As my schedule on the side indicates, I'm spending a lot of time working with the effort by the Penn Positive Psychology Center to deliver Master Resilience Trainer training programs for the US Army. This program focuses on training Army sergeants in the skills of resilience, character strengths, and connection, and how to teach those to soldiers. It has gotten a lot of coverage lately, including a recent article by Marty Seligman in the Harvard Business Review explaining the application of these principles to the corporate world. The program was also the subject of a special issue of American Psychologist in January.
Great to see this effort getting attention. I'm proud to be a part of it. One comment on the HBR site came from an MRT - it's reflective of what we hear from the folks in the program:
As an MRT implementing this training in the field, I am amazed at the reception by our Soldiers and their families. During our first training session, a pre-deployment presentation, I had hoped to see 1 or 2 Soldiers have that"Ah Ha!" moment and buy in. Of 85 Soldiers trained, all but 2 had positive feedback and wanted to go more in depth. Fortunately, I will have 12 months in country to do just that. This is a great program which has already enabled my Soldiers to open their eyes to the Icebergs, thinking traps, etc which stand betweeen them and better relationships and better productivity. That single training session was enough for the BN Commander to commission me to train our entire deploying formation the breadth of the MRT material. Keep up the great work Dr. Seligman and Dr. Reivich. It is making a difference.
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