BALDWINSVILLE – Jamie Bodenlos calls Baldwinsville home while also working as a professor of psychological science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva.
In addition to her duties as an educator Bodenlos recently released a new book along with co-author Dara Friedman-Weller titled “Being the Change: A Guide for Advocates and Activists on Staying Healthy, Inspired, and Driven.”
According to a news release from the college the book “offers practical guidance for activists to maximize their impact as agents of change.”
The news release from the college goes on to say the book offers “theories and tactics that empower activists working in organizations with social missions, and those involved in social change outside of their jobs. Published this month by the American Psychological Association, the book offers a manual of therapy-based strategies to help activists and change-makers as they support for their causes.”
The book, which is available on Amazon, was published by the American Psychological Association.
“You can’t take care of the world without taking care of yourself,” the publisher notes, explaining that the book “provides empirically supported strategies from cognitive behavior therapies and other psychological interventions for coping with the challenges of difficult, yet meaningful work.”
Bodenlos and her co-author were in a unique position when the opportunity to write this book came about.
“We actually signed the contract for this book days before the COVID shutdown in March 2020,” Bodenlos said. “We wrote the entire book through the shutdown and into 2021.”
The circumstances they found themselves writing in did inform some of the work that went into the book.
“To be honest, since my colleague and I are both licensed clinical psychologists, we found that during the tumultuous times we’ve experienced over the last few years we were applying evidence-based strategies from our field of study to help each other and then we realized there was an opportunity to share these more widely with other people struggling with burn-out while trying to make a difference in the world,” she said.
While the challenging times of the past few years did help inform the book to a degree, the challenges many faced with social distancing and working remotely which might have been a challenge when writing a book were not a factor as the co-authors have worked together in the past although they worked separate from each other while finding common ground.
“It’s interesting because my co-author and I have only met in person one time, she lives in Baltimore, but we have worked on several projects together,” she said. “We met several years ago through a project for one of the professional organizations we both belonged to and from there we got to know each other better and realized we had shared frustrations with the injustices of the world. We saw this book as a way of giving back and to help other people trying to fight the good fight in their change work.”
According to the news release the book lays out examples, exercises and actionable ideas, offering a “comprehensive toolkit” for readers “to clarify their values, identify their strengths, manage their emotions and relationships, and incorporate self-care as part of their personal and professional development.”
Bodenlos said it is a work she believes can reach a wide audience.
“I honestly see this book as appropriate for anyone who is frustrated by the state of the world and has a desire to make a difference,” she said. “There are strategies in the book to help people get started on community change work and strategies for people who have been doing this work for some time but need help in maximizing their effectiveness or minimizing burnout from their advocacy. The audience for this book is for anyone who is working towards making a change in someone’s life. It can be people who have jobs as teachers, social workers, health care professionals or people who are community service oriented. At the same time, the strategies in the book can probably help just about anyone lead a healthier, more fulfilling life.”
Now that the book is complete and available to readers, BOdenlos said she is proud of what she and he co-author were able to achieve.
“It feels fantastic,” she said. “My colleague and I hope to disseminate this information as widely as we can so that we can help those who are doing this work on many fronts to be more effective and healthy while they are doing this work.”
Thus far they have heard good things about their work.
“Yes, we have heard that our book is a road map for how to and why be an advocate,” Bodenlos said. “People think it’s helpful wherever people need to stand up to injustices that affect themselves or their families. We have also heard that the book is easy to understand and written in a clear way and that it is very inspiring to make people want to engage in this work.”
And with one book released Bodenlos said she has a few other projects on the horizon.
About the author
Bodenlos studies the psychology of behavioral medicine, mindfulness and health behaviors, including obesity, stress and sleep. The recipient of numerous research grants and awards, including the 2021 Faculty Prize for Scholarship, she was recently awarded a fellowship with the Society of Behavioral Medicine in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the advancement of the science and practice of behavioral medicine. She has presented scholarship at national and international conferences and published more than 40 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, Mindfulness, Appetite, Obesity, and the Journal of American College Health.
Her teaching interests align with her areas of research — psychopathology, health psychology and psychotherapy — encompassing topics like stress and illness, substance use disorders, mindfulness, eating behaviors and evidence-based treatment. A licensed New York State psychologist, Bodenlos earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Louisiana State University, M.A. from Western Carolina University and B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the HWS faculty in 2009, she completed a post-doctoral research fellowship and then served as an instructor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Department of Medicine.
