title: Learning psychology as a challenging process towards development as well as "studies as usual": a thematic analysis of medical students' reflective writing.
abstract: Reflective writing in medical training has been shown to be most effective when combined with some form of personal meeting or dialog. During a course in medical psychology for medical students, reflective texts were followed up by an individual personal talk with a teacher from the course. Thematic analysis of the texts revealed four separate sub-themes: 1) the course has enabled me and the class to develop, which is good albeit arduous; 2) understanding myself is a resource in understanding people as well as knowing psychology; 3) the course provided me with new, purely intellectual skills as well as eye-openers; and 4) the receiving teacher is an integral part of my reflective writing. The main theme, capturing the students' writing process, concluded that students perceive the course as "Learning psychology as a challenging process towards development" as well as "studies as usual". Ethical, psychological, and pedagogical aspects are discussed in the paper.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Sciences, Division for Professional Development, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Olof
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Semb
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Niclas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kaiser
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Sciences, Division for Professional Development, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Sven-Olof
authors.initials: SO
authors.lastname: Andersson
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Sciences, Division for Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Elisabet
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sundbom
keywords: individual personal talks; medical education; reflective writing; self-knowledge; thematic analysis