How Performance Psychology Can Benefit Health Care Workers

The job of a health care worker can be emotionally and physically stressful. Performance psychology is a field that is becoming more popular today in helping health care workers reduce their level of stress and perform better at work. To further understand what performance psychology is and how performance psychology can benefit health care workers, I interviewed p sychologist Dr. Kelly Romirowsky.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.
"Through my business, The Performance Psychologist, LLC, I help individuals and groups overcome barriers to optimal performance. People often think of performance coaching for athletes, but students, executives, artists, and people just trying to function at their best can benefit from this scientific approach."

What type of emotional stress do health care workers typically experience?
"Health care workers often find themselves faced with stress and burnout from their work. They can suffer from anxiety about their job, feelings of hopelessness when surrounded by devastating disease, and emotional fatigue from absorbing the fears and sadness of their patients, just to name a few possibilities. Ultimately, the health care worker may feel drained emotionally, start to have physical symptoms, and may not perform at his or her best."

What is performance psychology?
"Performance psychology is a branch of psychology where psychological research, principles and techniques are applied systematically to improve a person or team's performance, usually in high stakes or timed situations."

How can performance psychology help health care workers?
"Performance psychology when delivered through one-on-one performance coaching, group workshops or organizational consultation can help people learn about what affects their personal success rate, what is holding them back, and how to push themselves to meet their next goal. It encourages them to take responsibility for their work and motivates them to stretch beyond their normal limits."

What would a typical performance psychology session be like for a health care worker?
"A performance psychology session with me always involves assessment of the task at hand. We need to identify how the individual has been performing and learning up until now, what factors are interfering and enhancing performance, and what the measurable goal will be within a time-frame. Monitoring progress toward that goal is essential so that the person learns from the continuous feedback system and makes changes accordingly. For health care workers, in particular, I find there is a great need to focus on the importance of self-care and integrating recovery time within the normal work routine. The risk of burnout is significant and many times people are just working too hard and too long to even be achieving their best."

Thank you Dr. Romirowsky for doing the interview on how performance psychology can benefit health care workers. For more information on Dr. Kelly Romirowsky or her work you can check out her website at www.ThePerformancePsychologist.com.