Emotional Intelligence for the Doula
By understanding your emotions, you can move adeptly through your current challenges and prevent future ones.
Source: How Emotional Intelligence Can Boost Your Career — And Save Your Life
The above statement is why we teach Emotional Intelligence here at International Doula Institute to all of our new doulas.
“Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack.”
It’s one of many pieces of what sets IDI doulas apart from the rest. Emotional Intelligence for the doula is so important to allow us to have a better understanding of ourselves, our motivations, behavior and most important, love and empathy for our clients and improvement of our ability to connect with our clients.
By teaching emotional intelligence to our doulas, they are able to have improved thinking skills, improved personal effectiveness, better self-management, better professional relationships and improved leadership capability. These are such important pieces of being a great doula, gaining the trust of our clients so that we can most effectively educate them on the things they want to learn from their doula to become better parents as they grow into their own roles in the family.
We teach emotional intelligence to our students to harness the great power of emotional intelligence to improve their doula work tremendously and become leaders in their doula communities.
Author: Aliza Juliette Bancoff
Aliza Juliette Bancoff is a well-known doula and doula trainer who has been providing doula services to families for over a decade. She is the founder of Main Line Doulas, a doula group providing doula support in the great Philadelphia area for the last decade, the International Doula Institute, which provides online doula training and lactation training and certification programs and the International Breastfeeding Institute which provides lactation training and certification. She is the co-founder of United Birth, a company devoted to increasing access to doulas across the country to make the perinatal time safer both physically and emotionally. “Every birthing person deserves access to quality doula support. And we are working to make that a reality across the country. The work we are doing to get doulas to every birthing person will decrease the black infant and maternal mortality rate significantly by 2030.” Says Bancoff. Aliza is known for her compassionate and empowering approach to doula work, and she has been featured in numerous media outlets, including United Nations Maternal Health Report, Parent Magazine, CafeMom, theBump and many more. Aliza's journey into doula work began when she gave birth to her first child and felt a strong calling...