Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Insights
Recording the Road to Resilience podcast are actor Darrell Hammond, in hat, and, clockwise, filmmaker Michelle Esrick, Mount Sinai podcast producer Jonathan Earle, and Jacob Ham, PhD.
A regular cast member for 14 seasons on Saturday Night Live, Darrell Hammond entertained millions with his spot-on impersonations of Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Sean Connery, and others.
But behind the scenes, he endured debilitating flashbacks, substance abuse, and self-harm. Misdiagnosed and medicated for decades, it wasn’t until Mr. Hammond was in his 50s that he finally received the correct diagnosis: childhood trauma.
In the latest episode of the Road to Resilience podcast from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Mr. Hammond and filmmaker Michelle Esrick sit down with Jacob Ham, PhD, a clinical psychologist and Director of the Center for Child Trauma and Resilience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, to discuss childhood trauma, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and healing. They talk about the long-term health effects of childhood trauma, how to deal with triggers in daily life, and the ways loved ones can support survivors in their recovery.
Jacob Ham, PhD
Mr. Hammond’s experience with trauma, addiction, and recovery is explored in a new documentary film, Cracked Up, directed and produced by Ms. Esrick.
Cracked Up explores the lifelong effects of childhood trauma, addiction and recovery through Mr. Hammond’s inspiring story. It features extensive interviews with Mr. Hammond, as well as leading trauma experts such as Bessel van der Kolk, MD, psychiatrist and author of The New York Times bestseller The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.
Road to Resilience brings you stories and insights to help you thrive in a challenging world. From fighting burnout and trauma to building resilient families and communities, the podcast explores what’s possible when science meets the human spirit. To listen, visit Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, or the Road to Resilience website.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Insights
An anxious woman’s worst fear comes true. A young man grasps for a ladder out of poverty and depression.
In Episode 10 of the Road to Resilience podcast, two resilience stories are told live by two neuroscience PhD students–Ana Efthymiou and Joe Simon–at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
These stories were performed live at the “Studying the Brain” storytelling event hosted by the School of Medicine’s Friedman Brain Institute at El Barrio’s Artspace on March 11, 2019.
Road to Resilience brings you stories and insights to help you thrive in a challenging world. From fighting burnout and trauma, to building resilient families and communities, the podcast explores what’s possible when science meets the human spirit.
Ana Efthymiou, a PhD student at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine.
Joe Simon, PhD student at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
The series is based on the well-received book Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges, co-authored by Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Steven Southwick, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University.
Road to Resilience is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play (link works best in Chrome). New episodes of the series are released on the last Wednesday of each month.
You can find more information on the Icahn School of Medicine website or on the Road to Resilience website.
Mar 11, 2019 | Featured, Insights
Douglas Dieterich, MD, and Leigh Blake
In 1977, Doug Dieterich contracted a mysterious virus that attacked his liver and left him unable to work. Four decades later, Dr. Dieterich, Director of the Institute for Liver Medicine at The Mount Sinai Hospital, reflects on his journey from patient to caregiver with the help of an unlikely ally—AIDS activist and “Cockney Rebel” Leigh Blake—and explains why Hepatitis C isn’t the terrifying diagnosis it once was.
Dr. Dieterich and Leigh explain how they turned their diagnosis into positive action. “I’ve always felt that when pain comes, you have to use it,” Leigh says, “That’s what it’s designed for.” Leigh’s Hepatitis C diagnosis inspired her to expand her humanitarian work, thereby saving thousands of lives affected by HIV/AIDS, while Dr. Dieterich’s diagnosis inspired him to become a renowned liver specialist.
Road to Resilience brings you stories and insights to help you thrive in a challenging world. From fighting burnout and trauma, to building resilient families and communities, we explore what’s possible when science meets the human spirit. Powered by the best experts in the world. The series is based on the well-received book Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges, co-authored by Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Steven Southwick, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University.
Road to Resilience is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play (link works best in Chrome). New episodes of the series are released on the last Wednesday of each month. You can find more information on the Icahn School of Medicine website or on the Road to Resilience website.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Insights
Paralympian Deb Gruen exemplifies the power of optimism. Born with spina bifida, Gruen stayed positive, focused on her strengths, and through hard work became a two-time Paralympic medalist.
