Facilitator's Guide for Session I - What do I want to be when I grow up

                     

First Session:“What do I want to be when I grow up”

Date: May 15^th 2014

Format: Lecture via Google Plus and Guided Imagery Exercise

Faculty: Basmaa Ali MD

Length: 90 Minutes

Objectives:

To make students aware of the role of subconscious and unconscious in their decision making in addition to conscious mind

Help them explore their own personality and choose specialty in congruence with who they are

Pre-Session Work:

All students were asked to fill in

MB Personality Test

Questionnaire about personal interests and responsibilities (A sample of questionnaire has been uploaded)

The session was divided into five parts:

Decision making in general
Description of Myers-Briggs personality types and individual traits
How to select a medical field according to MB personality type
Guided Imagery exercise to inquire the sub and unconscious in the language it understands that of images
QA session

I.Decision Making:

Dr Ali used Sigmund Freud’s structural model of human psyche to elaborate how human mind makes decisions. According to this psychoanalytical theory; Id, Superego and Ego are three components of human psyche.

• Id is related to uncoordinated instinctual trends

• Superego relates to cultural and moral aspects of a decision

• Ego is the most organized component that mediates between Id and Superego

 Further, human mind can be divided into three levels 

The Conscious Mind includes everything that we are aware of. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally.

The Preconscious Mind is a part of the mind that represents ordinary memory. While we are not consciously aware of this information at any given time, we can retrieve it and pull it into consciousness when needed.

The Unconscious Mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that outside of our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict. The unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience, even though we are unaware of these underlying influences.

       Take Home: Thesubconscious and unconscious mind plays a major role in decision making and we are ordinarily not aware of it.

Most students liked this part.

II. MB personality type traits:

 In this part, powerpoint slides were used to explain individual traits. For example, if one is Extrovert it means he feels energized in the company of others and opposite for an Introvert whose energy is expended when in company. Similarly all eight MB traits were explained.

III. Using MB test results to choose medical specialty:

Power point slides showing the most suitable field for each personality type were used.

NOTE: Power point slides have already been uploaded to kemumentoring.blogspot.com

Some students are appalled that what they wanted to do was not congruent with their personalities. Since QA did not go well, students who had questions like this were not answered very well.

IV. Guided Imagery:

Guided Imagery is a technique used by many physicians and psychologists for multiple purposes including help support a person in career selection. Everyone in the lab was asked to sit back, close his/her eyes and think of one of the specialty he/she has mentioned in questionnaire and then relate that specialty to a tree in a specific time and place. Same was repeated for all three specialties mentioned by each student in the questionnaire. The field for which one sees associations which are positive for the person is the one most suitable for that person. E.g. If you associate the sun with Lahore summer and its hardships and you see that in association with a career choice, that career may bring you hardship. Rain for you may indicate pleasantness and harbinger of growth.

For a Londoner for whom rain is associated with bad things and sun with a pleasant summer, the indications would be reversed.

The person who sees the image is the only person who can interpret his or her images.

This did not go well because of sound issues. The students and Dr. Ali could not hear each other. Also this kind of exercise needs someone to be on the ground. Students were talking between themselves and there was break-down of discipline.

Also when Dr Ali tried to use one student as an example and explain how to interpret your images, there was chaos and what she was trying to teach did not get across.

V. Question-Answer session

Students asked about their queries regarding the session.

This did not go well because of sound issues. The students and Dr. Ali could not hear each other well.

VI. Post Session Feedback

All students were asked to give their feedback about the session.

This was very helpful since faculty was able to hear what went well and what did not go well. A composite feedback was made and then the suggestions to improve the drawbacks were asked from every student.