Approaching Our Resilience Through a Strengths-Based Framework | Rackham Graduate School: University of Michigan

October 15, 2025 | GradWell Season 2

Guest

Sunghyun Hong is pursuing her Ph.D. through an interdisciplinary lens that combines social work, developmental psychology, and neuroscience at the University of Michigan. She also holds a limited license in social work and is working toward full licensure by practicing as a therapist at a local nonprofit agency. Sunghyun is dedicated to translating her research into strength-based practices and policy strategies aimed at enhancing psychological well-being.

Resources

Transcript

Sam Hobson:

Hey, welcome to GradWell, a limited series podcast that explores various ways the University of Michigan can support its graduate students and their journey to greater well-being in our everyday lives. Brought to you by Rackham Graduate School. This season we’ll be talking to members of our academic community whose research intersects various dimensions of well-being. I’m Sam Hobson, a PhD candidate and a GSSA in Rackham’s Professional Development and Engagement office. My fellow grad students, it’s time we start placing as much importance on ourselves as we do our work. You’re worth the effort.

Sunghyun Hong:

You will begin to build resilience naturally as you continue to evaluate process, navigate your needs and contexts in different seasons that you’re in.

Sam Hobson:

Hello, hello. Today’s resource is Sunghyun Hong, a PhD candidate in social work and developmental psychology. Today we’re highlighting Sunghyun’s work on the developmental shaping of risk and resilience, exploring the intersection of emotional and physical well-being. I’m excited to have you all with Sunghyun and me today. All right, we’ll just dive right on in.

So Sunghyun Hong is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, where she takes an interdisciplinary approach that bridges social work, developmental psychology, and neuroscience. Her research investigates the neural, relational, and sociocultural processes that shape risk and resilience across the lifespan using quantitatively driven mixed methods. In addition to her academic work, Sunghyun holds a limited license in social work and is working toward full licensure through her clinical practice at a local nonprofit agency. She’s also committed to translating research into strengths-based practices and policy strategies that support the emotional and psychological well-being of youth and young adults. Hi, Sunghyun. Thank you for being here with me today.

Sunghyun Hong:

Hi. Thanks for inviting me.

Sam Hobson:

Of course. So Sunghyun, tell us more about your research and how you got on this path.

Sunghyun Hong:

So my work is definitely shaped by my clinical experiences in the urban communities of Chicago and Detroit before I began my PhD in the joint program in social work and developmental psychology. And as we know, both cities carry long history of systemic inequality, which have created structural conditions that had invulnerability to mental health challenges like depression, anxiety, and PTSD. And at the same time, working with individuals with families in those communities revealed the multifaceted ways people respond to adversity, not only through struggle, but also through everyday acts of resistance and resilience. And it really kept shaping my research by helping me focus on how people actually move through the world, especially in ways that often get missed in a conventional conversation about risks.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. So I’m really interested in what you said about how people actually move the world. Implying that for some reason the ways that we understand or write about or study or produce knowledge around how people move through the world may not actually be reflective of people’s actual experiences. Talk more about that.

Sunghyun Hong:

A lot of the conversation about human development came from the framework of deficit narrative. Oftentimes just predominantly focusing on risk also really narrow the paradigm through which we understand human development. So when we are only really focusing on what’s going wrong, we’re just telling very incomplete stories, and lose focus on how people actively navigate the systems around them.

So actually one of the bigger example would be people who are using substance use. So we know that those who are experiencing trauma and a lot of life challenges often lean on to substance use. And we have a lot of stigma against people who use substance use. But if you think about it for those people, it was also their understanding and their way of cope with trauma. So instead of labeling people who use substance as having an issue, or from a deficit view, it’s just really able to highlight strength. Wow, you really try to understand what’s going on, and yes, maybe it’s not the most effective way to mitigate your stress or cope. We do acknowledge and recognize the strength it took to try to find ways to overcome that in the ways that they felt like at the time they needed.

