Q&A with Jordyn Feingold, MD, co-author of CHOOSE GROWTH: A Workbook for Transcending Trauma, Fear, and Self-Doubt

Jordyn Feingold MD, positive medicine physician and researcher, co-wrote CHOOSE GROWTH: A Workbook for Transcending Trauma, Fear, and Self-Doubt (TarcherPerigee), one of the first positive psychology books aimed directly at coping with and growing from pandemic life, with Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, cognitive scientist, humanistic psychologist, and host of The Psychology Podcast.

A research-based toolkit to use during turning challenging times, CHOOSE GROWTH is also a springboard for healing, insight, and new beginnings. “While we never would have wished for a global pandemic to fundamentally shake our nations, societies, and households,” the authors explain, they help readers explore how this time might serve as an opportunity to re-imagine what is possible for us in a post-pandemic world, posing the question: How can we grow from unforeseen adversity and even disaster?

Grounded in the latest research of positive psychology, CHOOSE GROWTH is filled with compendium of science, wisdom, and practical exercises designed to help us all commit to growth, pursue self-actualization and safely navigate through choppy waters.  

• You co-wrote CHOOSE GROWTH with cognitive scientist and acclaimed author, Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD. What was that collaborative process like for you?

I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to collaborate with Scott, who started as my professor and mentor, and has since become one of my closest friends. Scott is a quintessential “big idea” guy with encyclopedic knowledge of psychological and neuroscientific research, and that left me the opportunity to constantly learn from him and take many of his ideas and foundations (including many from his last book, Transcend) and zoom in on my favorites, flesh them out, add my own flair, and create the tangible practices and thought experiments to bring the ideas to life. 

From a process perspective, I tend to be very “get-it-done,” and action-oriented, and that was a great complement to Scott’s more free-flowing, inspiration-based style. 

Now what’s been awesome is realizing how our friendship and collaboration recapitulates many of the values our book espouses, such as high-quality connections, active constructive responding, helping craft one another’s ideal selves, strengths-spotting, and “Yes, ANDing” one another.

• Did anything notable or surprising occur while writing the book?

Particularly when working on the connection, exploration, and purpose chapters, I found myself struggling to sit and write the book, because what I really wanted to do was to go out and LIVE the ideas of the book! 

I had to figure out how to honor and integrate the very real, physical sensations in my body telling me “YOU need this NOW!” while also just getting the book written. I suppose this was just evidence in the importance of creating a workbook that people can use to engage with the world, rather than simply consuming on their own. 

• Who can benefit from CHOOSE GROWTH? 

Hopefully anyone and everyone! We were very deliberate in creating the book for all humans who might be seeking a deeper understanding of themselves and others, a higher connection to their purpose and values, and wish to contribute more meaningfully to the world and connect more deeply with others and the universe. 

I also think that therapists, physicians, teachers, parents, and anyone in a helping profession or caregiving role can especially benefit as they complete the practices themselves and then use the material with the populations they work with. I think that our book provides a common language to communicate many important psychological concepts. 

• What do you hope readers take away from it?

While the choice to choose growth over fear often feels uncomfortable, facing that discomfort head-on is the very thing that may ultimately unshackle us from limiting beliefs that we hold about ourselves, others, and the world. Another important takeaway is that we cannot change the past; time only moves in one direction, and it would behoove all of us to do our best move with it.

• You wrote the book in the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic, as a first-year physician with a hectic and unpredictable schedule. What was that like? 

As hectic as my intern year was (and it WAS!) writing the book was a welcome opportunity to learn more about myself and process what I was going through as a first-year doctor. One striking example was when I wrote the practice on mind/body integration and the polyvagal theory, I had a breakthrough that I was operating in fight-or-flight mode on the internal medicine floors virtually all day. Recognizing this, I was able to intervene by slowing down, deliberately take time to breathe, listen to music, and be playful with my co-residents, cueing myself into the social engagement state. Making this connection between what I was writing and living helped me to be more effective and be more myself on the job. 

Finally, medical training can feel all-consuming, and having this project outside of my “work” helped me connect with so many of the things I’m passionate about and value outside my identity as a physician. 

