Research and Training
One of my most rewarding areas of work is taking this understanding into organizations and universities.
Last year I had the privilege of working with the staff of an NHS hospital in the UK. Using the Warwick Edinburgh Wellness scale I evaluated the participants wellbeing before and after the 4 week program. The results were amazing!
Here is the final report - see for yourself.
Wellness at Work
A short program directed at promoting Stress Relief in the workplace through an understanding of The Three Principles of Mind, Thought and Consciousness.
Chana Studley, Dip. Psych, Coach and Author
Lorna Dewar, PgDip, Msc, Therapeutic Radiographer & Life Coach
Abstract
The aim of this short program was to introduce participants to a new understanding of where stress comes from and that we all have everything we need to get back in touch with our innate health.
Using the work of Sydney Banks as a foundation, the authors presented 4 weekly interactive presentations via Zoom to the staff of the Oncology department of a UK, NHS Hospital. Topics included burnout, overwhelm and workplace pressures and a new way of understanding how these are created was offered. Preliminary findings suggest that participants exposed to The Three Principles experience more positive emotions and reported lesser perceived stress. Further research is needed to better understand the relationships between this understanding, stress reduction and resilience in mental health.
Voluntary participants included clinical staff and administrators. A Wellness survey was conducted before and after to show levels of improvement and confidentiality was assured.
Keywords:
Stress. Innate mental wellbeing. Anxiety. Mental health education. Workplace stress. Burn-out. Prevention. Overwhelm.
Method
Four 90 minute sessions via Zoom were conducted weekly on consecutive Sunday mornings. The authors presented a new idea each week about the Three Principles and how this relates to the work place. Participants were encouraged to ask questions, share ideas and examples. There was plenty of opportunity for discussion and feedback within the sessions. Each session was recorded for those not able to attend and for the other participants to review. A designated Whatsapp group was also established for additional support, videos, and podcast recommendations.
Results
Three overarching themes emerged from participants comments which supported the hypotheses. First, understanding how experience is created reduced anxiety and pointed them back to their own wellbeing. Second, the participants became more open to seeing that their stress was not coming from their circumstances but from their thinking about their circumstances. Third, this was just an introduction and so follow up would improve their understanding and further sustain the benefits. Participants all reported that the course was ‘enjoyable’, ‘helpful’ and ‘inspiring’. Improvements in confidence, self esteem, outlook and feeling more connected were evident.
The average improvement on the Wellness survey was 65% with an increase from 2 ( Rarely ) to 4 ( Often ) on all answers.
The greatest improvement was 95% and the least was improvement was 5% The participant with least improvement was only able to attend one live session.
Conclusion
This program was very beneficial in reducing stress both in the workplace and at home over a very short time. After analyzing the data and written responses the authors have confirmed that an understanding of the Three Principles of Mind, Thought and Consciousness are a very effective way of aiding staff and employees to see their own resilience and reducing lost work hours. A longer program with more personal support was indicated and is under review. This aligns with research done in other fields such as addictions, family therapy and chronic pain and understanding the Three Principles ( El-Mokadem, DiMarko, Kelley & Duffield 2020 ). Furthermore, in practice, it demonstrated an opportunity to incorporate the Three Principles in the work place to improve communication among staff and supervisors, thereby building healthy supervisor-staff relationships, reducing miscommunications and improving productivity.
References
Kelly, T.M., PhD. Pettit, W.F., MD Sedgeman. J., PhD, Pransky, J., PhD. 2021 One Generic Mental Illness: A Principle-Based Psycho-Spiritual Explanation of General Factor p and Its Application to Spiritually Informed Clinical Practice. Journal of Spiritual Psychology and Counseling. eISSN: 2458-9675 El-Mokadem, J., DiMarko, K., Kelley, T. M., & Duffeld, L. (2020). Three Principles/Innate Health:The efficacy of a new psycho-spiritual mental health education intervention for people with chronic fatigue syndrome. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, DOI: 10.1037/scp0000232
Date 13.10.21 ©Copyright 2021
Evidence based research like this is a powerful tool to show this works. I have since been invited to into two more NHS departments to talk to staff with equally good feedback.
My next research project is presenting this to students of social work at a US university.