C351 Module Assignment: Professional Presence and Healing Environments

This assignment explores key aspects of professional presence, mindfulness practice, and healing environments within a healthcare context. It begins by differentiating between the physical body and body-mind models, emphasizing the significance of professional ethics and reflective practice for nurses. The student, identified as an ISFP based on a Jung Personality Test, discusses how their personality traits influence their approach to patient care, highlighting strengths like empathy and observation skills while acknowledging potential barriers like decision-making and time management. The assignment then outlines a mindfulness practice plan, setting goals for the physical, rhythmic, mental, and spiritual aspects of the self to maintain balance. Finally, it examines the elements of optimal healing environments, including internal, interpersonal, behavioral, and external factors, and provides examples of healthcare facilities that foster these environments. The document provides a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and their practical applications in the field of healthcare.

Areas of focus that include professional presence, mindfulness practice, and
healing environments
A. Professional Presence:
1. In order to discuss the differences between the two models of health and healing, I have
chosen Physical body and Body-mind. To gain proper knowledge of the differences between
physical body and body-mind, we first need to learn to distinguish between them. Our body is
a complex assemblage of different organisms that allows our brain to function. So, thinking
the brain as separate from the rest of our body is a gaffe. Our mind constructs with
information and under various conditioning situations that we gather throughout our lives. All
these develop within our brain and stored within a layer of consciousness after our death. As
per Carl Jung, this is “collective unconsciousness”. That is why in some cases, people can
remember their past life (Sol, 2015). Anything happens with our body is external and
anything happens with our mind is internal. We can hear sounds, see things, or touch
something with our physical body but cannot interpret what is going on in someone's mind.
In that sense, we can say that the body relates us to the external world while our mind is more
of an internal thing to analyze those interactions.
2. Physical body is a model of health and healing. While analyzing the components of
physical body with my professional presence, I discovered a few facts. My professional
presence is constructed by my ethics, beliefs, and attitude. According to my ethics and
beliefs, I think I should properly follow my professional ethics and regulations. Being a nurse
by profession, I always try to stay careful with my patients, listen to them carefully, and try to
compensate for their sufferings and pain as much as I could. My physical is the medium
through which I express my beliefs and ethics. While my beliefs and ideas are always active

within me, my physical body is not. At times, it gets exhausted, tried. While my thoughts,
values, and beliefs are internal aspects of myself, my physical body is my external existence.
Playing both of them with the right harmony is the key to a successful professional presence.
3. In professional presence, the RN is required to adopt reflective practice with professional
nursing standards and ethics that includes proper verbal and non-verbal behavior, positive
approach and a professional image (Ketchem, 2016). Both mindfulness and distraction are
components of professional presence, though they function differently. Mindfulness helps me
to concentrate on a single task like organizing drugs and medicines or educating a patient. It
also helps me improve my response rate and allows me to better control my negative
emotions like anger, irritation. An example will make it easier to understand. When I am
mindful of my work, I would react quickly to a patient's call or do a specific work more
accurately compared to when I am unfocused or distracted. On another side, distractions can
cripplingly hinder my capability to deliver effective patient care. While preparing medicine
for patients or doing daily tasks like providing injections, measuring pressure, distraction not
only increases the chances of error but also can invite bigger problems that may affect the
patient's health. Distraction can also distort my behavior toward patients. I may behave rude
or in an improper way because of distraction.
In that sense, we can say that professional presence has a huge contribution to nursing
practices.
B. Personality Preferences:

1.
2. The Jung Personality Test would help me to know myself better. Through the question
answers of the Jung personality test, I have got a better reflection about my personality and
abilities. I had to go through 33 situation based questions and while answering them, I have
learned about my positive and grey areas. As per the findings from the Jung personality test, I
am an Introverted-Sensing-Feeling-Perceiving, in short ISFP. I thought that I am reluctant to
talk to others, but from Jung test results, I understood that I am not incommunicative, but I
only open up myself when I feel comfortable or required. The preferences identified by the
test suggests that I am a sensible and introvert person, an active listener, confident to my
work, self-dependent, and I can control my emotions well. I think my introvert nature will
help me to be focused on my professional and personal life. As I am sensible and feeling,
these qualities will help me to maintain a good personal and professional relationship. From
the professional aspect, a nurse needs to be empathetic to her patients. And my sensible
nature would help me to understand the mental and physical condition of my patient better. It
will also help me to maintain a good relationship with people in my personal life as well.
With that, I am also perceiving. That means I observe things more intensely. In my personal

