Being Critically Reflective

Engaging in Holistic Practice

Fiona Gardner

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781350313217
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Sozialarbeit

Many students and practitioners are familiar with critical reflection but struggle to make space for it in their everyday practice. This book provides an accessible and practical introduction not only to doing critical reflection, but to being critically reflective. - It demonstrates how reflective capacity can be developed in different practice contexts and applied productively to supervision, teamwork and interprofessional working. - It outlines the different theoretical underpinnings and methods of critical reflection, exploring the use of visual images, writing techniques and group meetings. - It is rich with engaging case studies and questions for the reader that will help them to make critical reflection an integral part of their everyday practice.
This book is an ideal guide to dealing with challenge and change across a range of social and healthcare services, including social work, nursing, youth and community work, counselling and allied healthcare professions.

PART
I

Introducing Critical Reflection Theory and Processes

1

What is Critical Reflection?

My intention in this chapter is to outline briefly the range of current ideas or perspectives about critical reflection and reflective practice with the aim of clarifying the differences between these. In the second part of the chapter I will define how I am using critical reflection in this book, explore principles that I see as connected to being critically reflective and identify the culture of critical reflection that is the background to the examples used here.

I am conscious that interest in including reflection or critical reflection in practice has grown significantly in recent years. Professional accrediting bodies across health, human services and education now generally expect some form of reflective practice in the curriculum. Some professions, like social work (Morley, 2008; Noble and Irwin, 2009) and nursing (Johns and Freshwater, 2005; Crowe and O’Malley, 2006) have a long history of interest in being reflective; others such as allied health professions including physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy now also include reflective practice as an integral aspect of professional development (Delaney and Watkin, 2009; Cohn, Schell and Crepacu, 2010; Vachon, Durand and LeBlanc, 2010). Much current writing explores the use of reflective practice across disciplines (Fronek et al., 2009; Rolfe, Jasper and Freshwater, 2011; Oelofsen, 2012) but also in specific fields of practice such as mental health (Webber and Nathan, 2010), early childhood education (Reed and Canning, 2010), rehabilitation (Vachon, Durand and LeBlanc, 2010) working with older people (Hughes and Heycox, 2005) and in counselling (Bager-Charleson, 2010) and management (Reynolds and Vince, 2004).

Why the increased interest in reflective practice?

So why is there an increased interest in being reflective or in including reflection in practice? In the workshops Jan Fook and I have run practitioners generally experienced critical reflection as a way of developing a more complex understanding of practice that is helpful in an increasingly multi-faceted and uncertain environment (Fook and Askeland, 2006). I find that professionals in workshops often talk about the pressures of a busy and challenging workplace, where there is little time or opportunity to stop and think, to process, to be aware of the influence of their own feelings, values and assumptions. This combined with the challenges of working with an increasingly diverse population reinforces their questions of how to work with integrity as well as how to be a high-quality and effective worker. Some would say that their impetus to be reflective is also influenced by feeling ‘stuck’ or challenged by situations that present moral or ethical dilemmas (Laabs, 2011). Similarly, Lam, Wong and Leung (2007) found that ‘disturbing events’ were catalysts in generating critical reflection processes for social work students.

Different approaches to critical reflection and reflective practice

What people mean by reflective practice varies considerably and this is reflected in the sometimes bewildering range of writing about critical reflection, reflection, reflective practice and reflexivity. It is important to notice that writers about critical reflection and reflective practice often use the same language to talk about different things or different language to talk about the same things (Fook, White and Gardner, 2006). This partly relates to how the writer positions their different professional perspectives and theoretical preferences as well as their varied experiences of being reflective in practice and research. As a developing field, ideas about what works are still being tested, and there is clearly a need for more research about the effectiveness of different approaches. It is important then, when you are reading about reflection, to seek clarity, at the outset, about what the writer specifically means. Some writers see reflective practice and reflexivity as essentially the same; some include critical reflection in reflective practice, while others would see critical reflection as distinct from reflective practice. Redmond (2004) has a helpful diagram and explanatory chapter tracing major theorists and development of ideas about reflection over time. Fook, White and Gardner (2006) review contemporary literature and current approaches and Fook, (2013) reviews concepts.

