President's Message
Dear AGD Members,
I hope this message finds you all well! I want to thank you for all you do for dentistry, your community, and healthcare in general! It has been a stressful couple of months for everyone, but I hope you have had some time to reflect on your practice going forward.
I wanted to share some thoughts from a colleague who frequently does some deep dives in to why we do things the way we do them. I hope you find some value in this, and perhaps some information to use for your next new patient visit.
Thank you,
Joyce Hottenstein, DMD, FAGD
Planning and worrying both involve what is known as the Fronto-limbic system of the brain. The Fronto-limbic system represents the functional (or dysfunctional) interplay between neural circuity of the cognitive prefrontal cortex, and the brain's emotional response system, known as the limbic system.
Planning and worrying both involve the projection of ourselves into the future (envisioning) and then evaluating how we'll feel at that future point in time. In other words, future focusing is largely based on memories (thought constructions real or imagined) and their associated feelings.
Planning for a preferred future therefore is a matter of focusing on the positive benefits which will likely ensue as the outcome of certain intentional behaviors. Worrying on the other hand, is the process of focusing on negative feelings associated with our current behavior, the behavior of others, things we imagine might happen, or things we can't control.
When our patients become stuck in a "worry loop" with regard to their dental needs, they're often focused on all of the negative things which could happen to them during the process of treatment, while simultaneously remaining closed to thinking about all of the good things which could happen to them if they took a more assertive approach to resolving their problems. Thus, they self-generate fear associated with what might happen which then stops them in their tracks - they've paralyzed themselves by over-activating their limbic system.
Bob Barkley often spoke of future focusing, a phrase he learned from Ben Singer, a Harvard PhD who studied the psychology and behavior of children who were living in the slums of South Boston. Ben was curious as to why only a few of the kids (like himself) were able to make it out of the slums and go on to create a successful life. Out of Singer's studies came the phrase "slum mentality," a phrase referring to a person who couldn't imagine themselves living a different kind of life, or acting in any other way. Singer studied how the kids thought, and soon discovered that most of them had little to no capacity to think about anything beyond the current day or upcoming weekend, because they believed all future days would be the same regardless. When these children saw their friends die in gun battles, drug overdoses, or go on to prison - they largely ignored it, rationalized it, or romanticized it.
Bob Barkley said that many patients and dentists suffer from a version of "slum mentality" as well. He felt that the thought patterns of dentists and their patients was too often lacking in a focus toward a preferred future. Instead, their thinking was too fixated on the belief that what they were currently experiencing represented what they would be experiencing for all tomorrows, so why should they dwell too much on it, and why should they expend a lot of time, energy, and money trying to change things for the better?
All great and lasting accomplishments are the result of first future-focusing, then planning, then executing. In other words, they never evolve just out of random lack. Consequently, there's nothing random about the formation of a practice which is full of health-centered patients. In those cases, it all began with a vision of the dentist, then team, then shared in a missional fashion with their patients. Without this positive process driving everyday behavior, tomorrow will indeed look mostly just like today - or worse.
Paul A. Henry, DDS