Mindfulness/Johari Window

Question 1

mindfulness

Answer 1

• Consistent and deliberate effort to take notice of what is happening in one’s inner and outer world

Question 2

Mindfulness in healthcare

Answer 2

• Cultivate our desire to understand the thoughts, feelings and needs of patients, their family members and loved ones (perspective taking)
• With our focus shifted outward to the needs and feelings of others comes a capacity to be fully present with them in the moment.
• Mindfulness helps us to self-monitor so that we can be with others in authentic ways.
• In emergency situations healthcare personnel often work in automatic mode, in well practiced ways, to save a life or reduce the risk of injury i.e. code blue and code white situations.
• Typical healthcare interpersonal interactions require clinicians to be in manual mode.
• As clinicians, we need to acknowledge that the quality of the interpersonal interaction is just as important as our more concrete tasks.

Question 3

dual awareness

Answer 3

• a capacity to monitor ourselves while at the same time assessing the impact of our behaviours on others
• steps back and observes the communication process as it unfolds
• detects problems as they arise
• seeks clarification when needed (ie. asks for feedback)
• applies corrections before the process evolves into a non-therapeutic interaction.

Question 4

Distress Tolerance

Answer 4

Recognize that feelings that surface are just part of being a human and that we all have the capacity to be with these distressing emotions and states.

• Healthcare professionals can apply distress tolerance skills whenever they are in health care situations that impose strong Emotion Mind responses.
• Distress tolerance has a measure of acceptance in it e.g. when we sit with a patient taking their last breath, or the distress of a parent facing a life-threatening illness in their child.
• Takes deliberate effort to tolerate these emotions in the moment. We need to recognize them and accept that they are natural, valid and important.
• Acknowledge that we cannot fully process them in the moment, but that we have the capacity to bear these emotions, and the ability to keep them at bay, to allow us to provide care to patients, families and loved ones in the moment.
• This nonjudgmental, non-emotional posture can be difficult to assume, especially due to competing workplace demands and competing priorities in stressful healthcare environments.
• The use of mindful techniques can reduce some of the distress that healthcare workers commonly experience.

Question 5

Mindfulness tools

Answer 5

• Be an Objective Observer.
• Inhale and exhale slowly.
• Observe and describe without internal judgment. A
• Do one thing at a time.
• Participate Fully in the Present Moment.
• Acceptance.
• Distress Tolerance.

Question 6

The mindfulness process

Answer 6

1. Look inward.
2. Assess emotional temperatures (emotion mind)
3. Assess capacity for reason and tap into it (Reason Mind).
4. Deliberately enter a place of wisdom (Wise Mind)

Question 7

Johari Window

Answer 7

• Used to help people understand their relationships with themselves and others
• Johari window changes depending on the relationship, context of interaction
• Everything about you is divided into 4 quadrants:

The left side is ‘known to self’

1. Open area (you and others know about you)
2. Hidden (you know it but keep it from others)

The right side is ‘not known to self’

1. Blind – you don’t know it but others do
2. Unknown – to self and others (therapy and life experiences can decrease the amount of unknown information about the self)