life, my favorite activities are watching movies, playing games or gathering world
knowledge. My introvert nature and observation power will have a good contribution to
fulfill my favorite activities. With that, these also affect my career choices as well. As I am in
nursing, I need to have good observation skills so that I can reduce the probability of doing a
mistake. In my profession of nursing, controlling emotion is very important. We have to face
many critical situations. We face death very closely. So I need to be always alert and I think
my introvert and perceiving nature would help me a lot to stay focused on my job.
Two potential barriers which I realized from the Jung test are i) My decision making ability,
and ii) Time management. Though as per the test, I am a thinker but I often get confused at
times of critical decision making. I fall into a dilemma and could not realize what to choose.
To get the best outcome out of any situation, the role of decision making is crucial (Gleeson,
2012). Few self-awareness practices can help me to reduce this problem. I need to recognize
the power behind each decision I make by asking myself right questions and analyzing the
results that may occur later before taking a decision. With that, I should not ask other people
about what to do before taking a decision. I should keep faith in my own judgment to
improve my decision making power. I also face problem in time management. Good time
management permits a person to cover a lot of work within a short time ("Why Time
Management Is Important | AppointmentPlus", 2015). In order to improve my time–
management skills, the role of self-awareness is vital. I need to prioritize my work properly
and avoid random multitasking. Setting up a deadline for each work helps effectively to
maintain time properly. One important aspect of good time management is avoiding
distractions.
So, practicing these components of enhanced self-awareness can effectively minimize the
barriers.

C. Mindfulness Practice:
1. a & b) In order to develop a mindfulness practice plan in accordance with my goals,
interests, and beliefs, I have created two specific goals for each of the four aspects of my
whole physical body to maintain balance.
i) Goals for physical body- i) I have decided to take proper rest and stay focused on whatever
I am doing in the present. Without proper rest, our body gets tired and we became more prone
to do mistakes. Rest refills our mental and physical energy and we can deliver our best at
work. And when we don't concentrate on what we are doing in present and think something
else, then we cannot complete the present work properly. These practices cannot provide
dramatic improvement, so I need to be slow and steady and adopt these practices as a habit in
my daily routine. ii) I have also planned to maintain a proper balance in my vitamin and
mineral intake while doing regular exercise. This will help me to stay fit. When I will be
physically fit, my mind will also be in a good state (Willard, 2019). Physical wellness is
deeply connected with mental wellness, and when both are in the same pitch, it can highly
improve our work quality.
ii) Goals for Rhythmic body- i) I have planned to practice empathy, openness, and honesty to
maintain a good rhythmic body. It is important because the rhythmic body connects both
physical and mental body and it is the area where our outside experiences get blended and
construed. Practicing empathy will help me to understand my patient's situation from their
point of view. Openness and honesty would help me to accept diversity in opinion and
understand the different cultural and mental ideologies of people. Both qualities are very
important in providing patient-centric care. (Publication manual of the American
Psychological Association, 2010) ii) I have also decided not to randomly judge people and
help people with their needs. When we judge people without knowing much about them, it

limits our ability to provide help, support, and care. Being a nurse, my primary duty is
providing care and support to my patients, without judging them. This will also make me rich
with humanistic qualities ("The Four Aspects of "Self" - Balancing Mind, Body & Soul -
specializing in Reiki Courses, Emotional Healing & Holistic Massage", 2019).
iii) Goals for mental body- i) I have decided to be proactive while problem-solving and be
more communicative to others. I can achieve this by analyzing my thoughts and processing
information input quickly. This will help me make quick decisions in critical moments. With
that, the more I will communicate with patients, I can get a better idea about their problems.
ii) I have also planned to maintain clarity, and practice innovation in my personal and
professional life. This will help me to understand and solve real-life problems efficiently.
While I keep clarity in my work, the probability of error will reduce and the quality of the
work will also increase. Practicing innovation would help me to discover new ways to solve a
crisis.
iv) Goals for Spiritual body- i) In order to attain a good spiritual body, I have decided to stay
calm, steady, fearless, and highly creative at critical moments. This can be achieved by
maintaining and practicing a good balance between emotion and spirituality. Doing Yoga and
meditation is very helpful to attain a good spiritual body. It would help me to better
concentrate on my work as well as organizing my work effectively. Being calm, steady, I can
better handle a critical situation, which is quite often in nursing practice. ii) I also need to
acknowledge that there is something running which is much bigger than all of us, than our
imagination. Which keeps balance and harmony between micro and macro. My spiritual body
characterizes and defines the other three aspects (Thorp, 2016). Believing in a higher power
will make myself strong from inside and help me to control emotions in crisis moments.
D. Healing Environments:

