EEC 433: From Hostility You Didn't Know You Had to Healthy Strategic Action., with Joy Bertrand

About this episode

Joy Bertrand discusses the impact of hostility on health and strategies for achieving emotional balance in high-pressure environments.

Joy Bertrand attended law school at Indiana University-Bloomington and the University of Arizona. She received her Juris Doctorate from Indiana University-Bloomington in 1996. While on assignment with the US Attorney's Office, Joy tried and won four federal jury trials and successfully litigated several Seventh Circuit appeals, including a Solicitor General appeal. You've been a faculty member for Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College, which is about as elite and high-pressure as it gets. What did you witness happening to the best lawyers in the country over time that made you realize this was a health crisis, not just occupational stress? You describe hostility not as something that happens to us, but as a mindset — even a habit, no different than chronic complaining. Can you further explain that? What happens physiologically when someone spends years living in a state of constant conflict and high alert? You talk about an emotional scale, and you make the point that people don't have to leap from hostility all the way to gratitude to see real health benefits — that massive gains happen just by moving toward the middle. What does that middle ground look like, and how do people…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Katrina Burrus PhD, MCC

Guest: Joy Bertrand

Topics covered

• law
• mental health
• occupational stress
• conflict resolution
• emotional well-being
• strategic action

Keywords

• hostility
• health crisis
• emotional scale
• occupational stress
• lawyers
• conflict
• gratitude
• work-life balance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Indiana University-Bloomington, University of Arizona, US Attorney's Office, Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College, Seventh Circuit

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