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Humanizing the Working Environment in Health Care Through Music and Movement

The Importance of Embodied Leadership

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Music and Public Health

Abstract

In the workplaces of our health-care institutions today, stress and burnout are common issues and pressing ones to be addressed by organizational leaders. The chapter considers how the development of empathy can help to contribute to dealing with this complex issue by easing not simply the symptoms of stress and burnout but addressing one of the causes of it. Drawing on theories of mirroring, emotional brain and embodiment, I examine how the combination of music and movement facilitates access to the emotions of others and helps us to better understand their experiences. I also discuss how the training of empathy can be introduced into health care through programmes of cultural activities that facilitate an exploration of how the body can be used to increase awareness of one’s own emotions and those of others. This work contributes to the growing body of evidence for how artistic programmes offer value to health care. By promoting greater empathy as a practice of embodied leadership within the organization, we seek to contribute to the creation of a working environment that is “humanized” through a culture of care.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Social Sustainability, CSS, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Eva Bojner Horwitz

  2. Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Eva Bojner Horwitz

  3. Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Eva Bojner Horwitz

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  1. Eva Bojner Horwitz
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Correspondence to Eva Bojner Horwitz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of communication and psychology, Center for Research in Music and Health, The Norwegian Academy of Music, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Lars Ole Bonde

  2. Karolinska Institute, Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Töres Theorell

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Horwitz, E.B. (2018). Humanizing the Working Environment in Health Care Through Music and Movement. In: Bonde, L., Theorell, T. (eds) Music and Public Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76240-1_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76240-1_12

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76240-1

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