So something that, as we’re talking about resilience here, working with the sense of human dignity and human autonomy, rather than just having a blanket label of this is a person who’s having a bad coping strategy, this is a person who’s making bad choices, but able to really highlight the strength that took for someone to navigate the situation in terms that that makes sense for them.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. Okay. So my understanding is that the deficit model, which is the typical or traditional model that has been used in how we understand people’s behavior, it does not take the whole person into account. So a deficit model sees something is wrong, particularly a negative consequence of a behavior, and then assumes that the entire behavior is wrong. And that the motivation for the behavior is therefore wrong because the outcome was negative. And so then the whole process has to be negative. And so it seems like that is not the case in a strength-based framework. And so can you help us really get our minds around what is a strength-based framework, and why is it important for our understanding of well-being?

Sunghyun Hong:

So when we were using deficit narrative, oftentimes we’re focusing on the person’s and person’s behavior and kind of easily able to label the person as if they’re living outside of the system. And I think one of the big thing that strength-based framework brings is that people are navigating conditions around them. So here we’re thinking about the system around them.

So strength-based lens, I do want to highlight strength-based lens isn’t mean that we’re overlooking people’s struggles or even the structural inequality that has prompted the struggles. Also strength-based isn’t just like, oh, this person is resilient and have grit or inner toughness, but it’s really trying to make sense of individual within environment and within system, and how they’re navigating or making sense of navigating the world around them.

I think it really kind of zoom out person’s experience from only focusing individual’s responses as if the surrounding is value-free surroundings. And instead what we’re doing in zooming out and seeing that actually even the system had unequal and differential effect on individuals. So individuals with different marginal identities, individuals who are neurodivergent, individuals who are experienced that is marked by history of collective or interpersonal history of trauma or whatnot. The way that they will see the world, they will navigate the world, may look very different from people who have privileges, people who are coming from more nurturing, supportive background.

So when we are looking at these people’s course of life, instead of saying, oh, this one person is having all this issue and we need to fix this person, it really allows to pause, and wait, how is the system also affecting them? And yes, attending to the person for restoring their wellness, their wellbeing is really important, but is there anything we could also do that has a root cause or root issues? And really addressing more of the systemic issues around them that can prevent them from experiencing some of the negative consequences that we’re trying to address or fix in a more conventional way of science.

So if we think about it, a lot of the way we talk about mental health is this person has depression or not, or this person have anxiety or not. And we’re really just really focusing on symptoms. And a lot of the intervention we talk about is really, if you think about it, it’s a symptom reduction based techniques. So you’re trying to reduce feeling sad, reduce insomnia, or if you’re having appetite issue, trying to enhance and have better appetite or whatnot.

But as we know, a lot of the mental issue, yes, there is a brain component to it, and yes, sometimes it’s chemical imbalances, but sometimes the chemical imbalances is caused by stress, and the access to stress also is very differential between a person. So if a person is living in an environment where the world is so much stressful against them, yeah, then they have a heightened vulnerability for their chemical imbalances to happen. So again, we are not saying that these biological realities are not true, but also really able to expand, while those are true too, at the same time, there’s greater forces that may have caused even these biological chemical imbalances, whatnots.

Sam Hobson:

I have picked up so many things from what you’ve said. I love that you framed it in terms of how we typically see our context and environment as value-free. And what does it mean to recognize it as sort of value-laden? And I’ve never thought about it like that. But yeah, I think that we typically sort of navigate, unless it’s very, very obvious and blatant, that our environment is value-free. There isn’t this relationship between individual environment, between community environment, family environment that is constantly happening, this back and forth that we’re caught up in. And that it seems like we’re doing a lot of effort to ignore at any given point, and that, I’m taking that away with me. Definitely. And I just really appreciate the fact that it just seems like the way that you’re approaching understanding folks is through a lens of their entire humanity, rather than an aspect of who we are, which is our behavior.

But then the deeper why that you are trying to address and answer feels really human and lovely. And I’m grateful to hear about it. Because oftentimes, with the work that we do, you’re right, it’s quite reductionist. It’s quite as if these things that we experience exist in a vacuum. And the things that we do exist in a vacuum, and then value is then placed on only us and only our behavior and only our reactions to our external and internal stimuli, rather than perhaps the stimuli wasn’t great to begin with. And this is the only way that we have, the only thing that we have access to in terms of a reaction to that in the first place. And so yeah, I love that. I’m reflecting on just my own life and how often it’s easy to place value onto my actions in a way that does not take into account my deeper why, the contextual why, the what did I do with what I had in the moment rather than, well, that was a bad decision.