A key distinction to understand clearly is the difference between reflection/reflective practice and critical reflection. Schön (1983), who is generally seen as key in the development of reflective practice, was primarily interested in professional practice and how and why it worked. The aim of reflection, for him, was to encourage practitioners to ‘surface and criticize the tacit understandings that have grown up around the repetitive experiences of a specialized practice’ (p. 61). Such questioning of what is ‘taken for granted’ means the practitioner becomes ‘a researcher in the practice context’ (Schön, 1983, p. 68) moving from reflecting on actions after they have happened to reflecting in action – incorporating the ability to reflect during practice. Schön with Argyris also developed the idea of single and double loop learning in order to illustrate the difference between simply changing actions in response to feedback (single loop) and changing the underlying assumptions or theories that led to the action (double loop) (Argyris and Schön, 1996).

Many writers have used Schön’s ideas to build on or to explore more specifically how practitioners can become reflective from their own perspective. Freshwater (2011b, p. 106) from a nursing perspective, for example, sees reflection as a ‘cyclic thought process’, which she links to clinical supervision: with reflective practice as a ‘way of being that comes from the relationship between reflection and clinical supervision’, which helps individuals access their ways of knowing that ‘are always just below the surface’. This idea of a cyclic process has been used by a variety of other writers and has similarities to an action research cycle –reinforcing Schön’s view of the practitioner researching their practice. I have also found that many people relate well to Kolb’s cycle, which has been particularly influential with the four stages of learning (concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation) linked to preferred styles of learning (Kolb and Kolb, 2005). In theory, reflection can start at any point in the cycle, with a focus on experience and changed reactions as a result of the reflection. Although this cycle has been criticized for not recognizing cultural influences and for not doing ‘justice to the complexity of human learning’ (Jarvis, 2012, p. 77), it continues to be widely used.

Learning from experience

Implicit in this view of reflection is that it relates to learning from experience. Dewey (1934) is seen as the person who initially articulated the value of learning from personal experience, which is now firmly embedded in thinking about how people learn both as students and practitioners. How experience is defined here varies including learning from activities that are part of work or life: learning from specific activities in organizations, as part of more formal study or workshops, or learning from other people’s experiences. Of course these are not mutually exclusive. I find that in workshops people often learn from hearing about each other’s experiences as much as processing their own; some make comments like I can’t believe that we have had such a similar experience, but I never thought of seeing it in the way you have. Some writers focus directly on the influence of organizations on reflection and learning. Cressey, Boud and Docherty (2006), for example, suggest the need for ‘productive’ reflection where organizations create opportunities in the workplace for learning and reflection on that learning for individuals, work groups and the organization more broadly. Others point out the importance of not forgetting the physicality of experience, that experience is embodied or experienced through the senses at a particular time in a specific cultural context (Jarvis, 2012). Stedmon and Dallos (2009, p.15) put this very well suggesting that learning from experience ‘involves the whole person including thoughts, feelings and senses and … that learning in this way is a holistic process and that the process of learning is influenced by the social and emotional context in which it occurs’.

The existence of stages in reflective practice

There is also a group of writers interested in how the capacity to reflect on experience changes over time, suggesting a series of stages, which may or may not be sequential. A reasonably typical example of this that can be used to other contexts is Tan and colleagues’ (2010) four stages for assessing how student teachers self-reflect on teaching: (1) pre-reflection (interpretation of classroom situations without consideration of other events or circumstances); (2) surface reflection (considerations of teaching confined to tactical issues concerning ways to achieve predefined objectives and standards); (3) pedagogical reflection (teacher considers how practices are affecting students’ learning and how improvements can be incorporated); and (4) critical reflection (ongoing reflection and critical inquiry on teaching taking into consideration philosophy and ideology). However, they found that only 2 percent of students reflected critically, with 67 percent being pedagogical reflectors. This reinforces that for many practitioners it is important to learn how to become reflective and that reflection will be stimulated in varying ways over time.

