Peer Support Groups for Physicians & Other Clinicians

     "Peer support groups designed to integrate clinical supervision and personal psychodynamic insight can offer medical communities an effective approach to prevent disillusionment and dysfunction through stress reduction. Such a model is used to train & support pastoral counselors and the clergy. We believe it is appropriate to adopt this model for physicians because practicing medicine has distinct parallels to ministering, and the stress of both professions comes from similar sources - the connexional, existential, spiritual, & psychodynamic. ...
     Over the years, the focus of (our support) group has evolved from discussions of patient care to explorations of personal values & feelings, approaching the practice of medicine through its human components: dying, fear, anger, intimacy, competition, mistakes, competence, & separation-individuation. We see our stress as deriving from the difficulty of facing these issues, particularly in the context of doing healing work. In the process, we have experienced the validity of (one of our) member's comment: 'The concept that there is a professional ego suitable for training and a personal ego to be left alone ... (wears thin); there is really only one ego.'
     ... all persons in the profession have unresolved personal issues and conflicts that need to be addressed for them to function optimally as therapists." 
 
       Eubank DF, Zeckhausen W, Sobelson GA. Converting the stress of medical practice to personal and professional growth: 5 years of experience with a psychodynamic support and supervision group. J Am Board Fam Pract 1991; 4(3): 151-8.

Galatia N   www.dpreview.com