Everyday Vitality

Samantha Boardman, MD ’00

In addition to being an alumna of Weill Cornell Medical College, Boardman is on its faculty as a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry. In this self-help book—subtitled Turning Stress into Strength—she offers guidance for reducing stress and building resilience. She extols the importance of vitality, which she defines as “the positive feeling of aliveness and energy that lies at the core of well-being.” As Boardman explains in her intro, she shifted her psychiatry practice after returning to school in her 40s to earn a master’s degree through UPenn’s program in applied positive psychology. “Today I think of myself as a positive psychiatrist, concerned equally with promoting positive mental health and with fixing my patients’ problems,” she writes. “In my clinical practice, I value well-being and resilience as much as pathological identification and symptom reduction. I believe vitality is an important component of well-being and is the heart of everyday resilience. I also believe that vitality is a skill that can be learned and practiced.”

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