Health is wisely sharing vulnerability.

Abstract

Papers in this (8.3) Issue of LJPC continue the theme of improving mental health – this time helping clinicians to be mentally healthy. How can we expect GPs and other primary care practitioners to remain open and empathetic, when so many things threaten our inner balance? How can I expect myself to do this? The papers are challenging at a very human level. They invite each of us to become more skilled at coming out of our shells and wisely exposing things we prefer to keep hidden – our vulnerabilities. This is not so easy because the fear of being injured when I expose a vulnerability is a real fear. There are plenty of people who are ready to pounce on exposed weakness. And then I have to handle my own self-doubt – anxiety that I might expose the cobwebs in the murkier parts of my mind; or that I might expose to myself that I am not my own person, but trapped in a story forced on me by others; or inhabiting a story that I have wilfully adopted without taking responsibility for my actions. It was Karl Weick who described leadership as ‘the legitimisation of doubt’.[1] It is not knowing everything that marks out a great leader, but knowing when to admit that you don’t know what to do, and then work through this uncertainty to a better place. Often, sharing uncertainty with others helps people to find good collaborative ways forward; and along the way develop trusted relationships that bind them together as a community of friends and followers who will protect each other against those who want to seize the opportunity of someone’s vulnerability to cause them harm. Showing vulnerability may at times be valuable, but it does need to be done wisely – in an invited and reciprocal way that harmonises with what others are doing. Making yourself vulnerable can be counter-productive – it makes you open to attack, and simply ‘bleeding all over the place’ is indulgent and portrays you as a victim. One thing is clear – you can’t understand vulnerability by imagining that people are simple machines. A broken heart cannot be fixed in the way a broken car tyre can be. Changing from being someone who hides their vulnerability to one who values it and uses it wisely is an internal transformation that is inevitably painful – too difficult for many to contemplate. This kind of transformation develops a new sense of who you are – someone who harmonises more than controls. The idea that harmonising is more important than control for good mental health has been explored in LJPC before. In LJPC 8.2 Hallam presented evidence that music helps people to reach out to others, and in doing this improve their mental health.[2] Her previous research revealed the beneficial effects of music on the child’s growing brain.[3] Her LJPC paper presented new evidence that music helps people over the age of 50 to improve their mental health, including: