Michael Ungar > Quotes

“The problem is the problem, the person is not the problem.
Michael White and David Epston”
― Michael Ungar, Strengths-Based Counseling With At-Risk Youth

“We can make ourselves more resilient by making the world around us supportive.”
― Michael Ungar, Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success

“We simply can no longer persist in believing that children's pathways to health are dysfunctional when our children behave in ways that trouble us. We must listen closely to our children's accounts of their lives and their elaborate negotiations for opportunities to see themselves as people who belong, are trustworthy, competent and caring. We must embrace their risk-taking and responsibility-seeking behaviours as normal expressions of their search for an adult-like status. We must stand beside our children and provide them the advantage that comes from exposure to the right amount of risk and responsibility.”
― Michael Ungar, Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive

“Mindfulness, neuroplasticity, trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, career coaching, Kripalu yoga – the list of “cures” for our lack of resilience and related problems is endless. If you are overweight, alone, miserable at work or crippled by stress or anxiety or depression, there are hordes of gurus and experts chasing you with books and quick fixes. With their advice, guidance, motivation or inspiration, you can fix your problems. But make no mistake: They are always your problems. You alone are responsible for them. It follows that failing to fix your problems will always be your failure, your lack of will, motivation or strength. Galen, the second-century physician who ministered to Roman emperors, believed his medical treatments were effective. “All who drink of this treatment recover in a short time,” he wrote, “except those whom it does not help, who all die. It is obvious, therefore, that it fails only in incurable cases.” This is the way of the billion-dollar self-help industry: You are to blame when the guru’s advice does not produce the expected outcome, and by now, we are all familiar enough with self-help to know that expected outcomes are elusive. […] Personal explanations for success actually set us up for failure. TED Talks and talk shows full of advice on what to eat, what to think and how to live seldom work. Self-help fixes are like empty calories: The effects are fleeting and often detrimental in the long term. Worse, they promote victim blaming. The notion that your resilience is your problem alone is ideology, not science. We have been giving people the wrong message. Resilience is not a DIY endeavor. Self-help fails because the stresses that put our lives in jeopardy in the first place remain in the world around us even after we’ve taken the “cures.” The fact is that people who can find the resources they require for success in their environments are far more likely to succeed than individuals with positive thoughts and the latest power poses. […] The science of resilience is clear: The social, political and natural environments in which we live are far more important to our health, fitness, finances and time management than our individual thoughts, feelings or behaviors.”
― Michael Ungar