Crying: Experiences and Attitudes of Third-Year Medical Students and Interns

Sung, Anthony D.; Collins, Molly; Smith, Alexander K.; Sanders, Aimee M; Quinn, Mariah A.; Block, Susan D.; Arnold, Robert M.

doi:10.1080/10401330903014111

Cited by 25 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…From these findings it appears that supervision and training with regards to handling the therapist's own emotions in session may have great benefit. Similar to a study of medical professionals, in which trainees reported inadequate discussion of physician crying (Sung et al, 2009), we found that over a quarter (26.9%) of respondents had never discussed their most recent TCIT experience with anyone and only 8% of respondents strongly agreed that they were "prepared for how to handle TCIT." It is notable that, while only one third of respondents sought supervision after their most recent TCIT episode, two thirds of respondents reported speaking with "someone," including peers, personal therapists and significant others.…”

Section: Tcit: Supervision and Training 16supporting

confidence: 80%

“…In a 2009 study of medical trainees, Sung et al (2009) found that the vast majority of medical trainees felt that discussion of physicians' crying was inadequate, and, in a recent study on tears of physicians, Majhail and Warlick (2011) emphasized the importance of supervision and "debriefing" with colleagues with regards to professionals' tears. From these articles, we can see that medical professionals have begun to focus on the importance of discussing physicians' tears in the training process during supervision.…”

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confidence: 99%

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When Therapists Cry: Implications for Supervision and Training

Blume-Marcovici

Stolberg

Khademi

et al. 2015

The Clinical Supervisor

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The majority of psychologists cry in their role as therapists but no research has explored training or supervision in relation to this topic. Psychologists and trainees (N = 686) filled out a survey on therapist crying in therapy. Almost all (96.5%) reported that psychologists should be trained on how to handle their emotions, but only 36.4% reported receiving training on therapist crying. Half of all respondents reported having discussed crying with a supervisor; one third had never discussed their most recent tears with anyone. Suggestions are offered for supervisors in order to manage discussion of TCIT in psychotherapists' training. Keywords: therapist crying, tears, emotional expressions, supervision, training, consultationTCIT: SUPERVISION AND TRAINING 3 When Therapists Cry: Implications for Supervision and TrainingPsychologists cry in therapy. In 1987, Pope, Tabachnick, and Keith-Spiegel published results of a survey on which 57% of their 456 psychotherapist respondents reported that they had cried in the presence of a client. More recently, Blume-Marcovici, Stolberg and Khademi (2013) reported that 72% of psychologists and psychology trainees had cried at least once during a therapy session with a client. Findings from these studies indicate that the majority of psychologists and psychology trainees will experience therapist crying in therapy (hereafter, TCIT) at some point in their career. Indeed, research reports that those therapists who cry in therapy cry in approximately 7% of therapy sessions (Blume-Marcovici et al., 2013). Compared to prior research that has found clients to cry in approximately 21% of therapy sessions (Trezza, Hastrup, & Kim, 1988), these numbers allow us to estimate that therapists cry in therapy approximately one third as often as their clients, though this percentage does not account for intensity or duration of tears.Researchers have found that therapists are most likely to cry when session content focuses on grief, trauma, and termination of therapy (Blume-Marcovici, Stolberg, & Khademi, 2015), and that the most commonly reported emotions the therapist felt when crying in therapy are sadness, emotionally "touched," warmth, and loss (Blume-Marcovici et al., 2015). Although most of the time therapists reported that their tears were focused on the client, in 16% of cases therapists reported that their tears were related to their own (i.e., the therapist's) personal circumstance (Blume-Marcovici et al., 2015). And, although 82% of therapists reported that they believed TCIT helped the client feel that his/her therapist genuinely cared, 69% expressed concern that TCIT would cause the client to feel that the therapist would not be able to handle the client's emotion (Blume-Marcovici et al., 2013). Despite the fact that the majority of TCIT: SUPERVISION AND TRAINING 4 therapists believe TCIT can impact the therapy -in both positive and negative ways -no research exists regarding training, supervision, or consultation on TCIT.Given that the number of behaviors on which a s...