• Much of your medical research and clinical focus is centered on healthcare worker and patient well-being, while incorporating positive psychology approaches into healthcare delivery. How does this mindset impact the teachings in CHOOSE GROWTH?

While not explicitly designed for health care workers or caregivers, I sincerely hope that clinicians—doctors, nurses, therapists, chaplains—as well as researchers, and anyone working to uplift the well-being of another person can use the practices in the book to become acquainted with their own human needs and take action to grow in their personal and professional lives.

This can be done ad hoc or informally, or even better, explicitly in book clubs or what Scott and I call “growth groups” of health professionals, teams, and even families to think about how we can incorporate growth principles into our daily lives.

One of the greatest tensions when it comes to health care worker well-being is the dichotomy between “systemic” and “individual” drivers and interventions. The last practice in our book is all about “dichotomy transcendence” and in that vein, we need solutions at BOTH the systemic/cultural levels to make our systems function more justly and humanely, as well as ways to help the individuals manage, cope, and thrive within our current system. I think the concepts of our book can help folks understand where their own individual agency starts and ends, and how we can pursue personal growth AND advocate for systemic changes simultaneously. 

• Because it’s a workbook, CHOOSE GROWTH is filled with great exercises for putting the theories into practice. What is one of your favorites?

Choosing just one practice is like choosing a favorite child! However, since I’ve alluded to some of the practices already, I will plug one I love that we call “Explore Your Dark Side.” This practice is all about contemplating and mindfully welcoming those shadow sides of ourselves that we tend to suppress or tuck away, in service of uplifting and integrating our whole selves to live in greater harmony and accept the totality of our being.

We prompt readers to first consider an aspect of our “dark side,” then think about bringing a warm, lovingkindness to this part of ourselves, humanize it, welcome it, and then set a healthy boundary with it. 

I have found this practice particularly helpful both for myself as I deal with my own tendencies toward perfectionism and impostorism (which is gradually chipping away!) AND for my patients who live with severe mindbody (mental and physical) illness.

• CHOOSE GROWTH exploring topics such as “expanding our comfort zones,” “setting healthy boundaries,” and “embracing high quality connections.” How did writing about these practices help you embrace your own opportunities for growth and self-actualization in life off the page?

As I mentioned above, writing about these things really made me so excited to go out and live the practices (sometimes at the expense of getting the book written)!

As a social extrovert, I find it much more comfortable to be in the company of others, so in service of expanding my comfort zone, I’m doing many more things ALONE than I used to and learning how to just be with myself. I’ve also learned to properly ride a bicycle which is something I never learned as a kid and have really wanted to master as an adult. 

Boundaries are a constant negotiation for me, especially when it comes to work projects and taking on too much. One thing I’ve been much more deliberate about is protecting my weekday evenings to cook dinner with my husband (who happens to be an amazing chef, and teaches me new things every day). We got married in June 2022 and for me, writing this book and heeding its wisdom has help me make my needs explicit, circumvent cognitive distortions that can be rampant in intimate relationships (especially mind-reading), practice the Michelangelo phenomenon, and grow together in deliberate ways. 

• How did you come up with the title? What does it mean to “choose growth?”

Scott and I fell in love with this Abraham Maslow quote when we were writing the growth challenges in the Appendix of Transcend, which goes: “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” 

We loved it because it emphasizes that growth is really a choice that we can commit to and re-commit to everyday; it’s a dynamic series of choices that points us in the direction of that which we’re moving toward rather than what we’re moving away from or avoiding. We thought the pithy “Choose Growth” would be the perfect title for a workbook, and once we floated the idea there was no going back! 

• What’s your next project?

My number one professional priority right now is my training in psychiatry and immersing myself in the worlds of psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and whole-person health and well-being to become an outstanding physician for my patients. I’m also tending to health care worker well-being through a program I’ve helped develop called Thrive-Rx, an online course that teaches positive medicine and leadership principles to clinicians across the globe. I’ve also just started writing my second book, which is all about helping medical students thrive. 

In addition, I am super excited to be working with Scott and some of our colleagues to translate the work of Choose Growth into a self-actualization coaching program that we are designing for multiple populations including educators, therapists, physicians, and more. More on that soon! 

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Category: On Writing