Thread: Wellbeing Posts

Originally Posted by p38arover

I think so. I've always been this negative about "feel good" stuff.

When I worked for OTC (1965-2002), they'd have stuff like this every so often which we had to attend and at the end I'd proclaim it was rubbish. Don't think it went down well with the presenters. Other staff would tell me after we'd left that they agreed but weren't game to say anything (the same with team building programmes). I didn't care. Never understood how people could be so keen about it.

Ron, Ron, Ron. You must understand that they were reaching out to you, to break down silos, without having to do a deep dive to evaluate your core competencies.

They wanted you to drink the Kool-aid and help you get your ducks in a row.

After some time, they would then touch base with you, to ensure everything was within your bandwidth.

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

Thanks Lionel, probably too simplistic a question, as the psyche would probably have to do a full evaluation of the patient, and their motives and circumstances, including who was paying for the consult the patient or the team.

Children also suffer from other's risk aversion as they want to climb trees, ride a skateboard etc but their guardians are too scared to allow it.

Cheers,
Randy

G'day Randy,

Often on Facebook there are checklists of what kids used to do in the 1960-70s. The list involved all the things that used to be done without any safety equipment and very little parental consideration. A time where cuts and bruises were just a part of being a kid. This is before cyclists had helmets. When school playground equipment lacked any soft fall zones under it. Metres tall steel climbing faces. My brother and I had skateboards. It was just ... skateboard - tick. Standard clothes to suit the weather conditions - tick. Footwear - optional. Hill and walking to the top of it - tick. Push off and mount the skateboard - tick Rinse and repeat. Safety gear - what safety gear!

This ramble down memory lane is aimed at serving the purpose of suggesting that the amount of risk can vary with the times an individual is living in and their environment at the time. Also the attitude the individual holds towards risk taking. If there is fear sometimes it is hard to pinpoint what the source of that fear is. Also the degree of fear. Is it a short lived experience or is it an all encompassing phobia that the mere thought of turns someone either totally rigid or their blindly heading for the hills at a very rapid pace. Lack of risk taking can also be linked to things like fear of failure. Fear and phobia are extremely interesting things to research. One of my interview questions for my PhD into Autism and wellbeing was "When I go to learn something new, I ..." Out of the 25 participants with a diagnosis of Level 1 Autism - the old Asperger's syndrome - was the answer. I do not try and learn new things. I could fail and then I could look bad. People will make fun of me, laugh at me and then they will bully me even more. This dread of learning something new unfortunately in some cases continued well into adulthood. There was also a high prevalence of PTSD within my research sample. Go figure!

Oh then from my perspective as a former adult vocational teacher - Trade Teacher ... Sappington (1984) suggests that the learning of a new skill requires a person to have sufficient levels of confidence and resilience to move from standing in their comfort zone and moving into the risky environment of trying something new - something that they may fail at doing. Sappington drew a series of zig-zags that progressed from the bottom of the textbox border to the top. It started from moving to safety and stepping into fear to a new point of safety - rinse and repeat until the skill is attained. For some people that first step away from safety is never taken due to their fear. I was teaching during one of those periods where government departments decide to cleave off the middle management layer. I had former public servants who were running branches that had over 10 staff. They knew their work back to front and had decades of positive runs on their career board. Then they found themselves in front of me. I was one of the youngest teachers at the TAFE college. Some of the former middle managers could not accept that they were once again at the bottom of the career path. Some last a week the shock of their loss of position and their source of their confidence - their own high level of competence was no longer accessible to them. Having found myself in a similar position a number of times in my life before and after being a TAFE Teacher I can relate to how they felt. Confidence - self-esteem- self-worth are strongly linked to competence and satisfaction and a strong sense of self-identity. Unfortunately, confidence, competence - the trio of 'selfs' are linked to resilience as well. The more you get of the confidence, competence and the trio of selves the more resilience you have. I researched why new adult learns drop out of tertiary education as part of my Bachelor of Adult Vocational Teaching at the Mount Gravatt Campus of Griffith University. I taught at Grovely TAFE College before doing my compulsory country transfer to Bundaberg. I was transferred here over thirty years ago and I am still trying to escape the place's clutches!

After a life changing event a trades person may go from being a highly competent tradie to finding themselves with a disability. Or a professional footballer caught up in bad tackle and they too become disabled. The source of their trade or sport that formed their confidence, competence and trio plus of Selfs is no long able to be tapped into. Their identity essentially becomes shattered and they need to either attempt to rebuild themselves into a close proximity of what they used to be. Or they form a new sense of identity that they can form a new cycle of competence and trio + selfs to base a new identity from that can also build their resilience. Unfortunately the alternative to this is that the task of rebuilding a shattered life is too much and self-medication occurs and this can lead to suicide. There have been a number of professional rugby league players and a couple of professional cyclists who made newspaper headlines because they unfortunately took this last route.

Well Randy - you did ask! Plus - this all appears within and complies with the description of "General Chat" too

Kind regards
Lionel

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Sappington, T. E. (1984). Creating learning environments conducive to change: The role of fear/safety in the adult learning process. Innovative Higher Education, 9(1), 19-29. Retrieved from Creating learning environments conducive to change: The role of fear/safety in the adult learning process | Innovative Higher Education. doi:10.1007/BF00903363