In the shank of many an evening after covering some horrific event—a natural or man-made disaster—I, and other reporters, have often pondered together the question, “After what we have just witnessed, how can those still living, who have suffered most, cope?” Hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes and earthquakes, wars, revolutions and riots, starvations, epidemics, and genocides always make news. The people left suffering in their wake frequently do not, or at best, don’t make news for long. The news cycle moves on; so do the journalists. Thus the question goes unanswered among us. There are new stories to cover and, besides, we say to ourselves—excuse makers and “rationalizers” that we tend to be—“We’re journalists not psychologists, sociologists, or philosophers.” But sometimes, at the end of other evenings when we are by ourselves, alone with our thoughts, the question resurfaces in our memory; resurfaces and haunts.
For journalists and non journalists alike, these are the personal, trying times all of us face in our individual lives, when it is not someone else suffering—when it is you and yours wracked with loss and hurt. That’s when the question of coping cuts deepest.
Dr. Laurie Nadel has spent years seeking to answer this question. Once a seasoned journalist and now a distinguished scholar and practicing psychotherapist, she has immersed herself in the academic study of suffering—in addition to the depth her own life story provides. She doesn’t know it all, doesn’t claim to, but she knows a lot and knows how to tell it. When it comes to dealing with personal struggle, she possesses infinite wisdom.
Dictionaries define a wise person as one who judiciously applies experience and knowledge; a person characterized by sound judgment, prudence, and practical sense. This fits Laurie Nadel like a bespoke suit. The good doctor earned her reservoir of uncommon wisdom for troubling times the old-fashioned way—through hard work, intense scholarship, and having an unusual variety of life experiences, good and bad. She knows the science and the literature, and not for nothing was her long, difficult slog to a PhD, but she also knows the realities of life from the bottom up. She was not born to privilege or place; she has been working since she was thirteen years old and has a firsthand knowledge of the Dickensian underside of life at home.
The common sense part of what became her wisdom was apparent when I first met her some thirty years ago at CBS when she was a beginning news writer and obituary producer for Newsfeed (formerly Syndication, now Newspath.) In the newsroom she stood out—at least to me and to others who observed her closely—because she was that rarity: a talented, dedicated young journalist who also was an unusually committed scholar. She cared about the news but also about continuing serious academic study. And she cared mightily about people, as evidenced by her volunteer work in professional organizations and community service, which included launching two groups to protect the human rights of journalists, the first being the Overseas Press Club in 1977–78 and the second the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Then there also was this: She was an exceptionally good listener. This unusual combination for a journalist so young, along with the seasoning of having to fight through her own multiple setbacks and suffering, eventually led her to pursue a doctorate in psychology.
All of that might not matter much for a book if she were not able to write well, but good writing is one of her strengths. Clarity and excellent storytelling skills are hallmarks of her writing and always have been, whether it’s news copy, academic papers, blogs, or books. And it’s always backed by deep-digging research—not just of the library and internet search kind but also in-the-field and person-to-person. Mark well that part of Laurie’s teaching is a version of the ancient dictum that she, you, or anyone can be beaten but never defeated if you have the will and the spirit. Knowledge and advice of this kind are offered in these pages.
When it comes to teaching how to get up after being knocked down, how to not just survive life’s hardest blows but eventually thrive, nothing beats a teacher who has learned through personal experience.
I’ll be surprised if you don’t find this book highly readable and the information in it unusually accessible and easy to understand, digest, and put to use.
Dr. Laurie Nadel touches off many new sunbursts of thought as she guides us through what we need to know about the Five Gifts that are keys to coping with life’s most troubling times.
—Dan Rather
New York, NY