Know Thyself - mindfulness for professionals

Although academic knowledge and skills form the core of graduate programs, an explicit focus on self-awareness and self-care as part of training is also critical, especially in healthcare education. As Socrates already noted: “let him who would move the world, first move himself”. When healthcare professionals become more proficient in the exploration of their own inner worlds and learn to attend to themselves in a kind and healing way, the greater their ability to help their clients.

Mindfulness can be described as the awareness that arises through intentionally attending in an open, caring, and discerning way. Research shows that the practice of mindfulness has positive effects on numerous mental and physical health outcomes within different clinical and non-clinical populations.

In this minor, we introduce mindfulness as a means of maintaining the healthcare professional’s health and well-being, as well as a systematic way of training key caregiving skills (e.g., attention and presence, nonjudgmental curiosity, compassion, emotion regulation, listening, decision making), which will result in stronger therapeutic/working alliances and improved treatment outcomes.

This minor uses examples from healthcare professions but is suitable for students from all disciplines; anyone who aspires to work with other people can benefit from ‘knowing thyself’ better. The focus of the course is on personal development.

The 1st meeting each week comprises small group self-awareness training using formal/ informal meditation and inquiry, and concrete exercises and discussions to translate the learned skills to daily life and healthcare practice; the 2nd meeting comprises literature discussions and lectures, to explain and discuss concepts, effectiveness, working mechanisms, and neurobiological underpinnings of mindfulness.

Upon successful completion of the sessions and assignments of this minor on mindfulness, students will be able to:

• Define mindfulness and describe the working mechanisms and effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions on various (health) outcomes in diverse populations, including healthcare professionals.
• Demonstrate attentional focus and shifting modes from thinking/conceptual to sensing/embodied, and from focused concentration to open monitoring.
• Develop the ability to come off autopilot in daily life situations, by tuning into the present moment, noticing inner processes (thoughts, emotions, physical sensations), and consciously choosing how to respond (i.e. develop a pause button).
• Process difficult emotions and uncomfortable feelings by holding them in awareness with an attitude of curiosity, self-kindness and self-acceptance.
• Demonstrate mindful listening skills; non-judgmentally attending to self and others with care and compassion.
• Apply self-care skills in stressful situations
• Demonstrate self-reflective skills, i.e., the ability to communicate about personal experiences.
• Apply all abovementioned core practices and skills within a professional context.

The minor is highly experiential in nature. There is a lot of practicing, both in-group and at home. The student is asked to commit to this as this is the most important way of learning within this minor. Home practice is a requirement for passing the course.

Mindfulness can be potentially therapeutic in nature, but this minor is not a replacement for therapy . The certified trainers will create a safe(r) space and provide tools and guidance on how to work with all sorts of (difficult) inner experiences, but they will be unable to offer extensive individual support. We ask students to take responsibility for their own processes and stay within their window of tolerance as well as possible.

When translating learned skills to the (future) work field, we will mainly work with examples from healthcare . The minor therefore fits well with education for helping professions. However, students from all educational backgrounds are admissible; diversity is strongly welcomed .

Becoming more mindful and compassionate could be interesting and beneficial to all students and work fields , and there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss how learned skills and insights translate to work fields besides healthcare.

The minor is open for international students; some groups will be in English, some in Dutch. We will try to assign everyone to the language of their choice; however, some Dutch students will be assigned to English groups .

Teaching methods

Experience-based learning, team-based learning (only offline).

Every 1st session of the week (small group; max 15 students) will be comprised of meditations, inquiry/self-reflection, teachings, group discussions, mindful communication, experiential exercises.

Every 2nd session of the week (large group; max 75 students) will start with meditation and Q&A, then a lecture or literature discussion.

Home practice is comprised of daily formal/ informal meditation, self-reflection, behavioural experiments, logs/diaries, reading scientific literature, and a team-based project on translation of skills to practice.

Teaching materials

• Scientific articles

• Chapters from handbooks

• Meditations

• TedX talks

• Your own experience

Method of examination

• Attendance >80%
• Weekly self-reflection report about meditation practices (2-3 pages)
• Weekly literature questions
• Final self-reflection report on your experience and growth over the past 10 weeks (individual)
• Team-based project report on translation of skills to work field of choice (group)

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Study load in this course is different than what you are used to! There is no exam; however, that doesn’t make it easy or low effort. Time investment is high because of (continuous) home practice; study load is particularly high on experiential and (cognitive-) emotional levels.
You need to commit to doing the at-home practices (meditations, exercises and informal mindfulness practice). It’s OK if you sometimes struggle, and not everything will resonate for you, however, without practicing you will learn significantly less, and chances of passing the (final) reflection reports will be low. Composition final grade

• Attendance (sufficient/insufficient)
• Weekly self-reflection report about meditation practices (2-3 pages; sufficient/insufficient)
• Weekly literature questions (sufficient/insufficient)

All should be sufficient to pass the course.

• Final self-reflection report (individual; graded 1-10) – weight 60%
• Team-based project on translation of skills to work field of choice (graded 1-10) – weight 40%