Elles Bindels works as a trainer/coach for medical professionals in the field of peer support, resilience and psychological safety in the care sector and provides together with Boris Nauta at Equanimity the Nonviolent Communication training for (para)medical professionals.
As a doctor, having spent five years training to become a specialist, I have experienced many situations where the adage was simply to ‘develop a thicker skin’. I, on the other hand, wanted to keep my soul a little more supple! Trainers and supervisors served as role models to varying degrees in this regard. The idea of ‘teach what you want to learn most’ is what led me to do what I do now. A key motivation for starting my own business in 2019 was my desire to make a constructive contribution to creating a learning-oriented working environment in the healthcare sector. After 18 years, I gave up my BIG registration and am now working full-time as a coach, trainer and organisational consultant in the medical sector. It’s a career change that allows all my experiences and my desire to contribute to growth and development to come into their own.
Peer support: support from colleagues
Having gone through an incident and disciplinary proceedings, I know how challenging it is to stay out of the dynamics of shaming and blaming. Patients do it to doctors, and doctors do it just as subversive towards one another. And that even though you have this moments you actually need support from your colleagues. That is why I train medical professionals on how they can, in a hospital or a care setting, after an impactful and fulfilling work experience adequate support, Peer Support, can provide to colleagues and I provide I training courses on Psychological Safety to managers. We provide them with practical guidance on how to actually put this into practice a69> work within their organisation.
From ideal and effortless to realistic and courageous
Truly learning from what unfolds—even when things do not go as desired—requires a sense of reality and courage. In my view, it helps to puncture our illusions regarding malleability and predictability, and to consider the influence of context as well. We must also look at perverse incentives within our healthcare system and how they shape the actions of us professionals. We may find ourselves stuck in survival mode and reactive patterns more often than we would like, while many healthcare professionals yearn for a responsive mode—the very reason most of us chose this profession in the first place. Moral distress is a logical, yet often overlooked, cause of burnout and staff attrition. This results in a great deal of unnecessary loss.
My company is called ‘Vanuit Bewustzijn in Beweging’ (Moving from Awareness). After all, if we know how to shift from denial to acknowledgment, we can then take steps that are more responsive and aligned with our values. Through my coaching, podcasts and interviews, and training sessions for doctors, allied health professionals, and various types of leaders in hospitals and general practices, I have gained a rich, multi-dimensional understanding of the experiences shared by myself and our colleagues. This enormously enriches both my current role within the Leadership & Organizational Development team at Amsterdam UMC and my work as a wonderfully (quasi-)autonomous independent professional! For together, we have so much beauty and good to offer—and each of us longs for healing and growth, in one way or another.
Psychological well-being and resilience in the healthcare sector
Wherever healthcare professionals wish to contribute to people’s health, being open to one another’s perspectives and experiences is essential. We need one another to achieve this. It requires us to take responsibility for our relationships. The two-day training course on Non-Violent Communication for (para)medical professionals, which I now run together with Boris Nauta from Equanimity, teaches you how empathic listening and (self-)compassion form the basis for this.
The work of Richta Ijntema, who wrote her PhD thesis on the dynamic process of resilience, ties in well with this. She talks about psychological immunity and psychological elasticity. The meaning we attach to our experiences, and to the stressors we encounter, appears to be crucial to strengthening resilience. In my coaching for doctors seeking a career change, I incorporate an understanding of this dynamic resilience process and support doctors with a wealth of experience as they reorient their careers.
All training courses that I have developed, are all about working together on Resilience and Psychological Safety promoting and are accredited by the KNMG and award ABAN/PE points.
Would you like to know more? The full range from Elles can be found on From Awareness in Movement, and on the page Nonviolent Communication for (para)medical professionals.