Understanding Self-Concept in Prehospital Care

Self-esteem has a huge impact on our ability to effectively communicate, ask for what we need and advocate for ourselves and others. This is especially important in patient care as Community Paramedics. As part of a patient-centred care approach, we need to be able to collaborate with allied agencies, the patient and their families/caregivers, and advocate for the best quality of life for our patient. How we communicate and interact with others impacts our self-esteem but our self-esteem also impacts how we communicate and interact with others.

Self-esteem is an individual's subjective view of their own strengths, weaknesses, abilities and limitations. We form our self-esteem by assessing our behaviours and actions such as how we interact with other individuals, how well we complete a task that's assigned to us or that we're responsible for, how hard we work and what we've accomplished as a result of our actions. 

Our abilities are natural or acquired talents and skills as well as how we put those talents or skills to use in order to accomplish something. Our limitations may also be natural (such as a physical limitation) or based on motivation. When thinking about self-esteem, it's about how we assess these abilities and limitations and how much we let them drive or restrict us. 

Sometimes our self-esteem fluctuates depending on what is going on in our life. When self-esteem is lower, it's important to have self-compassion. We all experience struggles and setbacks, sometimes despite our best efforts. Self-compassion involves being open to your own suffering and acknowledging it rather than disconnecting from it. By acknowledging it in a non-judgmental way, we are able to move forward to building back self-esteem. Using self-respect and mindfulness as well as stepping back from the situation before making a judgment on ourselves, we can have more self-compassion and ultimately move back into a healthier state.

Extroversion/Introversion

The extroversion/introversion scale is widely known as a way of defining an individual’s “personality”. There is a body of research that has found that an individual’s tendency toward extroversion or introversion is related to genetics. The traits of extroverts are talkative, dynamic and outgoing, whereas introverts are more likely to be quiet, shy and reserved. Extroversion and Introversion also has to do with how the individual recharges. Extroverts fill up by being around other people, whereas introverts fill up by having alone or quiet time. Extroverts tend to be perceived by others as intelligent, friendly and attractive and tend to have more interpersonal communication.

Approach and Avoidance Traits

Shyness, communication apprehension and willingness to communicate are communication dispositions known as Approach and Avoidance Traits. These traits determine the tendency of an individual to approach or avoid a situation that involves communication with others.

• Shyness is characterized by the discomfort in interacting with other individuals in social situations. This can be further broken down into Anxious Shyness and Self-Conscious Shyness. Anxious Shyness occurs when there is fear interacting with others face-to-face. This is usually caused by strangers, different environments or social roles, fear or judgement or fear of how an individual presents themselves. Self-Conscious Shyness occurs when the individual feels socially exposed with interacting with others face-to-face and is usually caused by low self-esteem, negative self-image, history of bullying or teasing, embarrassment.

  
  

• Communication Apprehension is characterized by the fear or anxiety involved in actually or anticipating communication with other individuals. This trait can be broken down into interpersonal, group, meeting and public communication apprehension.

  
  

• Willingness to Communicate involves looking at an individual’s tendency to initiate communication with other individuals. An individual’s “willingness to communicate” as it relates to this evaluation does not determine if the individual is able to have healthy, functional relationships. It is related to the initial communication approach.

Argumentative/ Verbal Aggressiveness

Verbal aggression is the tendency to attach the self-concept of an individual instead of a specific fact or topic. For example, if a paramedic believed they provided thorough patient care, an attack on their self-concept would mean demeaning their patient care decisions and care plan. Self-concept attacks can occur to a group of individuals, a personal failing or a relational failing. Argumentativeness is communication that is characterized by an individual taking a stand against another’s position through verbal attacks. It can be a constructive communication trait used for healthy conflict communication, whereas verbal aggression is not.

Rejection Sensitivity

Rejection sensitivity is how much an individual expects to be rejected, how quickly they perceive rejection and how intensely they experience an adverse reaction to rejection. Individuals who are highly sensitive to rejection expect that others will reject them. Usually this is based on past experiences which is why they believe rejection will happen readily. Individuals who are highly sensitive to rejection are more able to notice when they are being rejected. They also tend to react negatively when they believe they are being rejected which may result in them avoiding that individual or situation in the future.

*This post is an excerpt from a lesson in our leadership courses. Visit our library of prehospital leadership courses here and sign up for our e-mail list.