Sunghyun Hong:

And I think sometime when we are trying to understand, I think the society sometimes make it as like, oh, you’re just making excuse for yourself. And I think it’s important to kind of differentiate that. I think making excuses mean that you’re not taking consequences. And sometimes when we do make a bad decision, we might have to face the consequences of that. But also processing it after, while we’re taking consequences, is not a bad excuse. It’s not a process of making excuse, but it’s like, hey, I own up to the decision that might not be the smartest wisest decision. At the same time, I’m showing myself a flexibility to choose to understand myself that, at that moment, this is what I did based on my experiences, based on the resources I had. And moving forward, I may be able to make a decision that may be different than this decision I made.

So again, I think part of it is going through the process where you are evaluating with compassion and kindness to yourself, while also being responsible. And if there’s certain things that you need to own up to it, learning how to own up to it. And part of it is also, if you feel like owning up to it is overwhelming, learning how to ask for help. And I do want to acknowledge too, I think based on your culture experiences and your upbringing, asking for help is really, really, really difficult. So again, I think a lot of this journey is really going through the process, and even as you’re making a more ideal adaptive decisions and sometime making the decision may be hard, and able to choose time to invest and break things down in a way that is digestible for you in the pace that is suitable.

Sam Hobson:

Yeah, I agree. What came to me when you were talking is that, not only is asking for help really difficult, but also taking responsibility and accountability is hard. It’s not something that we’re taught to do. Actually, it’s modeled for us that it’s something that we should typically reject. That’s a different story for a different day.

But because from what I’m hearing from you, it seems as if approaching one’s life through a strength-based framework by taking the entire context and meaning around one’s behavior, I think can perhaps help people take that accountability and take that responsibility. Because again, like you said, that is how you grow, through being able to process the deeper why, rather than just sort of a value judgment that this was bad, and then don’t do bad things. And it’s like, okay, what am I supposed to do with that?

Because then if it’s this is bad, don’t do bad things, then you are bad if you have done this. And then who wants to accept or relate to that? And so then we deny that, and it’s difficult to take responsibility, difficult to take accountability because then that means we’re a bad person within this deficit mindset. But then on the approach that you’re representing regarding a strength-based framework is actually I did something, and this is the reasons why I did it. And because I’m able to acknowledge sort of everything that went into this, I can see also the harm that I created as a result. And incorporating all of that into my processing of the moment allows me to acknowledge that and move through it and from it in a way that perhaps I won’t repeat it as a result. So yeah, I’m taking a lot away. I’m taking a lot away. Before we move forward, I want to make sure we understand what exactly is resilience. And I know that our understanding of it has changed over time. Can you help us understand that?

Sunghyun Hong:

So at least in the field that I’m part of and the people that I’m working with, we really see resilience as a dynamic heterogeneous, not linear outcome and process, a positive adaptation. And it’s really moving away from seeing resilience as a inherent or a fixed personal trait. So for a long time, actually, the way people thought about resilience was something internal, and either you had it or you didn’t have it.

So if you think about it, people are like, oh, that person’s resilient. Meaning like, oh, that person has a grit or has this toughness versus this person doesn’t have resilience. We will call them like, oh, they’re weak or they’re soft, or whatnot. So in the context of someone struggling, if they don’t bounce back to normal, we really label that as that person’s personal failing. And again, I think as we are talking about this big picture, whereas the zooming out, I think that really kind of misses the greater things that shape people’s lives, and what makes someone resilient or less resilient or whatnot.

So for example, now we really understand resilience as more of this, quote, “ordinary magic.” So it’s not something that’s extraordinary, but it’s a normal everyday process that everyone goes through. And especially if you are in a supportive system, that the access to cultivating resilience may be much easier. So building on that. There’s also this idea of resilience more being a portfolio of resources. So financial portfolio. People build resilience through different resources around them.

