Music-Enhanced Emotion (Re)construction (MEER!): An innovative training enriched with participatory live music

Background and need for innovation: In healthcare, emotions are traditionally avoided as they might cloud clinical judgement. However, ignoring emotions may lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout, jeopardising quality of care. More attention to emotions is needed to support healthcare professionals’ wellbeing and vitality, especially given the high rates of emotional exhaustion and burnout among them and factors like workforce shortages, an ageing population and increasing workload demands. <br/>Goal of innovation: The training aims to support healthcare professionals’ wellbeing and vitality and help prevent emotional exhaustion and burnout. <br/>Steps taken for development and implementation of innovation: The training is grounded in the theory of constructed emotion, incorporates an evidence-informed pedagogical approach, and uses participatory live music to teach healthy emotion construction. Based on the theory, we refer to this process as ‘emotion construction' rather than ‘emotion regulation'. The training includes theoretical background, six exercises following a gradual build-up towards (re)constructing emotions, and homework assignments.<br/>Evaluation of innovation: Preliminary findings support music's ability to evoke distinct memories, bodily sensations, feelings, and emotions, corroborating its intended function. Eliciting personal memories with specific emotions through music supports the theory of constructed emotion and justifies its use in the training. First training evaluations included descriptions like enlightening, inspiring and empowering.<br/>Critical reflection: The training programme shows a clear build-up and alignment with the theory, while incorporating evidence-informed pedagogical steps seamlessly. Implementation challenges include obtaining funding and, due to time constraints of the target groups, implementing the full training, which we mitigated by developing variations.