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When I first meet a patient, I ask a question that often catches them off guard:
“What’s your secret?”
Specifically, I’ll ask, “Given everything you’ve described—the stress, losses, or hardships that brought you here—what’s your secret to having made it this far?”
It’s a disarming question, but a powerful one. It changes the entire frame of therapy and narrative from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What’s strong in me?”
From the Disease Model to the Strength Model
Traditional psychiatry and psychology have long operated within a disease model—identifying symptoms, diagnosing disorders, and reducing pathology. But human beings are not machines to be repaired. Mental health is not merely the absence of illness; it’s the presence of strength, adaptability, and meaning.
That’s why I ground my work in resilience and positive psychology—fields pioneered by psychologists such as Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. They remind us that wellness is not achieved by avoiding pain but by nurturing the human capacities that allow us to recover and grow from it.
When I ask patients about their “secret,” they begin to see themselves not as damaged but as durable. A young woman grieving a painful breakup realizes she still goes to work and cares for her siblings. A veteran coping with flashbacks recognizes he’s maintained years of sobriety. These are not trivial details—they are evidence of resilience. Therapy begins with building upon those existing strengths.
The Confusion Around “Trauma”
In recent years, few words have been used—and misused—more than trauma. Everything from a difficult boss to a social media comment can be described as “traumatizing.” While empathy for distress is essential, labeling every discomfort as trauma can pathologize normal stress and rob people of agency.
Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, offers a clarifying definition: “Trauma is not the event itself, but the energy that gets stuck in the body after the event.” In other words, trauma isn’t simply about what happens to us—it’s about how our nervous system experiences and integrates it.
Historically, the DSM-5 defined trauma objectively: exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. But a recent revision—the DSM-5-TR—expanded the definition toward a subjective standard, allowing personal perception to determine whether an event is traumatic. This change, while intended to validate individual experiences, risks blurring the boundaries between stress, adversity, and true trauma.
Seeing Trauma on a Continuum
Rather than dividing people into “traumatized” or “not traumatized,” it’s more accurate to view experiences on a continuum: Stress → Adversity → Trauma.
Everyone experiences stress. Some encounter adversity. Fewer experience trauma. The goal of therapy is not to remove stress from life—it’s to increase our tolerance for it.
This concept is central to several evidence-based approaches:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps people identify catastrophic thinking and reframe challenges as manageable.
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, teaches nonjudgmental awareness and emotional regulation.
- Somatic therapies, like Somatic Experiencing, work with the body’s physiology to discharge tension and restore a sense of safety.
All of these approaches aim to expand what trauma theorists call the “window of tolerance”—the emotional range within which a person can stay grounded, even under stress.
The Overuse of “Traumatizing”
We now hear people describe public speaking, receiving criticism, or facing disagreement as “traumatizing.” While these reactions are genuine, they reflect a larger cultural problem—one that Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff describe in The Coddling of the American Mind. They argue that when we treat individuals as fragile, we make them fragile.
Avoidance of stress, though understandable, actually reinforces anxiety. It teaches the brain that discomfort is dangerous. Over time, the avoidance itself becomes the problem. Real resilience develops only through controlled exposure to challenge, not insulation from it.
As Haidt notes, “What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker” has replaced Nietzsche’s “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Therapy grounded in resilience seeks to reverse that trend—helping patients build emotional muscle rather than wrap themselves in psychological bubble wrap.
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From Wounds to Wisdom
When therapy begins with “What’s your secret?”, it honors the person’s endurance and wisdom. It recognizes that every patient has already taken steps toward healing before ever stepping into the office.
The work of therapy, then, is not to eliminate stress or rewrite the past, but to transform experience into growth. Pain can become purpose. Vulnerability can become strength. And suffering, when integrated rather than avoided, becomes a teacher.
Because true resilience is not the absence of suffering—it’s the ability to suffer well and to emerge wiser and stronger for having done so.
