Flexibility
How most people come through hard times, and why being able to change how you respond helps.
Lasting trauma is not the rule. After something hard, most people keep functioning well, even if they are upset in the first days or weeks. Others struggle at first and then recover. A smaller group struggles for a long time, or begins to struggle later, and they need help. What helps people come through is less a fixed quality they have or lack, and more being able to notice what a situation asks of them and change how they respond when something stops working.
What happens to people after a potentially traumatic event
Galatzer-Levy, Huang and Bonanno (2018), Clinical Psychology Review. Each figure is an average across studies, so they do not add up to 100.
What the research says
- Flexibility has three parts that work together: reading the situation, having a range of ways to respond, and noticing whether a response is working. Bonanno and Burton (2013), Perspectives on Psychological Science
- New York students who were better able both to show and to hide emotion when asked had less distress two years after 11 September 2001. Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal and Coifman (2004), Psychological Science
- Bonanno describes a flexibility mindset built on three beliefs: optimism about the future, confidence in being able to cope, and seeing a difficulty as a challenge to take on. Bonanno (2021), The End of Trauma
Four ways of interpreting it
- Trauma as the expected outcome: The common assumption: a hard event leaves lasting damage unless treated.
- Resilience as a trait: Some people are simply tough and others are not.
- Flexibility: George Bonanno: coping well means fitting the response to the moment.
- The person within their world: Prediction and context: what a person expects, and what the people and places around them offer.
At home
- Some upset in the first days and weeks is common and usually passes. Give it time before deciding something is wrong.
- Notice what helped last time. Try it again, and try something else when it stops working.
- Showing feelings and keeping them in can both help, depending on where your child is and who is there.
At school
- After an event, watch and ask before treating every pupil as harmed, and do not ask everyone to retell what happened.
- Offer more than one way to cope: talking, moving, quiet time, keeping the routine.
- When distress lasts beyond about a month, or gets worse, involve a professional.
Bounded Uncertainty · reviewed by Dr Ricardo Almeida, educational psychologist, 23 October 2026boundeduncertainty.com/learn/flexibility/
This explains research. It is not treatment and does not replace a GP, psychologist or other health professional.