And one thing is if, one area it’s limited, then you can get the resources from other places. So for example, if you’re from a family where the family system is experiencing a lot of challenges, if you’re in a neighborhood that have a tighter social cohesion, or a school where you feel more connected, even though you may not be able to have rich resources at home to build resilience, you can build resilience or have access to resources to build resilience in other parts of your social system.

More recently, we really began to highlight resilience as this dynamic multi-dimensional interconnected process where we are really starting to see person and their system as all one thing. So that resilience is not just a personal trait, it’s not just resources, but it’s also the interplay of individual traits, the family system, different social relationship around them, community factors, and sociocultural influences.

So really helped us to think about, it’s not about identifying who’s resilient, who’s not resilient, but how can we help a person to become more resilient, or how do we mitigate or intervene in a situation people may not need a resilience to begin with? So instead of intervening when something goes wrong, but more really having a perspective of preventing before this cascade of negative consequences emerging, or creating a system where support is there already so when someone is experiencing stress, that they’re able to manage and cope in a healthy manner. So that’s what it would be.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. So I know that you’ve talked about the dynamism of resilience. How does that work?

Sunghyun Hong:

Yeah. So another more updated understanding of resilience, really see resilience in flexible processes. So first when we talk about dynamism of resilience, the first thing is resilience has more the temporal relationship, where resilience can change over time. So someone can cope and bounce back at one moment, but might look very different later. So you may be [inaudible 00:19:02] able to demonstrate capacity to be resilient, but as time goes on, that might be diminished. So there’s the temporal orders or temporal sequences or temporal changes that happens.

And then second part of the dynamism of resilience is that resilience can show up differently across various areas of life. So for example, someone might be psychologically resilient, but they might be really struggling physically. Or you might be [inaudible 00:19:30] in that you might be doing really well academically, but you’re just really emotionally not doing okay and your mental health is really struggling.

So in some sense, this idea allow us to understand that resilience can be uneven, and it can show up differently in your relationship, your mental and physical health, and even your spiritual life. So this dynamism of resilience help us recognize that, in resilience, coping is isn’t one size fits all. And it really allows us to hold this notion that we can be proud of things that’s going well, and at the same time able to be vulnerable to admit areas that need help and that needs attending care. Because I think oftentimes because when we are labeling someone as resilient or not resilient, we’re also again putting this value-driven decision on them. Either there is something going wrong with you as a person and you’re not resilient versus, oh, everything’s going real, good job, and then you’re good to go because your resilience. What, right?

But we’re really starting to break this down more into different domains of life. We can say, yes, I’m actually doing really okay academically, but I’m really struggling and start having a chronic pain and I’m having issue with my physical health. And so while I can also celebrate this aspect of my life that’s going well, I can also pay attention to areas that need help without making me feeling like that as a person I have failed completely.

Or sometimes we try to mask the areas of weaknesses or areas that need help by only focusing on good things that’s going wrong because we don’t want to admit that or we don’t want to label ourselves as a failure. But by actually differentiating those things apart, we’re able to say, okay, I’m really doing physically, but my psychological health is really bad, and I do need to get help. And I think, again, I think that really allows to make us an informed decision that help us to be more value free and attend care in a more loving holistic way that we need as individuals.

Sam Hobson:

Sunghyun, I love this. This idea, it feels so empowering that I’m able to, through this perspective, honor all the parts of me, not just the good things and therefore everything’s okay, or the not so good things and then therefore everything is not okay. And that I am not allowed to exist in the in-between. And that some things are good, some things aren’t. And that is okay. That this approach to resilience in recognizing that you can be resilient in a number of areas of your life, and that you can be struggling with your resilience in others feels really complete.

It feels the nuance that it provides, I think really allows for us to not have to feel like we need to ignore certain parts of ourselves or who we are, what we’re doing and what’s going on in order to be able to acknowledge the state that we’re in and the moment that we’re in in time. And I like that you said that it has a temporal nature to it. Things change. Things change day to day, year to year, season to season, and that this perspective allows for that change. Yeah, I love it.

Sunghyun Hong:

Yeah. Also advice my mom gave me, it really changed my life. One time we had this big argument because I was becoming an adult, and she was trying to like, this is my daughter, this is my girl. Why is she making all this decision by herself? Like yadda, yadda, yadda.

