# “I felt like a little kind of jolt of energy in my chest”: embodiment in learning in continuing professional development for general practitioners

## TL;DR

This study explores how general practitioners experience learning during professional development, emphasizing the role of the body, emotions, and environment in shaping their learning processes.

## Contribution

The paper introduces an explanatory structure of embodiment in learning for GPs, integrating concepts like embodied affectivity and mutual incorporation.

## Key findings

- An eight-component learning phase was identified, all showing features of embodied affectivity and mutual incorporation.
- Learning experiences were influenced by entrance points like disharmony and mundanity, and exit points like harmony and imbalance.
- The study suggests that integrating embodiment into learning theories can enhance continuing professional development for GPs.

## Abstract

Learning in medical education encompasses a broad spectrum of learning theories, and an embodiment perspective has recently begun to emerge in continuing professional development (CPD) for health professionals. However, empirical research into the experience of embodiment in learning in CPD is sparse, particularly in the practice of general medicine. In this study, we aimed to explore general practitioners’ (GPs’) learning experiences during CPD from an embodiment perspective, studying the appearance of elements of embodiment—the body, actions, emotions, cognition, and interactions with the surroundings and others—to build an explanatory structure of embodiment in learning. We drew on the concepts of embodied affectivity and mutual incorporation to frame our understanding of embodiment. Four Danish and three Canadian GPs were interviewed to gain insight into specific learning experiences; the interviews and the analysis were inspired by micro-phenomenology, augmented with a complex adaptive systems approach. We constructed an explanatory structure of learning with two entrance points (disharmony and mundanity), an eight-component learning phase, and an ending phase with two exit points (harmony and continuing imbalance). All components of the learning phase—community, pride, validation, rehearsal, do-ability, mind-space, ambiance, and preparing for the future—shared features of embodied affectivity and mutual incorporation and interacted in multi-directional and non-linear ways. We discuss integrating the embodiment perspective into existing learning theories and argue that CPD for GPs would benefit from doing so.