A Journey Within: How to Boost Imagination & Well-Being in Medical Education, Sheila Pontis, BA, PGDip, MPhil, PhD, FHEA, RYT230 (3 hr)
Workshop Description
This three-hour workshop explores the connection between imagination and happiness and trains health-related professionals in both the deliberate use of imaginative thinking in everyday life and the strengthening of inner discovery and emotional well-being. The goal is for attendees to walk away feeling hopeful and empowered, and with the tools and techniques to integrate and foster imagination skills in their practice.
Imagination has immense benefits for our mental and physical health, personal growth, and emotions. However, despite everyone having the ability to form mental representations of things, situations, or concepts that are not present to the senses, internal and external factors visibly hinder our imaginative behaviors. On the one hand, we are increasingly feeling anxious, more lonely and unhappy. Pervasive pessimism and hopelessness about the future contribute to this mental state. On the other hand, culture, social constructs, and education systems reward those who follow the norms, while judge those who think differently. As a result, our imagination has become constrained and underdeveloped, with most ideas being permutations of what we have already seen, known, and done. We struggle to imagine positive paths forward, a better life, or think about problems differently from what we know. In this context, integrating imagination training (rooted in inner discovery) in health practices can increase optimism, happiness, and the quality of social connections, as well as provide the tools to think more positively about the future.
Sitting at the intersection of psychology and well-being, this workshop will explore imagination as a mindset and skill that can be taught, developed, and improved by first journeying inwards. Attendees will engage in theoretical exploration and review results from latest research to enhance their understanding of imagination as a key component of emotional well-being. The practice of interactive, fun techniques rooted in mindfulness, serious play, positive psychology, and creativity literature will give them an opportunity to experience the positive effects of imaginative thinking and gain confidence imagining individually and collaboratively. The goal is for attendees to walk away with the tools to integrate and foster imagination skills in their practice.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
Explain imagination as a mindset and its role in emotional well-being.
Identify common barriers to imagination and strategies to overcome them.
Apply mindfulness and playful interventions to cultivate inner-discovery and deliberate imagination in themselves and others (patients, colleagues, etc.).
Develop strategies for integrating imagination-boosting techniques into daily practice.
The workshop is an interactive session combining theory, research studies, discussion, hands-on activities, and reflection.
Materials required large-size paper, colored markers and pens, sticky notes, other office supplies or blocks will be needed for the session.
FORMAT: Workshop with PowerPoint presentation
EVALUATION: Standard Evaluation Form
Sheila Pontis, PhD is an interdisciplinary researcher, educator, and practitioner whose work sits at the crossroads of imagination, design, and human flourishing. Originally trained as a graphic designer in Buenos Aires and holding a PhD in Information Design from the University of the Arts London, she has spent over two decades exploring how people think, learn, and create — and how those capacities can be deliberately cultivated.
She has held faculty positions at MIT, Princeton University, and Northeastern University, where she designed and taught courses on creativity, imagination, well-being, and human-centered research. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in the belief that imagination is not a talent reserved for artists — it is a fundamental human capacity that can be nurtured in anyone.
Sheila's recent work bridges positive psychology, behavioral science, and design education. She has completed advanced training at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Yale's Science of Well-Being program. She is also a certified yoga teacher and brings somatic and mindful practices into her work with learners and organizations.
As founder of Imagination for Human Flourishing, she develops workshops, courses, and research that empower individuals and communities to harness their imaginative abilities — to dream, to play, and to address life's challenges more creatively. Her work asks a simple but radical question: What becomes possible when we take imagination seriously?