And actually one thing that still stuck with me is she came back to me and apologized, “Hey, I’m so sorry, and please forgive me because this is also my first time being a mom of someone who’s in mid-20s.” And I think that really struck me because I was like, yes, my mom’s been a mom for 20 of her life, or 20 something years of her life, but this was her first time being a mom of someone who’s in mid-20s, right? So I think even as the role changes, sometimes that also might look different.

So I want to highlight resilience can also look different when you are single, and then you have a partner, when you are a person without a child to a child, or now that maybe your role with your parents or caregivers may change. So now you play the role of caregiver instead of you receive caregiving from your caregivers. So sometime not only the temporal sequences and temporal changes, but even as we are playing roles.

And I want to highlight that because I think grad student life is so diverse, and anyone can be somewhere in 20s to all the way to 50s and 60s. Transitioning to grad students really difficult thing. But also during grad students, also people do experience a lot of transition in different roles. They may be in relationship and out relationship. They may be welcoming new life in their lives, or they lose someone they seriously loved. And this is sometimes our caregivers are aging and now we suddenly become the caregivers. And sometimes the resilience that worked as a one role as a single person doing academia maybe look very different when you’re now being the caregiver of your aging grandparents or aging parents or aging aunts and uncles, or now you’re taking care of a one year old child.

So I think something that my mom told me really changed my life because whenever I feel overwhelmed, I’m like, you know what? This is my first time experiencing it. Yes, I’ve been Sunghyun Hong for 30 something years of my life, but this is my first time ever I’m learning how to live with another person, or now having a human that is having their brain being developed, or now seeing my parents becoming old and processing their aging experiences. So I think, again, in the same way that unpacking resilience from a multi-domain approach help us to give more grace to ourselves, I think also understanding that, based on a role, how resilience may manifest or may evolve in giving her some space to process that I think is also important as well.

Sam Hobson:

Your mother is so wise. I am so grateful that you had that experience with her. That right there right now has changed my life. You’re right. So for all of the roles that I’ve had to step into, that we all do during graduate school that we don’t necessarily, we didn’t expect to have to experience, and I have a hard time not beating myself up for not having figured it out. I was so good at this other role that I’ve been playing for many years at this point. And then why am I not so good in this new space with this new hat on? And why am I struggling? And I shouldn’t be because I was good over there.

And so this is the first time, this is time I am having to experience X, Y, and Z at the same time, and navigate A, B, and C on top of that, and also be writing a dissertation. That is such a wonderful perspective and such, like you said, a perspective that can provide us with a lot of grace when I think we really truly need and deserve it. And so thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you.

Sunghyun Hong:

Thank you for listening.

Sam Hobson:

So Sunghyun, why is resilience so important for graduate students? How does it relate to our emotional and our physical wellbeing?

Sunghyun Hong:

Yeah. So I think this all connects for grad student. We’re not just a grad student. And especially this is a phase of why we talked about it that has different unique sets of pressures. There’s just intense academic demands that comes from internally, but also externally as well. Balancing multiple roles outside of school. We talked about it. We don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a system and social structures. You have different relationship you’re committing. There’s different relationship we’re trying to start, or sometimes we might need to, and for different purposes. And so many of us in grad school often struggle with imposter syndrome or feeling like you don’t belong. And I think we talked about, even the sense of feeling isolation. Sometimes you’re the only person thinking about intersection of XYZ. No one in the world may care. And you’re putting your entire heart and your life and your time into it.

And I think another thing we want to highlight is there’s real financial stress being a grad student. Sometimes you look it up when you know that people who went to same high school or even same college are making real money, and you’re still living in the stipend and trying to figure out how you’re going to pay for next bills. Or sometimes if you have different conferences you have to go because people say networking is important, but they don’t give you enough money to go networking, whatnot.

I think grad student, there’s just so many things that we’re going through and we’re navigating. And so first I want to highlight that. And I think for grad student, resilience is really important because it still help us how to move forward despite experiencing all these different challenges. As we talked about, there’s just not one size fits all resilience strategy, but resilience is a complex and dynamic process.