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Section: Tcit: Supervision and Training 16supporting

confidence: 80%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

When Therapists Cry: Implications for Supervision and Training

Blume-Marcovici

Stolberg

Khademi

et al. 2015

The Clinical Supervisor

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“…Another study found that a large majority of third-year students believed that crying in front of patients or colleagues is unprofessional. 31 Further, although students worry that as their training proceeds they will become less empathetic and more apathetic, 32 and although they want to establish emotional connections with patients, 33 they also are afraid that they will be overwhelmed by their feelings toward patients. 3,34…”

Section: Medical Students' Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…35 In the study of attitudes toward crying referred to earlier, attending physicians who cried in front of trainees rarely discussed these displays of emotion; instead, they withdrew physically or simply ignored the tears. 31 Some studies have shown that physicians may lack accuracy in identifying their patients' emotional states 36 -38 ; for example, one study showed that correlations between physician and patient ratings of patient emotions are only small to moderate. 36 Other studies show that physicians do not always even acknowledge patients' emotions.…”

Section: How Physician Role Models Deal With Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspective: Does Medical Education Promote Professional Alexithymia? A Call for Attending to the Emotions of Patients and Self in Medical Training

Shapiro¹

2011

Academic Medicine

149

132

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Emotions--one's own and others'--play a large role in the lives of medical students. Students must deal with their emotional reactions to intellectual and physical stress, the demanding clinical situations to which they are witness, as well as patients' and patients' family members' often intense feelings. Yet, currently few components in formal medical training--in either direct curricular instruction or physician role modeling--focus on the emotional lives of students. In this article, the author examines patients', medical students', and physician role models' emotions in the clinical context, highlighting challenges in all three of these arenas. Next, the author asserts that the preponderance of medical education continues to address the emotional realm through ignoring, detaching from, and distancing from emotions. Finally, she presents not only possible theoretical and conceptual models for developing ways of understanding, attending to, and ultimately "working with" emotions in medical education but also examples of innovative curricular efforts to incorporate emotional awareness into medical student training. The author concludes with the hope that medical educators will consider making a concerted effort to acknowledge emotions and their importance in medicine and medical training.

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“…Raw emotions in learners, especially tears, are often seen as lack of professionalism. 38 Judgmental negative emotions are not allowed by the formal curriculum, but they are prevalent in the informal curricula which makes the learner resolve that emotions are dangerous and best avoided. 39 The present study showed lower emotion suppression rates in females.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stress and emotion regulation in resident doctors at a tertiary care hospital of North India

Singh¹,

Singh

Soni

et al. 2019

Int J Res Med Sci

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Background:The stress of medical training stems from academic pressure, exhausting work hours and striving for perfectionist standards. The demanding nature also requires involvement with emotionally draining aspects of life (human suffering, death, sexuality and fear). This may impair quality of life of medical students and influence patient care. As a consequence, post graduate medical students can experience an alarming amount of stress-associated anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and even suicide. Chronic stress is also known to influence memory, learning and especially problem-solving abilities which require flexible thinking. The study was carried out to evaluate the relationship of stress to cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression in post graduate medical students. Methods: 150 post graduate medical students participated in the study. Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and Professional Life Stress Questionnaire were administered on each participant. Data collected was kept confidential. Results were tabulated and statistically analysed. Results: Out of 150 participants, 85 (56.67%) experienced stress. 65 (43.33%) participants had stress in the moderate range, 20 (13.33%) participants had stress in the problematic area for whom remedial action was required. 52% showed high cognitive reappraisal, while 54% showed emotional suppression. Conclusions: The correlation between stress, cognitive reappraisal and between stress, emotion suppression showed weak strengths.

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Crying: Experiences and Attitudes of Third-Year Medical Students and Interns

Abstract: Crying is common among medical students and interns, especially women. Many consider it unprofessional to cry in front of patients and colleagues. Trainees want more discussions of crying.

Cited by 25 publications

References 32 publications

When Therapists Cry: Implications for Supervision and Training

When Therapists Cry: Implications for Supervision and Training

Perspective: Does Medical Education Promote Professional Alexithymia? A Call for Attending to the Emotions of Patients and Self in Medical Training

Stress and emotion regulation in resident doctors at a tertiary care hospital of North India

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