Penn Resilience Workshops
In these workshops, you are exposed to the foundational research in resilience, including protective factors such as mental agility and optimism. Several types of resilience interventions are explored including cognitive strategies; strategies to manage anxiety and increase positive emotions such as gratitude; and a critical relationship enhancement skill. Throughout the workshops, you will hear examples of individuals using resilience skills in their personal and professional lives.
Suggested format
- Delivery method: Live and online with a Penn faculty member
- Duration: Each workshop runs for 90 minutes
- Participation: Interactive activities, small group practical exercises, and peer discussions
The workshops below can be taken individually or as a shorter series of workshops. We can partner with your organization to customize program's content and format to meet your needs. Contact Stacy Clements at stacymc@sas.upenn.edu for more details and information on pricing.
Learning outcomes
Non-credit, certificate of completion
The goal of the resilience workshops is to teach participants actionable resilience and well-being skills to navigate adversity and thrive in their personal and professional life. Each workshop includes an overview of the skill and how it contributes to resilience and well-being. In addition to reinforcing the use of resilience skills, the format of the workshops give attendees the opportunity to learn more about each other and to support each other.
Workshop: Resilience and an Optimistic Mindset
This workshop reviews the science of resilience, the building blocks of resilience, and strategies to navigate challenges and adversity. We review the benefits of an optimistic mindset and how it can be developed. We discuss the differences between unhelpful optimism and helpful optimism, six strategies of an optimistic mindset, and how we can use these strategies to enhance our mental health, physical health, relationships, and performance.
- Learn about resilience and the building blocks of resilience
- Review the definition and evidence-based benefits of optimism
- Discuss six optimism strategies that increase resilience and how to overcome barriers to implementing
- In small groups, work through an upcoming challenge or adversity that is meaningful, using the strategies of an optimistic mindset
- Discuss which optimism strategies are areas to develop and which you already use
Workshop: Avoid Thinking Traps
This workshop focuses on understanding common patterns of thinking that get in our way of connecting with others, feeling confident and focused, and responding to setbacks and challenges. We explore the thinking traps we sometimes fall into, how they undercut us, and simple strategies to pull ourselves out of them and readjust our mindsets.
- Define thinking traps and learn how they undercut resilience
- Explore common thinking traps, the triggers, and which ones you are prone to
- Develop mental cues and questions to challenge thinking traps when they arise
- Discuss which thinking traps you are prone to and how thinking traps impact emotions, physiology, and behaviors
- Develop personal mental cues and critical questions
Workshop: Real-time Resilience
This workshop focuses on strategies to quiet the unhelpful mental chatter that we commonly have before stressors like work meetings, public speaking, interviews or tryouts, meeting new people, trying to fall asleep, etc. We practice strategies that help us stay present, focused, and confident.
- Learn real-time strategies to challenge mental chatter and build confidence
- Observe a real-time resilience demonstration
- Discuss situations when real-time resilience is needed
- Practice overcoming counter-productive thoughts using the strategies of evidence, planning, reframing, control and strength
Workshop: IDEAS Framework for Difficult Conversations
This workshop focuses on a communication strategy to build trust and connection during difficult conversations. We identify the important conversations we want to have and the barriers to having these conversations. We use a framework to set up these conversations for success by anchoring to shared values, communicating clearly and non-defensively, and collaborating on finding solutions.
- Review the science and benefits of strong relationships
- Identify important, difficult conversations we want to have, and the factors that interfere with effective conversation
- Learn the IDEAS framework for guiding important, difficult conversations (identify, describe, elaborate, align, summarize)
- Identify an important, difficult conversation you need to have
- Practice a difficult conversation with talking points using the IDEAS framework
Workshop: Joy Multiplier for Positive Conversations
This workshop focuses on how we can build trust and strengthen our relationships by responding with authentic engagement to other people’s positive experiences. We explore four common ways we respond when others share their positive experiences and how to be more authentic and engaged.
- Learn skills that build trust and connection when sharing positive experiences
- Understand four common styles when responding to positive experiences people share and the one style that strengthens relationships
- Observe a response style demonstration
- Identify your response style patterns with important people in your life
- Focus on someone with whom joy multiplier is not your typical style
- Discuss barriers to being authentically engaged and how to overcome
Workshop: Positive Emotions and Resilience Symbols
This workshop focuses on how positive emotions increase resilience and well-being and help us manage stress. We review common positive emotions and the habits that enrich our experience of positive emotions. We also discuss how to overcome the internal and external barriers to positive emotions. We consolidate what we have learned in the workshops, reflect on our experiences, and share personal symbols of resilience.
- Review the science and benefits of positive emotions
- Cultivate positive emotions with the guided imagery activity
- Review the skills taught throughout the six workshops
- Define resilience symbols and how they can promote resilience after the program
- Design a positive emotion habit
- Identify barriers to positive emotions
- Share resilience symbols and discuss why they are important
Faculty bio: Karen Reivich
Director of Resilience and Positive Psychology
Dr. Reivich is the Director of Training Programs at the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center. She is the lead curriculum developer and instructor and trains and supervises all training instructors. She earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and is an instructor in the Penn Master of Applied Positive Psychology program (MAPP).
Dr. Karen Reivich is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of resilience, depression prevention, and positive psychology. She has more than 30 years of experience developing and delivering resilience and positive psychology programs for educators and their students, US Army soldiers, health care professionals, a professional sports organization, corporate audiences, and more. As lead instructor of the Penn Resilience Program, she has worked with more than 10,000 participants.
Dr. Reivich’s scholarly work focuses on helping parents, educators, and leaders to promote resilience and well-being in adolescents and adults. For 20 years, she was a co-principal investigator of several research studies of the Penn Resilience Programs funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the US Department of Education. Dr. Reivich has published extensively in academic journals and edited books in the areas of positive psychology and resilience. Her scholarly publications have appeared in academic journals including Psychological Science, Journal of Early Adolescence, School Psychology Quarterly, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, and Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. She is a co-author of two books: The Optimistic Child and The Resilience Factor.
Dr. Reivich and her work have been featured in a variety of news and media outlets including Oprah, Prime Time Live, The Early Show, ABC Nightly News, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, Parenting Magazine, Shape Magazine, The New York Times, US News and World Report, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today, and The Orlando Sentinel.
