Improve Doctors’ Empathy and Communication Skills with Loving-Kindness Meditation

Improve Doctors’ Empathy and Communication Skills with Loving-Kindness Meditation

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

Medicine and meditation, etymologically, come from the same root: to consider, advise, reflect, to take appropriate measures,” – Ronald Epstein

 

Stress is epidemic in the western workplace with almost two thirds of workers reporting high levels of stress at work. In high stress occupations, like healthcare, the stress can produce fatigue, cynicism, emotional exhaustion, sleep disruption, and professional inefficacy. This not only affects the healthcare providers personally, but also the patients, as it produces a loss of empathy and compassion.

 

Loving Kindness Meditation is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. The individual systematically pictures different individuals from self, to close friends, to enemies and wishes them happiness, well-being, safety, peace, and ease of well-being. It is possible that Loving Kindness Meditation can help to reverse the effects of stress on medical providers and increase their levels of empathy and compassion for their patients and improve their communications with their patients.

 

In today’s Research News article “Effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation on Doctors’ Mindfulness, Empathy, and Communication Skills.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069630/ ) Chen and colleagues recruited doctors at a hospital in China who had practiced for at least 3 years and randomly assigned them to receive either a 90-minute Loving Kindness Meditation practice 3 times per week for 8 weeks or to be in a wait-list control condition. They were measured before and after training for mindfulness, empathy, and communication skills.

 

They found that in comparison to baseline and the wait-list control group, the doctors who received Loving Kindness Meditation had significant increases in empathy and communications skills, but not mindfulness. These results replicate previous findings that Loving Kindness Meditation  produces significant improvements in empathy.

 

This study used a passive control condition (wait-list) which makes the interpretation of results subject to possible confounding explanations such as placebo effects, experimenter bias, Hawthorne effects, etc. Future studies should include an active control condition, e.g. exercise. Nevertheless, the results suggest that practicing Loving Kindness Meditation may improve a physicians ability to understand the emotions of their patients and be better able to communicate with them. This would make them much better doctors and improve patient care and clinical outcomes. It remains for future research to examine if this outcome occurs in actual clinical practice.

 

So, improve doctors’ empathy and communication skills with Loving-Kindness Meditation.

 

Clear communication from doctors may have a healing effect. Studies on pain perception find that, similar to the placebo effect, thoughtfully walking a patient through a procedure that is being administered, or one that will occur in the future, can make them less anxious and more optimistic, leading to less pain.” – Deborah Wip

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Chen, H., Liu, C., Cao, X., Hong, B., Huang, D. H., Liu, C. Y., & Chiou, W. K. (2021). Effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation on Doctors’ Mindfulness, Empathy, and Communication Skills. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(8), 4033. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084033

 

Abstract

Background: In the context of increasing doctor–patient tensions in China, the objective of this study was to explore and examine the effects of loving-kindness meditation (LKM) on doctors’ mindfulness, empathy, and communication skills. Methods: A total of 106 doctors were recruited from a hospital in China, and randomly divided into an LKM training group (n = 53) and waiting control group (n = 53). The LKM training group received 8 weeks of LKM training intervention, whereas the control group received no intervention. Three major variables (mindfulness, empathy, and communication skills) were measured before (pre-test) and after (post-test) the LKM training intervention. Results: The empathy and communication skills of the LKM group were significantly improved compared with those of the control group, but the level of mindfulness did not significantly change. Conclusions: The results suggested that LKM may contribute to improving physicians’ empathy and communication skills. However, the mechanisms that underlie the effects of the LKM on mindfulness, empathy, and communication skills and other psychological constructs needs further elucidation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069630/

 

wkchiu@mail.cgu.edu.tw

 

Improve Leadership with Mindfulness

Improve Leadership with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

Truth be told, most of the discussions we have with others aren’t really mindful. Mindful discussion means shedding attention and awareness on our words — it’s rarely what we do, as our ego is consistently involved.” – Elyane Youssef

 

Work is very important for our health and well-being. We spend approximately 25% of our adult lives at work. How we spend that time is immensely important for not only to productivity in the workplace but also to our psychological and physical health. Mindfulness practices have been implemented in the workplace and they have been shown to markedly reduce the physiological and psychological responses to stress. This, in turn, improves productivity and the well-being of the employees. As a result, many businesses have incorporated mindfulness practices into the workday.

