Lots of people wonder how well projective techniques work with physicians. I often get questions about whether
or not doctors will “play.”
or not doctors will “play.”
What drives that question is the belief that professionals are trained to only react to facts. Moreover, there’s a sense from many researchers that it’s almost insulting to invite physicians to free associate and divulge their real feelings. It’s almost as if they’re above the emotional and visceral.
Yet isn’t it a combination of looking at the data and one’s intuitive sense that makes for the best medicine? Good doctors avoid becoming walking brains and stay connected to their hearts and instincts when investigating issues with their patients.
Over the years I’ve successfully employed virtually all the same projective techniques I’ve used with patients and consumers with physicians. And, interestingly, the vast majority of doctors find them intriguing and a RELIEF! They get to take off their fact finding hat for a few minutes and invite their creative process. While at first it might be a little strange, a little different, being playful is a wonderful departure for them from the seriousness of everyday work.
So, you’ll hear doctors voices become animated as they tell you what they see in a guided imagery. Their eyes brighten in choosing IconiCards™ to add to a collage that depicts how it feels to work with various conditions. They lean into the table to tell you the story they’ve just created in their imagination. [Compare that to the lean back, arms crossed posture, dispassionate voice you often see and hear when they're asked to respond to a medication profile.] By just presenting facts and asking for a reaction, we invite detached involvement and then wonder why it’s so hard to read what physicians really want.
Here’s a quick, easy to administer and depthful exercise to help understand how a physician is really thinking and feeling about a category and possible solutions.
Lay out a deck of IconiCards™ [or any deck of archetypes] on a table close to the interviewing station. As part of the introduction, show the doctor the archetype cards and ask him to pick a card which might represent any of the following.
- The condition that’s the subject of the interview, e.g., hypertension AND can be any condition/disease state
- A typical hypertension patient
- The doctor in the role of treating hypertension
- A preferred medication in the doc’s armamentarium
Sometimes, the participant will ask if more than one card may be chosen. Answer that “up to 2 would be fine”. Most will select just one.
When the IconiCards™ have been selected, have the doctor bring them back to her/his seat. Ask him to give 5 adjectives describing just the CARD. After that has been done for each card, and you’ve written those down for reference, play back the adjectives for each issue, one at a time, and ask the physician how the archetype and those words tie back to condition, patient, etc. You’ll start to see a textured picture emerging.
Then ask the doctor to tell you a story about the 4 characters chosen. Tell them “all stories have a beginning, middle and end and usually have a point of tension that get’s resolved”. Encourage them to tell you a story about the chosen cards (rather than a real story from their practice) so that we can more likely draw out the emotional components to the story and not just a step by step account of what happened.
After the doctor creates and shares their narrative, once again, ask them to tie it back to the condition, patient and current solutions. You’ll hear different themes with different problems. Difficulty in diagnosing that leaves them feeling frustrated and inadequate. Excitement in getting to work on a rare problem that, once diagnosed, has great outcomes. Dismissiveness and boredom with the same old, same old from patients who tend to be non compliant. Despair that they usually push away when they want to help and there’s no good solution. You’ll hear humanness that may touch your heart or may turn you off. Doctors attitudes and feelings run the gamut of human reactions.
Be prepared to melt with compassion or be shocked at the seedier side of medical practice. Also ask what’s missing in this drama. This will give you ideas for how an ideal or different medication could be served up to better solve the problem/better treat the condition.
There are lots of projective techniques you can use. IconiCards™ is one I love because it’s so quick to get to feelings and images, but there are many different approaches.
Remember, that the more creative you are willing to be in crafting interesting exercises for your study, the more depthful, intuitive and emotional will be the responses, EVEN and perhaps especially with physicians who enjoy the opportunity to recognize and liberate their whole and original selves.
Remember, that the more creative you are willing to be in crafting interesting exercises for your study, the more depthful, intuitive and emotional will be the responses, EVEN and perhaps especially with physicians who enjoy the opportunity to recognize and liberate their whole and original selves.
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