Volume 7 • 2020 • Issue 3

DevelopingResilience DuringAdversity Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier is a registered psychologist and often speaks about resilience and burn out. With both a PHD and an MBA, she brings the insights from psychological research about health, performance and overcoming challenges to serve the well-being of health care professionals and other leaders. During a conversation with CDA Essentials at the end of March 2020, Dr. Pelletier answered questions about how to build resilience and protect our health during a time of stress, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. How do you define resilience? It’s our ability to bounce back after difficult or challenging situations. Indeed, resilience goes beyond this to gaining strength and wisdom from difficult situations, which ultimately make us even stronger than we were before. Particularly in the work environment, one thing that affects resilience is how we respond to mistakes, as individuals, but also in our work context. Do we have a growth mindset? Do we believe that a mistake is an opportunity to learn? These approaches have been shown to be more aligned with a resilient mindset. How do you recognize burn out, in others or ourselves? It’s a combination of exhaustion, having very low energy and cynicism. When we are cynical, we’re distancing ourselves. We feel helpless, so we don’t care anymore. Then there will usually be an impact on performance. Why is resilience so important for health care professionals? It’s important for all of us but health care professionals, like dentists, provide an essential service that comes with high responsibilities and demands. If dentists aren’t able to bounce back after difficult situations, if their resources are depleted, it makes doing their important work more challenging. Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier I ssues and P eople