“Brain Plasticity” can get physicians (and executives) into trouble.
Physicians are people. In their early years, like the rest of us, many endure bullying, abuse, and traumatic loss. But physician exposure to trauma is more likely to continue from there.
Up to 78 percent of residents experience at least one traumatic event during their training, and up to a third of that 78 percent exhibit symptoms of PTSD. Many physicians experience residency as a “complex” or sustained trauma. And all of this is in addition to a dysfunctional healthcare system and “run-of-the-mill” challenges, like marital issues, parenting struggles, managing aging parents, and so on.
So, their brains adjust. New electrochemical patterns form. They power through. They shift their style of affect processing. And the adjustments serve them well, often for long periods of time.
Then contexts change. What got them through starts to work against them. They’re promoted to a leadership position, for example, or have some new type of fiduciary responsibility. Some simply face greater levels of complexity.
But the compensatory brain patterns have congealed. It’s hard to relax now. It’s hard to create space for potential to unfold. The mindset has shifted to concern itself with striving, with survival.
Contemplation and “strategic letting go of control” are perceived by the new mindset as dangerous extravagances. (Look for elevated need for certainty, validation, or acceptance. Look for elevated intolerance of ambiguity or a longing for orientation and validation. Look for feedback experienced as confrontation.)
This is where Adaptive Development and “Mindset Elasticity” enter the picture.
One could consider it a form of healing, but it’s more than that. It’s objectifying the thought processes that formerly served us, so we can stop being subjected to them.
Compensatory patterns wrought by struggle, loss, or trauma are strengths, to be sure. But the operative question is, “Do you have your strengths, or do your strengths have you?” Can you put the patterns on a shelf when you need to? Can you access other more nuanced capacities? Can you shift from being smart to being wise?
Once the compensatory patterns are illuminated and understood, then we can make choices about them. (With consciousness comes choice.) Then we can grow our cognitive and emotional agility. We can reclaim cognitive and emotional energies that we have been wasting on patterns that no longer serve us.
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Fern EPC is the Adaptive Development fast track for physicians, executives, and entrepreneurs.
