourself positively than to look at your reflection and tellyourself you are fat and plain and poor. Positive thinking is good.
    But I think Dr. Rosemond is right in that artificial exercises are not useful over the long haul. When I was a caseworker for a state social service agency in child welfare, it was the collective thinking that we should positively reinforce the aspirations of our foster children.
    “Crystal” was a really cute kid who had been in foster care off and on for ten of her thirteen years. She had decided to become a pediatrician so she could help other kids. But Crystal’s IQ was below average, and she was two years behind in school and had never successfully completed a mainstream science class. It was ludicrous to encourage her, and yet that was what was being done. Crystal could have conscientiously told her mirror how smart she was and her social worker could have reinforced this dutifully, but it simply was not constructive.
    As one might expect, Crystal did not achieve her goal or even one less lofty. How much better off this girl might have been if her caseworkers had focused on recognizing her talents and encouraging her to seek success where she had a chance of finding it.
    When I was in the eighth grade, Sister Mary Albertus said that I was very smart because I was a good student who consistently earned high grades. Sister was always quick to point out my academic successes. She also refused to let me bundle and band thesales-tax stamps that the class collected. She said my fine motor skills left a lot to be desired. I concluded that I was smart but inept, that I was good intellectually but challenged when faced with practical physical application. It was not a useful idea.
    When I went to work in the cake factory, I wanted to be the first female supervisor. I was going to move up the ladder and increase my income while working with my mind and my influence rather than my back. But I quickly recognized that I had to achieve some basic job success to be respected by my future supervisees. So I set about learning how to run the machines and meet the production-line standards.
    During my very first shift as the first woman to run the big packaging machine on the Boston Cream Cake line, I almost cut off my