1. Healing is a steady process to reduce pain and recover from sickness. The importance of an
optimal healing environment in healthcare is very vital to ensure good healthcare practice.
Four important elements of optimal healing are the internal, interpersonal, behavioral, and
external environment. (Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, 2010)
They all contribute equally to the optimal healing process in healthcare. Internal healing
means increasing the will power of a person so that he can fight with sickness and heal
himself on his own. Interpersonal relationship refers to the healthy relationship between
healthcare staff and patient. Behavioral relationship means the behavior of the patient with
his family or friends and other staffs. External environment refers to the overall physical
environment and construction of a healthcare facility.
There are many healthcare facilities that practice optimal healing environment. Among them,
two of them are-
i) Hospitals: The main focus of a hospital is to deliver short term and quick care for patients
with numerous health hazards. Hospitals are open for 24 hours and they also have an
emergency ward for the patient who needs urgent healthcare facilities. There are nurses,
doctors, and other staff who stay 24 hours for patient care. Ambulances and emergency
services are also very convenient in hospitals. Patients can stay at hospitals until their
recovery and receive complete treatment. We can understand the application of four optimal
healing practices through a simple example. Suppose John gets admitted in a hospital with a
fracture in his right leg. Initially, John is broken and depressed as he cannot move. Seeing
him depressed the nurse comes to his bed and talk to him. She tries to boost her spirit by
showing empathy to John and also assured him that he will receive best treatment so that he
could get back to his home quickly. This conversation made John happy and he stopped
worrying much (Internal Healing). The doctors and nurses also take good care of John with
timely medicine and routine checkups (external environment). While giving medicine she

talks with John and motivates him to stay happy (Interpersonal healing). With this, the doctor
regularly pays visit to John’s cabin to check his condition. John’s family and friends are also
allowed to visit him at a certain time. (Behavioral healing) This indeed helped John to
recover first. Through this example, we can understand that the four elements of optimal
healing are practiced effectively in a hospital setup.
ii) Urgent Care Clinic: When the situation of a patient is so critical that he cannot visit the
doctor and requires basic medical care without any prior appointment, then the best option is
urgent care clinic. It sometimes referred to as walk-in clinics. It offers immediate outpatient
care, and quick primary treatment ("5 Types of Health Care Facilities - Top Master's in
Healthcare Administration", 2019). The primary service they provide is the treatment of
common, non-life-threating illness and injuries. Injuries like cut, burn, bug and animal bites,
diseases like allergies, asthma, fever- these things can be treated well in an urgent care clinic.
This way, it fosters optimal healing. An example will make it easier to understand. Suppose
Catherine has asthma and he regularly visits an urgent care clinic nearby to her home. When
she visits the clinic, the doctors and nurses welcome her with a smile and they conduct
necessary checkups and tests (External environment). If Catherine looks sad, then the
medical stuffs talk to her and boost her morale (Internal Healing). They also tell her to take
proper medication and be happy (Behavioral Healing). Catherine gets all necessary
treatments for her asthma from the urgent care clinic. Every time Catherine visits the clinic,
the medical stuffs of the clinic provide their best to take good care of her (Interpersonal
Healing). Through this example, we can understand that four elements of optimal healing can
be practiced effectively in an urgent care clinic.
2. From my understandings of part D1, I have realized that both hospitals and urgent care
clinics have different functions. While hospitals are open for 24*7, urgent care clinics have a
steady opening and closing time. Hospitals provide larger medical facility and that is why

they have wards, beds, operation theatres. On another side, Urgent care clinics are smaller in
scale and mainly provide outpatient care. This self-awareness will help me to understand the
working methods of the two different healthcare facilities. I can also suggest patients in
choosing the right medical facility for them. This self-awareness would also help me to work
in both of these facilities efficiently. With that, from the learnings of this assignment, I can
practice the four key elements of optimal healing in a better way in my current work
environment. I can also aware people about the basic differences of these two primary
healthcare setups effectively.

References:
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American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American
Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC.
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make-a-decision/#1e0c91c74d4a
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self
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