About the Wisdom-Seeking Series
Welcome to the seventh set of episodes of our Wisdom-Seeking Series, a fortnightly set of 90min workshops for experienced GPs to explore the complicated questions in general practice and mental health care. These fortnightly workshops will run on Monday evenings, beginning at 7:30pm (Sydney time).
Each “episode” will start with 30 minutes of a podcast-style conversation between A/Prof Louise Stone and a guest expert. The remaining 30-60 minutes will involve a group exploration of the topics raised, co-facilitated by the episode hosts. Here, the meat of the discussion will come from you: the participants.
These workshops are not Balint groups, nor case discussions, nor clinical supervision. They are something different altogether. The topics are broad, giving participants a chance to share cases without being focussed on a single case. The format of these episodes is designed to promote mutual curiosity and reflexivity, and to help each other develop more nuanced understandings of our role in managing the mental health of our patients.
About Episode 7: The Heartsink Patient (with Dr Johanna Lynch)
This week’s episode will discuss the “baby bird” problem: how do we cope when caring for patients with insatiable need? Sometimes, the patients we manage are unwilling or unable to progress. They may wait expectantly for us to provide a solution which is not forthcoming, or may reject the solutions we are able to offer. The feelings of helplessness and hopelessness we develop in these therapeutic relationships can challenge our ability to tolerate or manage the relationship, or the feelings it engenders in us. How do we identify when our professional relationship has developed these unhelpful dynamics, and how do we manage them? How do we recognise and deal with the problem constructively, when the problem is the feeling in ourselves?
Dr Johanna Lynch is a GP psychotherapist with extensive experience caring for adult survivors of childhood trauma and neglect, and recently completed her PhD (“Sense of Safety: a whole person approach to distress in primary care” ) translating trauma-informed care into a framework that can be used across disciplines. She is also the president of the Australian Society of Psychological Medicine and is involved in training GPs, GP trainees, and medical students in mental health skills in a range of contexts.
Accessing the episode
To participate in this episode, or in our upcoming Monday evening episodes, register your interest here and you will be provided a link to the sessions.
Sustaining the series
In keeping with our philosophy of valuing our own contributions and expertise, we have decided to compensate the facilitators of this series for their time. To learn more about our rates, or to support this endeavour, visit our donations page here.