So going back to how we talked about it previously, you can be resilient in one part of your life. So you can be that person that power through the deadline and staying focused in your research and able to submit your manuscript to that special issue without asking extension five different times. But you may be honestly struggling really emotionally and physically. End of the night, you were scrolling through, I don’t know, is it a TikTok? It used to be Instagram. But I don’t even know [inaudible 00:30:19].

Sam Hobson:

Who knows?

Sunghyun Hong:

Yeah. You’re scrolling through and you’re like, what am I doing with my life? And you might be really struggling. We also talk about in our literature that when you’re experiencing just a chronic high intense stress, which grad student life can be, it’s like five, six years, or even more. My program is a really long program. You’re just in this chronic a high in stress and uncertainty. We may be experiencing what we call weathering or skin-deep resilience. And this idea of weathering and skin-deep resilience came from actually studying African American men who were actually experiencing success in their life at the expense of a heavy physical toll.

So there were some study that showed, and I think there were two different study I’m thinking of. One is the study that coined the idea of John Henryism, which is kind of similar idea with skin-deep resilience. This man was very successful but died so early. And part of it is, even though that he was able to find success despite racial inequality and disparity, that chronic systemic structural stress caused so much toll on his physical body that he actually died early. Or we see these different studies too where someone may be doing so well in academia in high school, and then in mid-20s, they’re actually experiencing more mental health issues because this toll of I got to make it, I got to do well at the expense of your psychological and physical health can caught up on you.

So for grad student, we may be in this good standing, and there’s a letter of approval from our department, congratulations, you are in good standing. And yet you might be experiencing anxiety, depression, insomnia, chronic pain, other health issues. These are a lot of the things that we report, or I’ve seen the grad students are experiencing while they’re going through grad school.

And I think that’s really why, going back to this idea of strength-based framework of resilience is really important, where we’re really acknowledging the dynamic nature of resilience. So I think even as, Sam, you said, seeing resilience as dynamic process, really able to hold both truths, which is recognizing and be proud of the areas that we’re thriving, and also able to be kind to ourselves to tend to areas that we need help.

So for grad students, you may be doing well academically. And because you’re using that as a reason and excuse to not take care of all the other parts of your life, like relationships, mental, physical health, perhaps this understanding of dynamic process of resilience help you to make different choices and see your life more as holistically and making sure you’re tending to other parts of life. So the consequences will not caught up on you later, right?

Sam Hobson:

Okay. And so Sunghyun, how do we develop our resilience?

Sunghyun Hong:

Yes. So that’s the million dollar questions, and I think that’s where so many people are trying to understand what resilience is. I think there’s two parts to that question, and I feel like the first part will be very unsatisfying, but I do feel like it would be important to highlight is that building resilience is not a personal effort thing, but I think it really needs to start with a system. And I know that it’s unsatisfying answer because we talk about fixing system all the time. We don’t talk about how to. And I have to admit, I also don’t know the answer to how to fully, completely fix the system unless we completely start from the beginning. But clearly that can’t happen because also, again, we don’t live in a vacuum.

I think the second part of the answer will be a little bit more deliverable, manageable within a person. But again, I want to highlight that, in order for even that to happen, the first part had to be addressed. But I think it’s a little bit out of my scope of expertise. So I think I’m going to just talk about what I can kind of provide as a piece of advice, or unsolicited advice I guess.

So I think as we talk about resilience is about our capacity to cope with significant stress and finding ways to move forward. And I do want to note that stress itself is not a bad thing. Because if you think about it, actually, you need stress to grow, develop new skills, and [inaudible 00:34:51] relationship. Even as a young kid reading a new word or picking up a pencil can be really stressful. They’re like, “I can’t do this.” But you’re like, “Yes you can. Let’s do this.” So stress is really helpful.

And in many situations stress is also very essential. It pushes us to grow. And not only that, but it also help us to detect threats so that, if we need to, we can reorient ourselves. So in order for us to develop our resilience, I do feel like it really starts with taking some time to reflect ourselves, reflect where we came from, where are we at and where we want to go. Because I don’t think resilience is just checking out boxes. Oh, I’m doing well academically, I’m doing well physically, I’m doing well psychologically. And oh, everything is perfect, right? And if you’re saying that, I will gently push against that idea. Maybe you’re hiding something or maybe you’re scared to confront deeper realities or for challenges. And now maybe you are just kind of putting this blanket and avoiding it.

