Tomorrow brings the end of one more class: Human Behavior. It's been a very different class in that it focuses mainly on psychology and the practical aspects of medicine. It has been a nice change of pace but I'll be glad to move on to Immunology next.
One pearl/nugget/quanta of wisdom that I think was most useful from this class was a paradigm in which to view people as you seek to change their behavior - Prochaska & DiClemente's Stages of Change model. It is a way to understand and judge how willing people are to make a change and what is the best way to approach them at their readiness level. As you look at it, you'll see that the first stage is Pre-Contemplation, and next it tells how to approach someone who hasn't even considered changing.
As my fellow student JM said, it helps you anytime you're trying to manipulate someone else! Just jokes - it really would be useful in any relationship where you're trying to help someone make a change, e.g. a parent to a teenager, a friend to someone addicted to drugs, a church or community leader. It probably seems like common sense to most of you, but to me it is really powerful sometimes to have common sense outlined for us, especially when we're trying to help someone we love.
This table & more information at http://www.cellinteractive.com/ucla/physcian_ed/stages_change.html.
2 comments:
While you may think that this is common sense, true knowledge comes from understanding the why of our actions and that is beyond the scope of common sense.
So have you tried using these suggestions on someone to see how it works? You could set a goal, like convincing Tatia to buy you a ridiculously expensive birthday gift, then see if you can slowly move through each phase. Or maybe it would be better if the two of you did this together to someone else in a fun way. That would be an interesting experience to blog about.
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