We began our “What It Took” series last fall to share stories from �ֲ���ý people about how they’ve learned to become resilient in tough times, with a focus on the skills and strategies that help them double down when the road gets rough.

What we didn’t know at the time is that how we tell stories of our life — how we narrate our experiences — goes a long way toward achieving resilience and psychological well-being.

Now we do, thanks to Jonathan Adler ’00, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Olin College of Engineering and a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School.

Storytelling is one of the oldest art forms, as well as an important tool that helps us make informed decisions and navigate the path ahead. 

Adler has conducted research on narrative identity, which is the idea that the stories we weave together about our reconstructed past, perceived present, and imagined future help us make meaning out of the things that happen to us. Adler recently shared his research with host Shankar Vedantam on the popular NPR show Hidden Brain where he explained how research shows that whether we look back at past events plays a critical role in our mental health. 

looked at 600 narratives from about 50 adults who came to a psychotherapy clinic for a wide range of issues, from depression, anxiety, and eating disorders to a simple desire to improve friendships and relationships. Adler and his colleagues measured the clients’ psychological well-being using standard indicators both before therapy and after each session — then they looked at the stories the clients told.

“What was really cool is that using statistical modeling techniques we found that the stories actually changed before people’s psychological well-being changed. It was as though people were narrating a new version of their lives, and then a week or two later, their well-being would sort of catch up with the new story,” Adler said. 

When Adler learned about this �ֲ���ýNews series, he wanted to help — but he encouraged us to seek out stories that don’t necessarily have a happy ending, that don’t end with a feeling of redemption. Those types of stories are powerful, too, Adler said, and they offer another narrative option for those suffering through difficult times.

“It’s a pretty profound thing to say, ‘I’ve come out the other side of this challenging thing, and it didn’t make me happy, but it did help me understand some things about my life and my values.’ That in and of itself is a worthwhile outcome,” Adler said. “I think stories that demonstrate the importance of searching for meaning push back against what I call the ‘press for redemption’ in our culture.”

As an example, he points to a study he helped conduct involving the parents of neurodivergent children on the autism spectrum and parents of non-neurodivergent children. 

One woman who stood out was the mother of a child with severe autism spectrum disorder. Her child required a lot of care and attention, yet when she talked about caring for this child, she told a story of a love that made her learn more about herself. Adler said these lessons are valuable.

“Meaningfulness and happiness are separate qualities we search for in life and both are important.”

Jonathan Adler ’00

“She would not say, ‘Having this child with severe autism spectrum disorder was a gift.’ That’s a socially appropriate story. And some people genuinely do feel like that, and that’s great. But that’s not the only option,” he explained.

“I think she would say, ‘This has been really hard. I don’t know that I would’ve asked for this challenge, but because I have had this challenge, I have learned things about myself that I might not otherwise have.’ And there’s a positivity to that. But it’s not necessarily redemptive. Meaningfulness and happiness are separate qualities we search for in life and both are important.” 

A decade ago, Adler began working with the nonprofit , which helps patients with all kinds of illnesses share stories of struggle. The organization hosts “Healing Story Sessions,” where patients (and sometimes medical providers) share their stories. These events are sometimes performed in small private living rooms, sometimes in large auditoriums. One that is held annually at Massachusetts General Hospital draws several hundred. But whatever the size of the crowd, Adler called them “transportive and therapeutic” for both the storytellers and the audience.

Like the story of the mother above, these sessions support the idea that our life stories are not always redemptive. “When we’re working with people who have terminal illnesses, they sometimes say, ‘Happiness is not an option for me. That’s not the goal. I need to make sense of what this is all about.’ And that is valuable in and of itself,” Adler said. 

When Adler attended �ֲ���ý from 1996 to 2000, he obviously didn’t know he would go on to do important research in a new field, but he knew he was passionate about both his psychology major and his interest in theater, directing three plays with the Robinson Players. Today he uses both disciplines in his work.

Twice a year at Olin, he leads a story slam where students, faculty, and staff tell short stories about their lives. He takes engineering and business students who have no experience in theater and helps them deliver thrilling performances. He also leads story slams at other colleges, such as Wellesley College, and has led them for major organizations. Adler also has become a playwright. (co-authored with Jim Petosa) premiered Off-Broadway in July of 2022.

An important element of the stories we tell is what psychologists call the “chapter breaks,” the moments in time where we draw the connection between the good and bad times, because if we see things as transitioning from good to troubling times, we can get stuck in that contaminative mindset.

Adler found this to be true in his own life story, which he shared a piece of on the Hidden Brain episode .” Adler explained to host Shankar Vedantam how, as a young gay man in the 1990s who had not yet come out, he spent his semester abroad in Australia hoping to learn more about himself in a new environment. But he just ended up lonely. 

After he returned from Australia, Adler threw himself into his studies. He graduated as one of the top students in his class and took a research job at Harvard University. He then applied to 10 graduate schools — but only got into one.

“At the time, it felt like a shock. I imagined that I might have more choices when approaching this next big chapter of my life,” Adler said on Hidden Brain. “If you draw the end of a chapter break with me coming back from Australia, it looks like good turned bad, it looks like contamination. But if you expand the chapter until I’m already ensconced in graduate school, then it looks like redemption.” 

As it turned out, the one school Adler got into — Northwestern University — was the research base of Dan McAdams, a pioneering scientist in the study of narrative identity, who became Adler’s mentor and, eventually, his scientific collaborator. Chicago also was where Adler met his future husband. 

“I look back at this turning point in my life with a profound sense of, first of all, gratitude, but also redemption,” Adler said on Hidden Brain. “What at the time felt like close to failure — that all my work in college, and all my ignoring of my personal life for the sake of my intellectual life had presented me with only one option — now feels like the universe trying to make sure I found my way. Within a year, I was having a more gratifying intellectual experience than I ever imagined, and I was in love.”

