To minimize risk of exposure to and spread of the COVID-19 virus, I am temporarily suspending in-person hypnotherapy sessions with me in my office. However, phone, Skype and Zoom consultations ARE and WILL REMAIN AVAILABLE!
This morning, I read a tweet that made me very sad and then warmed my heart. In it, an anesthesiologist described how one team member demeaned himself and his role as a doctor when she introduced herself to her colleagues before a surgery. “I’m just a medical student,” he said. It was almost as if he was correcting her assumption and that of other more senior doctors in the room that he was not important and so didn’t need or deserve her professional courtesy. Apparently, he and his classmates had been repeatedly admonished by their instructors (and more senior physicians) that as a student, he should stay out of the way. He should not seek recognition or, heaven forbid, do anything to catch the attention of another “real” doctor. Or so he believed. Needless to say, the anesthesiologist made a point to introduce herself and find out his name. She lamented in her tweet that demeaning and diminishing the confidence of future physicians could only be harmful to their self-confidence and performance in the long run.
According to John Kappas, Ph.D., the subconscious mind works on expectation and imagination. Over time, we learn to expect others to respond to and interact with us in a particular way based on our previous experience with those individuals. Eventually, this treatment becomes part of our subconscious mental script as we also learn to internalize the message or emotion we perceive in those interactions. All of this can and does affect self-confidence and self-esteem, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder explained. No matter what the “message” is, the more you hear and repeat it to yourself your subconscious mind starts to believe and even “own” that message. When everyone around you constantly bombards you with so much criticism and negativity, including referring to you as an idiot or some other derogatory slur, it’s no surprise that your self-confidence and self-esteem take a hit. It’s really only a matter of time until you start to believe in the negative hype, and when you are as young and impressionable as this child it takes even less time to create a negative mental script.
I imagine that the medical student in the previous example processed his instructor’s admonitions about being “just” and “only” an inconsequential student, in a similar way. The higher status of the instructor and other more senior physicians he worked and trained with, combined with the subconscious overload of information—medical terms, techniques, and order of procedures—likely overloaded his subconscious mind and the student in a highly suggestible (trance) state. The pressure of processing criticism or corrections of his knowledge and skills, combined with being told that he was unimportant and even inconsequential, would have reinforced other negative messages in his mental script. It is understandable that he wanted to clarify and differentiate his identity, because by now he also believed what he had been taught: Students don’t matter.
This scenario reminded me of a similar one I described in a previous blog titled, The Saddest Thing I Ever Heard. In August 2016, a four-year-old-girl was rescued from an abusive home in Hot Springs, Arkansas.1 When police officers rescued her, the child reportedly told them that her name was “Idiot” because that’s what her mother’s boyfriend allegedly called her. Apparently, she was called that so often that she didn’t even know her real name.
Hopefully, the anesthesiologist’s compassion and encouragement of the medical student she described in this morning’s tweet helped him feel appreciated and consequential for a little while. Everyone is a student, just learning the ropes, at some point in life and at the start of a career. Kindness and encouragement go a long way to create the professional that a person wants to become. Kudos to this doctor for taking the time to nurture this growth by doing something so simple as recognizing the future “professional” that medical student is becoming.
1. “Abused 4-Year-Old Child Tells Police Her Name Is ‘Idiot’: Mother, Boyfriend Charged After Abuse Reported” by Anneclaire Stapleton, CNN. http://www.clickorlando.com/news/national/abused-4yearold-child-tells-police-her-name-is-idiot
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Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. In July 2019 and in September 2020 she was voted the Best Hypnotherapist in Santa Clarita, California. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
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