Good listening is healing: A remedy for healthcare burnout during the COVID era with Frankie Abralind

What do family doctors and listener poets have in common? The ability to connect with people through good listening. When we listen well, we can build trust quickly, allowing others to speak more openly and with more authentic honesty. Sometimes, as we learned at our recent New Horizons event, “the listening is the gift”.

On June 17, Frankie Abralind, co-founder and executive director of The Good Listening Project (TGLP), discussed the importance of good listening and his experience of creating custom poetry through radical acts of listening, with host DFCM Chair Dr. Danielle Martin.

“There’s a difference between listening and just being quiet when someone is talking. Good listening is intentional and is a skill that can be learned,” Abralind says.

But it can be hard to practice good listening – especially when you are struggling to stay connected to the joy in your work.

“When you’re burnt out, you may feel that it’s a professional weakness and you’re broken – when that’s not true. It’s actually the system creating these effects you’re feeling. It’s a systemic problem in healthcare,” says Abralind.

The Good Listening Project lends a listening ear to support healthcare workers through listener poet sessions. In these sessions, listener poets like Abralind hold space for people to speak, and then write a poem for them.

“Good listening is healing. The quality of your listening determines the quality of their speaking,” explains Abralind. “The poetry is not the gift we give them. The listening is the gift. After, they will feel more human – and be more human.”

This was our second New Horizons session. The purpose of New Horizons is to open our department up to a broad community of scholars, artists, activists and thinkers who can challenge us to imagine an exciting future for our department and our discipline.

Missed the session? Find the recording and additional resources below from the 2^nd session of New Horizons with Frankie Abralind.

Watch now >>

Resources mentioned during the session

• Meryl McMaster is the artist of the background image in the speaker series graphics. The specific artwork is called Lead Me to Places I Could Never Find on My Own II from the series As Immense as the Sky (used with permission). View it and other works by visiting her website.
• A book recommended by Frankie Abralind, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, by Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski.

More from the New Horizons series

• Catch up and watch the 1^st session, Dr. Martin’s conversation with Dr. Sandro Galea, physician, epidemiologist and Dean at Boston University School of Public Health, who discussed the foundational forces shaping health in our society and what this could mean for primary care and family medicine, which also included a Q&A at the end. The New Horizons series was launched as part of the DFCM Conference in May.
• Visit the main New Horizons page to learn more and keep up to date about the next speakers in the fall, including:
  • Professor Michelle Murphy, Environmental and Data Justice Scholar
  • Dr. Beth Coleman, Smart Technology, Critical Race Theory & Civic Engagement Specialist
• Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when registration for sessions open and more speakers are announced!