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BOOK CRITIQUE: A Bounce into the Works of Robert J. Wicks
Bounce: Living the Resilient Life by Robert J. Wicks
Briana Allen
School of Behavioral Sciences, Liberty University
Author Note
Briana Allen
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose. Correspondence concerning this
article should be addressed to Briana Allen. Email: bnallen@liberty.edu.
Abstract - Robert J. Wicks, the author of Bounce Living the Resilient Life, focuses this
text on self-care, the process of healing, and learning about the inner-self. He takes his readers on
a journey of self-reflection, self-growth, and getting deeply into the center of what it truly means
to be yourself. Life can be a wild ride and Wicks discusses ways to self-mentor through a
disciplined search to find our unique selves. He demonstrates how failure isn’t entirely negative
and puts failure into a more positive light for his readers. Lastly, he focuses on the importance of
our physical health and the journey to psychological stability.
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BOOK CRITIQUE: A Bounce into the Works of Robert J. Wicks
Bounce: Living the Resilient Life by Robert J. Wicks
Introduction
Robert J. Wicks provided a motivational work of art in his book Bounce Living
the Resilient Life. He understands that living life day-to-day brings on a great deal of
stress and the importance of practicing resiliency. In his text, he provides an analysis of
successful ways to live a balanced life. He presents a variety of coping techniques based
on the distinct complexities that are thrown our way throughout the journey of life. He
discusses self-reflection and successful ways of identifying stressors while providing
ways to combat the stressors. He takes us on a journey through self-growth, finding a
silver lining in the midst of failure, and what resiliency feels like to our inner-self. This
paper will be providing an outline of my journey through the pages and how Wicks
wonderful book will help me in my career as a counselor.
Summary
Wicks emphasizes concepts to his readers that are not only beneficial to those in a
Human Services profession, but to all of his readers. Stressors and resiliency are constant
in an individual’s journey throughout time. He begins his text by explaining to his
audience the importance of “having a life”. He discusses that it’s possible to live a happy
life even in the midst of stress and resiliency. “It is very easy to lose our way—even from
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the very beginning of our journey in life or a profession—unless something or someone
helps us gain perspective.” (Wicks, 2009, pg. 35). Wicks observed various health
professionals to include physicians, nurses, psychotherapists, etc. and listened to their
challenging life experiences and how through their practice of resiliency led them to
finding their calling/meaning in life. He observed various professionals and their tributes
because it allowed him to gain mindfulness and look into the lenses of other caregivers
and their purpose. This allowed him to reflect and become more conscious of what he
encourages in others. Wicks gives a whole new meaning to the saying “practice what you
preach” in his text. His book provides a rundown of the importance of truly developing a
positive life and a purpose for living, the negative impacts of denial when we are in
psychological distress, understanding what resiliency is and internalizing it, and so much
more. Wicks elaborates on chronic and acute stress and how those result in becoming
burnt out. Throughout our day-to-day various stressors can arise over a period of time
where we aren’t resolving how we respond to those stressors can lead to becoming
drained or in Wicks words “burnt out”. When an individual becomes burnt out, this can
be an uphill battle to resiliency. Wicks discusses the different levels of burnout and how
it's unavoidable. However, it is important to remain self-aware and self-knowledgeable of
becoming burnt-out. Stress management is a further critical focus that Wicks examines in
his text. Through his breakdown of techniques for stress management, he simplifies ways
of managing stress levels. Successfully managing stress means taking the appropriate
actions to reach that success. Stress Management includes sleep, eating, exercising,
leisure, and pacing. (Wicks, 2009, pg. 21). We often find ourselves putting ourselves
behind others which then causes us to struggle with stress management. In order to
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successfully help others personally and professionally, we first need to manage our own
stress. “When we fail to take into consideration these basic elements of stress
management—especially during those times when we are intensely involved with people
and tasks at home and work—we may pay for this in terms of impaired psychological and
physical health, not to mention the havoc it can wreak on those around us.” (Wicks, 2009,
pg. 21). This is a powerful statement that Wicks implements in his text, because if we
don’t have a grip on our stress management and psychological stability, this can bleed
into others around us and impact various aspects of our lives. When we lack
psychological stability, this can cause various personalities to present themselves as well,
to include the dependent personality and the avoidant personality. (Kuznetsova,
Gushchin, & Natura, 2019). The dependent personality can appear weak and incompetent
due to their lack of motivation and willingness and the avoidant personality appears weak
and avoids situations that could cause him/her to feel incompetent. Wicks does a
successful job throughout his text by encouraging others to practice self-care. Self-care is
a form of resiliency because we are taking care of ourselves, we can function better and
gain mindfulness. When we neglect ourselves, this causes self-inflicted turmoil, and we
find ourselves blaming situations for why we feel the way we do versus taking personal
responsibility for how we feel. Resiliency and limited stress aren’t possible without
following a life of self-knowledge, self-growth, and self-management. Wicks focuses on
all of the above in his text and his words and knowledge will leave an imprint is his
audience. The depth of his text provides a vast number of tools and resources for
professionals and individuals to live a limited-stress, resilient life.