And I’m not trying to judge it. I’m not trying to say that, oh, you’re bad for doing that. But I would challenge you to think, if you think everything is perfect, then you’re also not letting yourself being a human. So I think, even though as much as sometime PhD is so busy and we feel like we don’t have time to think and process, I think just really choosing some time to reflect that you are a complex evolving individual is really important, and able to be really vulnerable with what are your strength and what are the areas that you need help.

So for grad students, developing resilience mean really committing to a long process of growth with humility, especially in the face of sustained stress and a lot of uncertainty. So for some people, resilience at moment could look like biting the bullet and pushing it because you just really need to do that at the moment. Other time, it is really recognizing your limits and setting boundaries and learning how to say no. And if you are coming from a culture with sometime I feel like I’m like that, when you don’t know how to say no, then you may need to find an advocate.

So I have a mentor in my life who, if you cannot say no, I will draft a letter for you to say no. As someone who can really challenge you to say no. And I think especially in grad school, we do navigate a lot of power hierarchies. I think just even able to identify a person or mentor who can really help you how to say no in so-called diplomatic way, actually I think is a really important skill set that we can continue to grow. It can also mean really intentionally choosing to carve out time to rest and recharge. And as we talked about, learning how to ask for help. And if you come from a culture where asking help is really difficult, finding an ally that can help you process that in a safe space, and eventually, hopefully you will able to be comfortable to have that conversation.

And sometimes for me it was, when I’m asking for help, that also require learning how to hear no, but still ask for help again. And if they say no, then don’t get discouraged by that from a value-driven, oh, they’re rejecting me. But oh, they just don’t know the situation. Okay. I’m going to ask for someone else who can help me because I’m sure there’s at least one person who can navigate that. Or ultimately, even if the no is a no, still able to go through that where, okay, they’re not rejecting me, but the system is not in a way that maybe at this moment cannot help me. And really able to differentiate that internal rejection to external limitation. I think that’s something that can be really helpful.

And I think in other cases, it also really requires courage to step back entirely from environmental expectation if that’s doing more harm than good. So I think for grad students, resilience can be cultivated in many ways, through meaningful relationships, supportive communities, having personal reflective spaces that allow for real rest and reorientation and reevaluation. And you will begin to build resilience naturally as you continued to evaluate, process, navigate your needs and context and different seasons that you’re in. And I think able to do that is not revealing your weaknesses, but also accepting that we are a human and it’s okay to be a human.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. So I’m hearing compassion, I’m hearing grace, I’m hearing patience, I’m hearing tenderness, I’m hearing ease, I’m hearing second chances. So we know that we don’t have to do this work alone, but it always serves us to receive a reminder. I know that you have some advice for us about finding a mental health practitioner. You’ve said that it’s important to find someone who approaches therapy from a strengths-based perspective. What do you mean by that?

Sunghyun Hong:

Yeah. I think when it comes to finding a mental health practitioner, there’s a real value in working with a therapist who draws from a strength-based framework. And when I say that, I mean a practitioner who doesn’t just fix what’s wrong or symptom, but finding a therapist who would recognize and empower you to reclaim your existing strength, especially in times that you’re experiencing challenges.

And I think it’s especially important because actually, if you think about it, a lot of the symptoms on mental health, including for grad student, is actually sense of worthlessness or feeling a burden. And I think that already also will probably make you challenged to see your own strength. Because if you’re feeling like you’re not good enough, if you feel you’re burden to people, already basically you’re wearing this sunglasses that it’s kind of harder for you to see your true colors.

And I think for grad students, we talk about this all the time, but we are really in a very critical environment. Peer review is constant evaluation. As a grad student, we’re constantly thinking about where we need to grow, where we need to do better. And everything that is going well or that is a strength of a [inaudible 00:41:33], we tend to not focus on that. And with that and with mental health challenges that grad students are experiencing, it could really amplify the inner critique. So I think it’s really important to work with someone who can really gently shift the mindset that you may be experiencing and guide you toward growth and healing. So a therapist grounded in strength-based framework will help you hold both your difficulty and your strength at the same time. And I think they support you in examining areas where you want to grow without reducing your whole experiences to your symptoms.

