Psychological Safety | Emotional Intelligence EQ | Mental Health
Successful learners will be able to answer the following questions and immediately apply what they have learned in environments where psychological harms are occurring:
What is the difference between an environment that is Psychologically Safe and one that is Unsafe?
How is Psychological Safety related to unconditional acceptance and connection?
What physiological changes occur when a person feels physically or emotionally threatened?
How does Amygdala Hijack impact a person’s functioning and their communication?
How do we measure the cost of toxicity to an organization?
How does one transform a toxic environment into a healthy one?
This training provides learners with a thorough understanding of:
If someone’s attitude or behaviour is harmful, and they know that it’s harmful, why is it so hard for them to change? Is there something that we can do to make it easier to change?
Once you know and understand the real reason a person is resisting change, even if they don't know or understand it themselves, it becomes much easier to remove the impediments. This information is often readily available if you've learned how to access it.
Can you explain how two people can have an identical experience, yet react so differently; and why is this such a huge gift?
This module examines the reasons behind a person's reactions or responses. By understanding what drives these reactions, you can predict how they might respond in the future and adjust your interactions with them accordingly.
We associate bruising, bleeding and crying with physical pain. The signs are easy to see. What is a psychological/emotional/relational wound, and is there a simple way to recognize this form of wounding?
People are getting injured every day, and their ability to work and function are being compromised. However, because these psychological/emotional/relational wounds are less visible, there is little being done to prevent them, and there is insufficient understanding of how to cure them. After completing this module, you'll be able to identify these injuries, have the ability to prevent psychological injury, and gain a much clearer understanding of what is necessary for healing psychological wounds.
In 2024, I posited a fresh definition of Psychological Safety based on the way our nervous systems naturally respond to threats: “If one or more people in any environment are in a state of fight, flight, or freeze (as a response to something relational in that environment), AND THEY ARE NOT IN ANY KIND OF IMMINENT PHYSICAL DANGER, then they are PSYCHOLOGICALLY UNSAFE.”
Toxic work environments can be transformed into psychologically safe environments by training and encouraging leaders, managers, and employees to recognize their own, and their co-workers, reactivity when confronted with non-physical threats and to train them to respond in ways that de-escalate tension, stress, or conflict.
My work integrates wisdom, knowledge, and experiences from multi-year careers in mediation, education, B-Loops counselling, engineering, and sustainability.
This training will help businesses, group facilitators, people working in health and educational organizations, communities, and families.
What role does Shadow play in interpersonal dynamics and how do we harness the power of Shadow to increase safety?
People have been discussing the concept of Shadow for decades, but little is taught about the significant role Shadow plays in our day-to-day work life or how to harness its power.
This module will enable you to observe the Shadow in everyday experiences.
You’ll learn how to engage consciously with a person's Shadow (e.g., their suppressed inner tyrant, their suppressed pathological liar, or their disowned and hideous persona).
This approach allows you to address the Shadow’s presence directly, rather than being blindsided by its seemingly invisible influence.
Is there some way to protect ourselves when confronted with a psychological or non-physical threat?
While physical threats pose the risk of bodily harm and generally come from outside the person, psychological or non-physical threats might be elicited in response to a trigger outside a person, but the resulting harm is (generally) related to the way that stimulus is processed by the person’s nervous system. Being called a racist for example, is only harmful when someone’s nervous system objects to that characterization and initiates a defensive response. When the person does not feel antagonized when they’re called a racist, their nervous system maintains its regulated state. In this module you’ll have an opportunity to consider how you and the people you are working with can shift the way you reflexively respond to psychological and other non-physical threats.
Is there some way to connect:
1. What a person is doing
2. How they are feeling and
3. How they would prefer to be feeling
You’ll learn that all three are related and that all you need is information about one of them to infer the others. This can then be used to precipitate desired and desirable shifts in behaviour and can be used to achieve desired emotional outcomes like feeling less anxious or depressed.
Why does Shame play such an outsized role in interpersonal dynamics, and how can familiarity with shame-dynamics make workplaces, communities and families safer?
When Shame is well understood and mindfully employed, it contributes to an increase in psychological safety. However, when Shame is abused, it can lead to devastating outcomes. This module provides the opportunity to examine Shame and to cultivate a healthy and beneficial relationship with it.
How does an understanding of Judgement as projected-Shame contribute to the cultivation of safer environments?
If you were raised in a culture that encouraged members to avoid judging others, this module will challenge that assertion and could lead you to re-evaluate your relationship with Judgement. Before you judge it, take a closer look at the role that Judgement is playing and how it is related to Shame. A clear understanding of the distinction between Judgement and Projected Judgement will enhance communication and safety.
How does Psychological Safety contribute to reduced physical harm and to fewer accidents?
Applying what you've learned about the nervous system’s reaction to stress allows you to trace the impact that psychological stress has on physical safety.
As the relationships between psychological and physical safety become increasingly evident, the range of strategies available for preventing physical harm and accidents expands.
Far-reaching changes can be implemented with relative ease and at a very low cost.
Are you saying that environments become much safer when people in those environments are more aware of how their own sub-conscious behaviours and attitudes have inadvertently been contributing to the existing culture?
This module focuses on how to improve safety by working on what is happening inside a person, rather than outside. It looks at the way people relate why people trigger each other, and what we can do about it.
Why are relational boundaries so important and why is it so important for people to take full responsibility for their emotions, while relinquishing their perceived responsibility for the way that another person is feeling?
It's not uncommon to hear the expression, “You made me feel…,” but is it truly possible for one adult to make another feel a certain way, or is there another mechanism at play? Belonging to a workforce where employees take responsibility for their own emotions, and it is safe to do so, feels vastly different from a workplace where neither happens or is possible. This module introduces students to a more advanced level of psychological safety.
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