Now with his son and daughter — ages 8 and 10 — Adler is trying to be mindful of helping them narrate healthy stories, as he and his husband, Jonathan Lewis, raise them.

“I’m really thoughtful when I’m helping our kids recount their day to think about both the event and the feelings of the day. I want them to have as broad a sort of narrative toolbox as possible when they become narrators of their own lives,” Adler said.

Crystal Williams

�ֲ���ý Professor of English and poet Crystal Williams is featured in a PBS NewsHour story about a series of poetry readings that address and respond to paintings now on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The paintings are The Migration Series, 60 small paintings by Jacob Lawrence that tell the story of the Great Migration of six million African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North.

Williams read her own poem, “Year After Year We Visited Alabama,” described by reporter Jeffrey Brown as a “gentle homage to her father.”

Williams also serves as an associate vice president at �ֲ���ý and is the college’s chief diversity officer.

Jonathan Adler ’00

Jonathan Adler ’00

Jonathan Adler ’00, assistant professor of psychology at Olin College of Engineering, continues to get media attention for his research that suggests that the way we tell our own stories — our narratives — affects our mental health.

“[Y]ou have a choice in how the narrative plays out,” he tells reporter Elizabeth Bernstein of The Wall Street Journal. “You tell the story and the story really matters.”

As Bernstein writes, “[P]eople who frame events in their lives — even negative ones — in positive ways have better mental health, and those who frame events in negative ways have poorer mental well-being.”

Adler also speaks about his work for a (at the 17:23 mark).

Ahmed Abdel Khalek ’16

Ahmed Abdel Khalek ’16

�ֲ���ý squash champion Ahmed Abdel Khalek ’16 appeared in the popular Sports Illustrated feature “Faces in the Crowd,” in the magazine’s April 6 issue.

Abdel Khalek, of Cairo, Egypt, won the College Squash Association men’s individual championship on March 1.

�ֲ���ý Theater

From left, Colette Girardin ’16 of East Moriches, N.Y., Ciaran Walsh ’15 of Washington, D.C., and Hanna Allerton ’15 of New York City perform in the play “The Summer in Gossensass” in Gannett Theater. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The theater website On Stage says that �ֲ���ý has one of the most underrated theater departments in New England.

“Aside from being one of the best liberal arts and science colleges in the country, �ֲ���ý offers a wonderful theatre program as well.”

Shirl Penney ’99

In a Forbes Q&A with Shirl Penney ’99, CEO and founder of Dynasty Financial Partners, reporter Dan Simon notes that Penney has developed “a game-changing integrated platform of technology and services for top independent financial advisors.”

Penney, whose personal story was told in �ֲ���ý Magazine in 2005, left a major brokerage house five years ago to create Dynasty.

Describing the intensity of building a company, Penney tells Simon that “when you go out on your own, your business card has just your name on it. Period. And to a certain extent what you did in the past does not matter.”

“Raising capital, attracting people to make your vision theirs, convincing clients to come on board early, managing expectations at home, and not wavering on your belief in yourself can be difficult….Then, when you launch, it gets harder.”

Kristen Kelliher ’16

Kristen Kelliher ’16 of Norwich, Vt., has climbed all the highest peaks in the U.S., the last being Alaska’s Denali at age 18, making her the youngest female to “highpoint” all 50 states.

WCSH-TV’s 207 news magazine interviewed Kelliher earlier in May.

Under the headline “Negative Emotions are Key to Well-Being,” Scientific American writer Tori Rodriguez cites research by Jonathan Adler ’00 pointing out that both unpleasant and enjoyable feelings play a big role in helping us make sense of life’s ups and downs.

Psychologist Jonathan Adler ’00 talks with Kati Vecsey of the theater department during his lecture at �ֲ���ý in 2008. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

“Remember, one of the primary reasons we have emotions in the first place is to help us evaluate our experiences,” says Adler, an assistant professor of psychology at Olin College.

how Adler and a colleague investigated the link between mixed emotional experience and psychological welfare in a group of people undergoing 12 sessions of psychotherapy.

Participants who said they felt cheerful and dejected at the same time (for example, by expressing the notion that “I feel sad at times because of everything I’ve been through, but I’m also happy and hopeful because I’m working through my issues”) preceded improvements in their sense of well-being.

“Taking the good and the bad together may detoxify the bad experiences, allowing you to make meaning out of them in a way that supports psychological well-being,” the researchers found.

Jonathan Adler ’00, who researches intersections between psychotherapy, personal identity and the stories we tell about ourselves, offers a lecture on his work at 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, in �ֲ���ý College’s Pettengill Hall, Keck Classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

The talk, Talking about the Talking Cure: Psychotherapy Narratives and Mental Health, is sponsored by the �ֲ���ý Psychology Club and open to the public at no cost.

A doctoral candidate in psychology at Northwestern University, Adler explores links between psychotherapy stories and mental health. His work has been covered by The New York Times and Australian Public Radio.

The theory of narrative identity proposes that the collection of stories we tell about ourselves constitutes our sense of self. Such stories often arise from psychotherapy, which marks an important experience in the evolution of identity. Indeed, many people feel that therapy helps fundamentally change who they are.

We create stories about such transformations to consolidate and hold on to the experience. If therapy changes identity, the story of the therapeutic experience serves as the axis upon which narrative identity turns. Yet, Alder notes, therapy stories are also important in developing and maintaining mental health during and after treatment.

Therefore, understanding the nuances of therapy stories can potentially inform theory, research and clinical practice concerning identity development, psychotherapy processes and outcomes, and the intersections of these fields.