Physician Well-Being & PERMA
Physicians work long hours and operate under considerable stress. These and other factors can lead to significant mental strain and distress, particularly when the work no longer feels personally fulfilling. Physicians (and pretty much all of us) will benefit from maintaining a sense of professional purpose, fostering closer relationships, and savouring positive emotions.
Theories and frameworks about how to live a ‘good’ life have been proposed for millenia, and it’s hard to know which ones to support. One framework from positive psychology called the PERMA model provides an intuitive, evidence-based perspective that physicians can follow to create more satisfying and fulfilling lives for both themselves and their patients.
What Is The PERMA Model?
What makes a good life? According to Dr. Martin Seligman, a psychologist and leader in the field of positive psychology, human flourishing can be achieved by embracing five pillars for meaningful living captured in his PERMA model:
Positive Emotion
Positive emotional experiences include love, joy, hope, optimism, and gratitude, which we can actively cultivate by noticing and savouring positive experiences when they arise. This can include being aware of positive emotions about something happening in the present, remembering something pleasant from the past, or anticipating something exciting in the future. It’s important to acknowledge that some people have a naturally more positive affect based on genetic and early environmental factors, while others may struggle more to feel or express positive emotion. Despite this, we can all generate and savour positive emotions more frequently in our lives.
Engagement
Have you ever been so engaged in an activity that you don’t realize how much time has passed? This is what the PERMA model calls ‘engagement’ and is akin to what another psychologist, Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, has previously called ‘flow.’ Experiencing engagement is about finding challenge and reward in an activity itself, so much so that we lose ourselves in the experiencing of it. Flow can be experienced in a meaningful conversation, a bike ride, creating a painting, cooking a meal, or really any activity that offers challenge and reward, and requires concentration.
Relationships
You can seldom experience overall well-being in complete solitude. Positive relationships are vital to finding meaning for virtually all of us and are one of the best predictors of mental and emotional well-being. Connections to others can give us purpose and can amplify our positive emotions by having someone to share them with. For example, feeling proud of an accomplishment can be amplified by acknowledgment and support from friends and family. On the other hand, when we’re going through hard times, having someone close to us with whom we can navigate the difficulties protects against significant drops in well-being. Strong relationships build our capacity to care for others, and to practice self-sacrifice, co-operation, and teamwork.
Meaning
Meaning is about committing to causes that are bigger than ourselves and having a purpose that extends beyond our own lives. Meaning can be found in career, family, religion, science, politics, or volunteering and advocacy within your community, among other domains. Meaning is based on personal values and can be created by committing to something that feels intrinsically important to you, even if it doesn’t directly benefit you.
Accomplishment
Accomplishment is about working towards meaningful goals and achieving some sense of success and mastery related to those goals. The focus on achievement and mastery should be motivating for its own sake based on personal values. True accomplishment is achieved by feeling a personal sense of competence and skill in an area that matters to you and is done for the primary purpose of mastering those skills. For instance, going to medical school would be more of a meaningful accomplishment according to PERMA if your primary motivation for doing so was to become an expert in medicine and help your patients and not primarily because your family is telling you to go or because you want to make a lot of money (neither of the latter motivations are inherently ‘bad’ though).
As physicians, there are direct, personal benefits to learning to live well according to PERMA. Increasing your sense of well-being will improve your physical and mental health and reduce your risk for a variety of physical and mental health issues. You can also help your patients live healthier and more meaningful lives by incorporating PERMA principles and suggestions into your medical practice.
The culture of medicine often downplays the importance of mental health (though may pay lip service to its importance) despite the high-stress conditions physicians almost inevitably work under. Resilient and flexible mental health is not secondary to strong physical health - the two are deeply interconnected. By adopting PERMA principles, you stand to improve your individual well-being, your performance at work, and the health of your patients.
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WG Psychology
WG Psychology is a psychology and psychotherapy clinic in Toronto that helps people live more connected, purposeful lives through compassionate, evidence-based mental health support. Connect with us to see if we’re a fit for you!
Disclaimer: This post is intended for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for psychotherapy. The information provided is general and may not be appropriate for your particular mental health needs. Always consult a qualified health professional to discuss your personal needs and goals.