Chapter 3: Mentors’ Use of Interventions to Promote Wellbeing

More needs to be known about intervention strategies that mentors incorporate into their practices to promote wellbeing of their mentees in various fields. This chapter reports on a qualitative pilot study conducted with seven experienced mentors from education, health, psychology, engineering, and business. The conceptual framework was based on the measurable indicators of wellbeing identified in the literature—positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. One research question requested mentors’ use of interventions to promote their client and colleague mentees’ wellbeing in their professional practice. Findings revealed that mentors incorporated theories of human growth and development, hierarchy of needs, attachment, positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, and awareness integration theories that support the use of interventions for mentees’ wellbeing. Studies exploring mentors’ creative processes in developing, teaching, and evaluating the benefit of interventions to promote wellbeing are recommended.