Inner Empathy Courses and Retreat

Compassionate Communication Course At Mahec For Healthcare Professionals

This course taught at Mahec is open to the public and health professionals. CEU credits are available. The course has built in flexibility to accomodate the learning needs of professionals, individuals and couples who want to learn compassionate communication. Below is information you can download according to these three areas of healthcare interests: Managers/Supervisors, Therapists/Counselors/Social Workers, and Nurses/Allied Healthcare.

For Managers and Supervisors: (download pdf)

In today’s business climate that mandates “do more with less,” managers and supervisors need to find ways to be more efficient with their team members. Learning to effectively communication can be the leverage you need to maximize your human resources and time. You will learn to:

Handle conflicts and personality clashes among staff which impacts morale and effectiveness and take your time away from program management
Make it easier and more comfortable to engage in “hard-to-have” conversations with staff instead of putting off these conversations
Deeply hear employees who are upset or have anger issues
Help you tie in your personal needs with the needs of the departmental vision
Increase buy-in and support of your vision by using highly refined expressions of gratitude
Better communicate your needs to your supervisor
Become a more effective committee member and collaborator

I took Compassionate Communication because I was having difficulty as a Clinical Manager in making my words that came out of my mouth match what I was feeling in my heart. What I learned was to give myself permission to verbalize my feelings and identify my needs. Instead of snapping back at co-workers when I was interrupted, I took a moment to connect with myself. Then I could look up with a smile and say “How can I help you?” Compassionate communication changed my life and my career! This has had a positive effect on my team.

Lisa Keener, RN Clinical Manager Asheville Office, Bayada Nurses

For Therapists, Counselors, Social Workers: (download pdf)

No matter what therapeutic approach you use, this course will greatly support your therapeutic effectiveness. Therapist, Counselors and Social Workers have reported the course supported their therapy/counseling skills in the follow ways:

Learned a different way to empathetically reflect back to clients on a deeper level than they’ve been trained to do...Clients felt deeply heard and tangibly respond to this type of empathy
Refined their feeling and need literacy to be able to support their clients to know what they are feeling or wanting and how to make requests around these
Helped Clients connect with long-standing needs they didn’t know they had
Learn how to effectively speak their own feelings and needs to clients when necessary

I signed up for this class hoping for a deeper, truer expression of spirituality ~ how to be with friends and family when the heat of our misunderstandings threatens to burn us to ashes. I longed for a peace that is more than just a word-stone on my altar. Then this class opened me ~ and the torrent of unloved sorrows, shadows, and unmet dream-wishes of my life have flowed forth. I’ve been riding the rapids, spiral eddies, and still waters right into the peace light of my own heart. The journey has been terrifyingly vibrant and sweet. I’ve been very grateful for Jerry’s rock solid empathy and kind wise words as riverguide. You don’t drown in this river ~ you learn how to breathe under water. ~ Janet Merrell, Ph.D.

For Nurses and Allied Healthcare: (download pdf)

Most often, your job as nurse is about supporting people in times of crisis centered around their health. Emotions run high with patients and family members. Preparing yourself by increasing your emotional intelligence can make your workflow no only more efficient, but more enriching as well. You will learn to:

Proactively connect to patients’ physical and emotional needs and deeply hear what they are wanting and needing to collaborate care
Empathize with patient or family members’ fears or complaints and bring them to resolution
Handle difficult patients without taking it personally by hearing their anger directed at you as tragic expressions of their unmet needs
Connect to your own emotional needs and practice emotional self-care to prevent job burn-out
Communicate cooperatively with other disciplines to effectively problem solve issues related to patient care

By the end of the course, I found I could communicate much more effectively with my patients. Using the principles of compassionate communication, I was also able to guide my patients into communicating much more clearly with me. It has greatly enhanced my clinical effectiveness in providing care to my patients. The most significant thing I have noticed is that my patients trust me more, so they are more willing to open up to me. For example, I saw a patient with multiple painful burns. I spent some time just talking to him before I began his treatment, and by using empathetic listening and being able to address his fear and pain with him, it made the treatment so much more therapeutic. We came up with some strategies together - for example, we agreed that if the pain got too bad, he could call a time-out and I would give him a “breather.” We used this strategy to great effect - and it really helped him feel like he had some control of the situation. After he left, the other nurses in my clinic both commented on how good they thought I did at talking and supporting this patient through his pain. Thanks so much for giving me these tools!

Lori Yerse, RN, CWOCN Manager, WestCare Wound Clinic

For General Public: (download pdf)

You will learn to:
• Transform judgment and criticism into understanding and connection
• Listen in a way where others are really heard
• Get what you want more often without using demands, guilt or shame
• Hear the needs behind whatever anyone does or says
• Move beyond power struggles to cooperation and trust
• Create a quality of connection that embodies unconditional love

Learner Experiences?

Compassionate Communication Course At Mahec For Healthcare Professionals