 

Mindfulness may also help to promote leadership in the workplace. It can potentially do so by enhancing emotion regulation, making the individual better able to recognize, experience, and adaptively respond to their emotions, and making the leader better able to listen to and to understand the needs and emotion of the workers they lead and to communicate effectively. There has been, however, little research attention to the effects of mindfulness on leadership and the ability of the leader to communicate.

 

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness and Leadership: Communication as a Behavioral Correlate of Leader Mindfulness and Its Effect on Follower Satisfaction.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00667/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_951898_69_Psycho_20190404_arts_A), Arendt and colleagues recruited leaders and followers online from a variety of industries in Germany. Leaders completed an online measure of mindfulness. Their followers completed online measures of satisfaction with leader, follower satisfaction with leader’s communication, and follower’s perception of leader’s mindfulness in communications.

 

They found that the higher the leader’s mindfulness the higher the satisfaction with leader, follower satisfaction with leader’s communication, and follower’s perception of leader’s mindfulness in communications. A mediation analysis revealed that leader mindfulness was associated with higher follower’s perception of leader’s mindfulness in communications which, in turn, was associated with higher satisfaction with leader and follower satisfaction with leader’s communication.

 

These are interesting results but are correlative, so no definitive conclusions can be reached regarding causation. But the results suggest that mindfulness is an important characteristic for leaders in industry. When the leader is mindful, the followers find the leader’s communications mindful and when these communications are mindful they are associated with better overall satisfaction with the leader and the leader’s communication. These results, similar to prior research, suggest that mindfulness is important in the work environment, promoting well-being and productivity. This further suggests that “right communications” is important for leadership.

 

So, improve leadership with mindfulness.

 

When you are talking mindfully, you are conscious of the words you choose. You think before you speak and make a conscious decision to use your best communication in a respectful manner, even if it is a difficult situation. You are also mindful of your intention and aware of expectations that may or may not be met. When there is a situation that needs to be addressed, being mindful can produce a better outcome and prevent the communication from getting out of control.” – Melinda Fouts

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Arendt JFW, Pircher Verdorfer A and Kugler KG (2019) Mindfulness and Leadership: Communication as a Behavioral Correlate of Leader Mindfulness and Its Effect on Follower Satisfaction. Front. Psychol. 10:667. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00667

 

In recent years, the construct of mindfulness has gained growing attention in psychological research. However, little is known about the effects of mindfulness on interpersonal interactions and social relationships at work. Addressing this gap, the purpose of this study was to investigate the role of mindfulness in leader–follower relationships. Building on prior research, we hypothesize that leaders’ mindfulness is reflected in a specific communication style (“mindfulness in communication”), which is positively related to followers’ satisfaction with their leaders. We used nested survey data from 34 leaders and 98 followers from various organizations and tested mediation hypotheses using hierarchical linear modeling. Our hypotheses were confirmed by our data in that leaders’ self-reported mindfulness showed a positive relationship with several aspects of followers’ satisfaction. This relationship was fully mediated by leaders’ mindfulness in communication as perceived by their followers. Our findings emphasize the potential value of mindfulness in workplace settings. They provide empirical evidence for a positive link between leaders’ dispositional mindfulness and the wellbeing of their followers, indicating that mindfulness is not solely an individual resource but also fosters interpersonal skills. By examining leaders’ mindfulness in communication as an explanatory process, we created additional clarification about how leaders’ mindfulness relates to followers’ perceptions, offering a promising starting point for measuring behavioral correlates of leader mindfulness.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00667/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_951898_69_Psycho_20190404_arts_A