This is congruent with Fowler (1981), writing about the stages of spiritual formation. He links a greater capacity to be critically reflective with increasingly complex understandings of the spiritual journey, partly but not wholly related to age and development across the life span. Trelfa (2005) supports this link and suggests stages of spiritual formation have useful parallels to stages of development as a practitioner with learning to be reflective and increasingly aware of self and social context. Carroll’s (2010) six level model of reflection also links changed capacity for reflection with exploring meaning at deeper levels. His levels move from ‘zero reflection’ through empathic, relational, systemic, self and transcendent, with this final level being ‘the reflective stance that sees ‘beyond’ to what makes meaning and gives meaning to life. … For many, this can be a religious or spiritual stance that reflects a philosophy or a system of meaning that already exists (e.g. Christianity, Judaism), or one that I create (my philosophy of life) (Carroll, 2010, p. 26). However, like Carroll, most writers emphasize that people do not necessarily work through these stages or levels sequentially. My view on this is that the idea of the stages can be helpful in identifying different ways that people reflect and that these may tend to happen for some people more at particular times of their working lives than others. However, my experience is that the development of reflective capacity is not linear or mutually exclusive. This is reinforced by Hickson (2013) who found from interviews with social work practitioners that rather than thinking about a continuum of reflection, it was more helpful to think about different kinds of reflection. She uses a helpful metaphor of ponds to explore how differently people reflect, but also how people may reflect differently at different times depending on the particular issue and context. Using this metaphor allows for seeing reflection at different levels of depth and connectedness, in different contexts and times, with different people and initiated by varying kinds of events.

Thinking holistically

There are also differences in focus, partly depending on how holistic the approach is, for example, writers are more or less accepting of the place of emotion and the interaction between the personal and the professional. Rolfe (2011a, p. 15) for example, emphasizes that critical reflection focuses on ‘the transformation of the way that practitioners view the world and their place in it … what we do rather than who we are’. He is somewhat critical of what he sees as Johns’ inclusion of personal learning and development; Johns (2005a) expresses concern about the increasing dominance of a rational approach to critical reflection, rather than ‘reflection as a mindful, holistic and intuitive lens to view self’ that offers a ‘way of paying attention, of opening the doors of perception’ (Johns, 2005b, p. 7). He goes on to say that ‘[w]e may thus become mindful of each unfolding experience in such a way as to enable us to learn from that experience and move towards realizing more desirable and satisfactory lives’ (Johns, 2005b, p. 11). Johns, like others (Mezirow, 2000; Sawn and Bailey, 2004) affirm the centrality of the emotional in critical reflection: recognizing and engaging with feelings that arise from the experiences being reflected on as well as the process itself. Certainly my experience of the critically reflective process is that it is vital that people recognize and engage with their emotional reactions.

Sawn and Bailey (2004) usefully point out that emotions arise in many ways and can both generate reflection and be generated by reflection. They suggest there is a danger of critical reflection being seen as a way of managing and controlling emotions in organizations rather than as a source of organizational as well as individual change. Armstrong and Huffington (2004, p. 3) also support the need for organizational understanding and suggest the value of a shift from seeing emotions as disturbing, ‘to understanding the emotional undertow of people’s experience in organizational life as a source of intelligence into the challenges and dilemmas they are facing’.

Different meanings of ‘reflexivity’ and ‘critical’

Understanding what is meant by reflexivity also varies. For Rolfe, this connects with action: reflexivity then is questioning what is impeding or encouraging action. ‘[I]f the practitioner who reflects on action is reflective, then the one who reflects in action is a reflexive practitioner … reflection-in-action can be seen as a form of practical experimentation or action research’ (Rolfe, 2011b, p. 163). Stedmon and Dallos (2009, p. 4) have a related view, using ‘personal reflection to refer to the spontaneous and immediate act of reflecting in the moment … to describe reflection in action … In contrast, we use personal reflexivity to refer to the act of looking back over, reflecting on action’. This is a somewhat different emphasis to Freshwater’s (2011a, pp. 185–6), who says:

from a critical standpoint, reflexivity involves researchers locating themselves within political and social positions, so that they remain mindful of the problematic nature of knowledge and power inherent in human relationships and organizations (Freshwater and Rolfe, 2001). Critical reflexivity draws...