A graduate of Yale and Georgetown, Gruen is now a successful lawyer in New York City. In Episode 8 of the Road to Resilience podcast, she explains how setting realistic expectations and the power of positivity can help you overcome life’s toughest challenges.
Of the many people interviewed, Gruen is perhaps the one who best exemplifies the spirit and power of dispositional optimism. Optimism ignites resilience, providing energy to power the other resilience factors that can help anyone become stronger. It facilitates an active and creative approach to coping with challenging situations.
The Road to Resilience podcast is based on the well-received book Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges, co-authored by Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Steven Southwick, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University. It features thought-provoking insight from renowned experts as they explain the science behind resilience.
Road to Resilience is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play (link works best in Chrome). New episodes of the series are released on the last Wednesday of each month. You can find more information on the Icahn School of Medicine website or on the Road to Resilience website.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Insights
Mount Sinai has released episode seven of the monthly podcast series, Road To Resilience, which details how active coping skills can help you recover from losing a loved one. In this podcast, Rosalind J. Wright, MD, Dean of Translational Biomedical Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, explains how she used this resilience factor to cope with the murder of her brother and how that would shape her renowned career.
“It’s been a fascinating career path that I would have never had the courage to take had it not been for this incredible loss. Often times as I’m working, I’ll light a candle so he’s right here next to me because it’s his career just as much as it is mine,” Dr. Wright says. She hopes that sharing her story will help others cope with the death of a family member or close friend. “There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Your life is going to be changed forever, but try to find ways it will be positively changed. The more you can do that and live for the positive and seek the positive in tragedies like that, it’s amazing the good and growth that can come out of it.”
In the episode, Dr. Wright describes the grief she experienced when she lost her brother at the same time she was caring for her newborn daughter and finishing up her residency. She explains how his unexpected death took a toll on the mental and physical health of both her and her family. These challenges led Dr. Wright to become fascinated with how trauma can affect your physical well-being, and she wanted to learn more about this on a scientific level. She then applied active coping skills during this challenging time and made a big decision to switch gears from studying genetics to pursuing a career in public health.
“I started thinking people need to understand how grief can embed itself in the body and change how you are biologically. I wanted to know how it relates to increasing problems like hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and asthma,” Dr. Wright says.
Dr. Wright went on to conduct groundbreaking research focusing on inner-city populations and violence. She discovered living in a high-stress environment can have a direct impact on your immune system and can change your biology to the point where you’re at risk of developing chronic diseases, including asthma. Dr. Wright also researched the health consequences of poverty and stress. She found exposure to more pollution, a lack of nutritious food, and living in housing with mold and rodents can also make you more prone to these diseases. Her work can now pave the way for prevention and solutions.
“This is going to—more than anything in my career in medicine—finally have great impact on reducing the growth in chronic diseases that we’re seeing,” she says. “If we know what your past exposures have been that affect your health and understand it in a comprehensive way, we can start to understand what factors can push you back on a health track. As a clinician this is so exciting, and I hope this will translate into improved health for the next generations.”
The “Road to Resilience” podcast is based on the well-received book Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges, co-authored by Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Steven Southwick, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University. It features thought-provoking insight from renowned experts as they explain the science behind resilience. The work has been so well received the book now has a second edition.
The book identifies 10 resilience factors to help anyone become stronger when facing life’s greatest challenges and they explain how these can be learned at any stage of life. Each podcast episode focuses on different factors including having optimism, a support system, and role models, along with physical and brain fitness. The monthly series features insight from different Mount Sinai experts as they explain the science behind resilience while sharing their personal stories and experiences.
Road to Resilience is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play (link works best in Chrome). New episodes of the series are released on the last Wednesday of each month. You can find more information on the Icahn School of Medicine website or on the Road to Resilience website.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Insights
In a first-person account published online by the Association of American Medical Colleges, Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System, describes his journey of survival and a highly publicized recovery after being ambushed by a gunman who had intentionally targeted him. As a physician-scientist who has studied resilience, he also offers a road map for recovery that helped him and could help others.
Read the article
Learn more about Dean Charney’s Road to Resilience podcast
