When we make room for creativity in our lives—be it in classrooms, neighborhoods, or other healing spaces—we unlock connection, resilience, and new ways of seeing the world. Increasingly, new scientific research indicates that a sense of wonder and possibility is one of the most powerful tools we have for individual and collective flourishing. What if creativity isn’t just extra—but rather, essential?
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Sometimes, all it takes is a tiny change, a local fix, or a spark of innovation to help us think differently. Solve For… is a podcast about those emerging possibilities, a series that embraces the power of curiosity and brings health and well-being into focus in unexpected new ways.
Join acclaimed journalist Kate Morgan, Media Fellow at the Nova Institute for Health, as she interviews changemakers tackling solutions to our most complex challenges at the intersection of medicine, biology, neuroscience, nutrition, the arts, and more.
Kate Morgan is a freelance journalist based in Pennsylvania. Her reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Geographic, BBC, Popular Science, Sierra, and many other publications. Kate’s work takes a broad view of health and often focuses on the inherent optimism of those working to repair and restore natural ecosystems and human communities.
In an era of overwhelm, people are looking for ways to make a difference and for reasons to feel hopeful. This series provides a fresh lens and a powerful message: change doesn’t have to be huge to be meaningful. It just has to start somewhere.”
Brian Berman, MD, is the president of the Nova Institute for Health, which he founded in 2007 to catalyze new ideas in health. He is professor emeritus at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he was the director of the Center for Integrative Medicine. Dr. Berman has served as an advisor to the NIH, chairing and subsequently serving for three terms on the advisory committee to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
We like to play in the spaces between what is and what might be. This podcast series is a place where science is both rigorous and imaginative, where modern technology and cultural wisdom converse. Bring your curiosity!”
Healing is facilitated through safety, persistence, and trust.
Resources support us as we heal. They include reframing, responsibility, and positivity. “Making connections enabled participants to acquire and refine resources and skills that were essential in their healing journey. People also brought their own personal strengths to the journey.”
“Connection to others was an essential part of all the healing journeys.” Humans are social creatures, and even the most introverted of us need close relationships. Friends and family add meaning and value to life and help support us, in good times and bad.
When we experience relational trauma, relationships can feel scary, but reestablishing safety and trust in relationships is where the healing happens. (To be clear, we do not mean reestablishing safety and trust with abusers, but rather finding other healing relationships.)
“When safety and trust had been established, people were able to connect with helpers. The nature of the behaviours of helpers that fostered healing ranged from small acts of kindness to unconditional love.”
Healing probably means different things to different people, but one definition that emerged from the study is: “The re-establishment of a sense of integrity and wholeness.”
Healing was an emergent property that resulted from each individuals’ complex healing journey, a result of bridged connections between resources and relationships. “…they gradually found relief from suffering and began to exhibit emergent characteristics: a sense of hope, self-acceptance, and a desire to help others—the immediate precursors to healing.”
In varying degrees, “they were able to transcend their suffering and in some sense to flourish.”
Suffering is the ongoing pain from wounding.
There is some debate about whether people always experience suffering on the path to healing.
Wounding happens when we experience physical or emotional harm. It can stem from chronic illness or by physical or psychological trauma for which we do not have the tools to cope, or a combination of those factors.
“The degree and quality of suffering experienced by each individual is framed by contextual factors that include personal characteristics, timing of their initial or ongoing wounding in the developmental life cycle and prior and current relationships.”
Characteristics: How predisposed someone may be to wounding/how many tools and resources someone may have to deal with trauma/illness.
Lifestages: Developmental timing plays an important role in the impact of trauma — young children often do not have the same resources as older adults.
Relationships: Relationships can provide solace and support for those suffering, while lack of healthy relationships can prolong suffering.
