Conference Proceeding
Tracey Hunter
Abstract
The purpose of this workshop is to introduce the six “Wellbeing Codes”, which when activated, provide a solid foundation for emotional health and wellbeing. Cultivating one’s own sense of wellbeing and robust mental health is often overlooked in the helping field, attracting many professionals who are both high achievers and tend to make great sacrifices to their own time and energy in their plight to help others. The Wellbeing Codes are 6 positive psychological templates based on the Schema Therapy model, which is a psychotherapy model that outlines healing pathways for 18 negative schemas that can develop when core emotional needs in childhood are not consistently met (Young, 2006). The six Wellbeing Codes are: i) Connection, ii) Confidence, iii) Optimism, iv) Self appreciation, v) Fairness, and vi) Self discipline. We have developed a 5-step process for activating these six “Codes”, using the latest developments in cognitive, experiential, and behavioural methods. The techniques we draw from are supported by recent developments in interpersonal neurobiology and rewiring the brain, as well as tapping, imagery rescripting and rewriting narratives. The Wellbeing Codes provides a structured approach that outlines evidence-based pathways towards these six “psychological programs”, facilitating more conscious awareness of the internal and external resources available to us as adults that were not readily available in childhood. Mental health professionals who prioritise self-reflective work are better positioned to avoid burnout, compassion fatigue and chronic stress, and more able to cultivate a life for themselves that involves balance and contentment (McCormack et al., 2018).