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Personal Reflection
After reading Wicks work, I was able to personal reflect on my journey to include my
personal challenges, failures, self-growth, and resilience. Throughout life, we tend to get hung up
on working for the weekend, becoming complacent with our day-to-day, getting stressed about
minor things such as running a few minutes late for work which then leads to becoming burnt out
and not appreciating the time that we are given in this life. I am guilty of getting worked up with
the hustle and bustle of the day at times and then when I sit down at night to reflect on the day, I
find myself asking myself, “why did you have to react that way?” or “why did you let that one
situation run your day?” After reading the various concepts that Wicks focuses on in his text, I
really enjoyed the section where he discusses self-knowledge and de-briefing ourselves. “To
manage the way we feel we need to learn how to understand and deal with anxiety, depression,
and stress as well as to know how to take a step back so we can deal with intense emotions
before being overwhelmed or acting on them. However, to do this we must have a sound sense of
self-awareness.” (Wicks, 2009, pg. 35). I agree with Wicks statement because in my personal
experience, when I realized that I struggled with anxiety and depression, I did want medicine to
be a part of the equation. I wanted to get a better understanding of what causes my anxiety and
depression and find ways to cope with it. As I’ve grown older and figured out my triggers, I have
learned what situations I need to avoid, what conversations I need to prepare myself for, and how
to set boundaries for myself when it comes to others. Wicks provides so many wonderful
concepts to assist individuals in his text, I thoroughly enjoyed reading his text and learned more
about myself, personally and professionally.
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Application
Bounce: Living the Resilient Life is not only helpful for my personal reflection but
helpful on a professional level as well. There are concepts throughout his text that are beneficial
to utilize with my clients as a Human Services Counselor to include stress management, facing
failure in a productive way, and improving self-talk. Stress management is beneficial because
military members and their families are constantly adapting to their lifestyles from PCSing to
deployments to reintegration from deployment and more. Stress management can include
exercising on your own or with your family members for quality time, leaving work on time
instead of staying late because you know the work will be there tomorrow and your
children/spouse wants time with you, etc. We often forget how important the little things really
are to those around us. My clients can’t help others if they aren’t providing themselves self-care.
Also, I want to teach military members and their family members that there are positive ways to
face failure without letting it get the best of us. Finding the positives in facing failure is valuable
because in life, we are placed in challenging situations that are hard to be positive in. Such as a
military member testing for a promotion and not receiving the promotion because they missed it
by a few points and now they have to wait a year for the next testing cycle. This can cause a
military member to feel like a failure because they studied long hours, they are now having to
play the waiting game until they are able to test again, they feel like they let their family down,
etc. Due to this concept, I can discuss various coping mechanisms to help my client get through
the failure. We can discuss the journey of how the military member got to this failure and analyze
what changes can be implemented. Self-talk is another concept that is crucial because how a
client talks internally to themselves, can impact more than they realize. This can affect their
mood, how they talk/interact with others, their motivation and more. Resilience is one of the
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major goals when it comes to helping clients because 9 times out of 10, they are coming to see
you for a situation that they are seeking resiliency in. Wicks discusses a wide range of resiliency
concepts to include debriefing yourself, clarity, and mindfulness. When dealing with a
challenging situation, debriefing yourself is essential because it allows the client to reflect on
how the situation occurred, what could’ve been avoided or done differently to get a better result,
etc. When we allow ourselves to debrief and reflect on a situation, this leads to self-regulation
which helps clients handle situations in a healthier way when they are placed in a comparable
situation. Debriefing yourself helps with obtaining more clarity moving forward. Clarity is a
process by which we must be willing to look at how we may be denying, minimizing,
rationalizing, or hiding things from ourselves. (Wicks, 2009, pg. 36). When we are facing
challenging situations, our mind can become blurred and fogged. This can impact the resiliency
success. As a Human Services counselor, I would use Wicks concept to compartmentalize what
the client is hiding or minimizing from themselves so that we can work through each point
individually to form clarity in their mind. Lastly, mindfulness is a beneficial concept because if a
client is mindful about their past experiences and how they react to certain situations, they will
be able to practice resiliency more successfully versus someone who doesn’t have mindfulness
and becomes overwhelmed/stressed.
Conclusion
Bounce: Living the Resilient Life by Robert J. Wicks is a powerful text that provides
guidance to individuals personally and professionally. His text takes you on a journey through
personal reflection, various concepts of self-growth, self-awareness, resiliency and more. His
concepts are beneficial and eye-opening throughout your literary journey. This book will
continue to be a work of art for professionals who want to improve professionally for their
Wwe
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clientele and individuals who are struggling to find themselves. I look forward to reading more
texts by Robert J. Wicks.
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References
•
Wicks, R. J. (2009). Bounce. Oxford University Press Academic
US. https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9780199751099
•
Kuznetsova, P. G., Gushchin, V. I., & Natura, E. S. (2019;2018;). The association
between psychological stability and successful interpersonal interaction in isolation:
Theoretical and methodical aspects. Human Physiology, 44(7), 748-
752. https://doi.org/10.1134/S0362119718070071