And I think I really want to emphasize the importance of finding a therapist also with a cultural humility. Because I think in order for someone to also appreciate strength-based perspective and strength-based framework, we’re constantly talking about this idea of knowing the system, knowing the surrounding around you. And I think for a therapist, it’s really important to have a sense of cultural humility for them to also able to understand and walk with you and try to empathize the system you’re in. Because the whole notion of cultural humility is that, as a practitioner, not only you’re just aware or you’re understanding, but you’re also humble enough to know there’s so many things that I may not know because I have not went through your lived experience. So let me commit to also learn from you and committed to really growing in my own understanding as well.

So I think that combination of strength-based and cultural humility framework as a therapist, I think is really important. Especially if you’re working with someone who may not have been a grad student, or who are sharing different identities or circumstances or life contexts. And lastly, I want to also highlight that finding a therapist can be also a long process. And I think that’s okay, and I want to just normalize that as well.

Sam Hobson:

Yeah. Yeah. My partner and I have likened it to dating because you want to think that, oh, I found somebody. That’s enough. You know what I mean? But no. To see, when you’re trying to find a new therapist, as the process of dating. You’re trying people out, you’re seeing what works, seeing who you match with. But don’t think of it as a one-and-done approach because then it’s really disheartening when it’s not. And you feel like you’ve done something wrong because, like you said, it takes a while to find that person that you can be in right relationship with. And that’s what I’m hearing from you, that this needs to be a relationship. We need to grow from each other. We need to learn from each other. And to find someone who’s willing to do that is what we’re looking for.

Sunghyun Hong:

Yeah. It’s definitely a relationship with a professional boundary, but the professional boundary does not mean that this person is still [inaudible 00:44:18] and only going to fix your symptom or tend your symptom and be done with it. But able to, with the safety of the professional boundary, enter into your life to give you some of these support that you need and help you to navigate, guide in areas it’s hard for you to have an unbiased approach. And they can kind of be that voice or a guidance in helping you gently push in area that needs to be pushed, but also a proactively affirming area that need to be affirmed so you can continue to grow as a holistic human with healthy body and mind.

Sam Hobson:

My wish and my hope is that we are all able to find that human for ourselves.

Sunghyun Hong:

Absolutely.

Sam Hobson:

And each other. Okay. So Sunghyun, thank you so much. I have grown deeply and fully from this interview, from this experience with you. Thank you for this conversation. Thank you.

Sunghyun Hong:

When you reach out to me, it’s a topic that I’m really passionate about. And I’m like, I would love to talk about this kind of thing. So felt very privileged and fortunate that you reached out to me.

Sam Hobson:

Okay. Here are three takeaways from this week’s episode for your wellbeing journey. One, a strength-based framework allows us to zoom out and recognize the context behind our actions, acknowledges that you are navigating the conditions around you, and that those conditions, those environments, are not neutral. Two, seeing resilience as a dynamic multi-dimensional process allows us to better acknowledge the aspects of our lives that are going well and the aspects that aren’t, helping us celebrate the good and adjust the not so good without having to ignore the parts of ourselves that don’t fit into the idea that we’re either succeeding or failing. And three, grad school is a time for a lot of transitions. Our roles often change along this journey, and we experience a lot of firsts while we’re here. This is your first time doing this type of work in this type of way in this type of social and familial context in this type of environment. So give yourself some grace, y’all. You’re doing the best you can with what you’ve got.

Check out our website for all the resources related to this episode at rackham.umich.edu/gradwell. You can reach out to Sunghyun with any questions you have at hshong.umich.edu. You can contact us about the podcast at [email protected], and make sure to join us next time when I speak with Professor Ed Sarath, professor of music in the Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation about creativity, consciousness, and tapping into our full potential. I’ll see you then.

Hey, hardworking grad student. Thank you for turning into GradWell. I hope you can take something away from this episode with you. If you like what you heard, be sure to write a review, like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, check us out on social @UmichGradSchool.