The Art of Reflective Practice
Reflective practice gives you a continuous cycle of improvement as you look at how experiences and interactions played out and what needs to be done to improve them going forward. It helps you ensure you are staying and working withing the standards set by your given body of quality and ethics such as EMCC or the ICF, for coaches.
Reflective practice allows you to see areas for improvement or development and it can also allow you to see when you are becoming “burned out”. Areas of development you identify can be addressed by training, internet resources, liaising with colleagues and management. The reading of books, journals, official guidance documents and legislation are also ways to address areas of development.
It could be argued that there has never been a greater need for coaches and workers in mental health services to engage in reflective practice to improve their understanding of themselves and their practice, so they can take better care of themselves and their clients or patients.
Reflective practice has been described as the process of “learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice”, often by “examining assumptions of everyday practice” (Finlay, 2008). Reflective practice explicitly considers the emotional effect coaches and clients have on each other, and what practitioners can learn from their thoughts and feelings. Instead of being denied or discounted, their thoughts and feelings are valued and examined carefully and with interest, to gain new insights to inform future work.
In daily work coach and coaches might want to hide their feelings of uncertainty and unease. However, in reflective practice uncertainty is not something to be avoided or suppressed but takes centre stage. Learning to tolerate the “not knowing”, and the anxiety this evokes, allows practitioners to reach an authentic place, in which they acknowledge there are often no right or wrong answers.
Reflective practice should include the persons own language, their own words, exactly how the experience was. It is the individuals own journal, not for sharing and should therefore allow for full expression. They can:
Take responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
Think how these impact on their work.
Think what changes they might make.
The reflective process involves people openly looking at and challenging themselves and increasing their self-awareness. This may feel uncomfortable at first, but the insights it gives can help people make sense of confusing and challenging situations and find better ways to respond. They can view their responses with greater compassion and recognise when they need extra support.
Reflective practice permits involvement of the whole person in their work, rather than separating out acceptable and nonacceptable feelings. This helps coaches fully engage with their work which, as well as increasing their interest and motivation, improves their care of clients. Giving them the opportunity to look more closely at themselves in a safe and nurturing environment allows them to become more present for their patients and more able to respond effectively to individual needs.
Most people will think of reflective practice and its association with critical incidents or interactions with others. The reflection on the incident, the influencing factors, how it could have been dealt with better, the learning experience and a description of the experience. These are based on Johns model of reflection, however, there are other opportunities for reflective practice. It is used extensively in coaching, as a continuous improvement tool.
It can be difficult to find opportunities for shared reflective practice in a busy workplace. Of course, there are some obvious ones, such as appraisal interviews, or reviews of events, but they don’t happen every day. So, you need to find other ways of putting insights into words.
It can be used as part of the training opportunities, in open coaching-based training sessions, people will often share their experiences and they become a learning tool for all involved. Long term staff with a huge range of experience will tell of experiences and this will allow younger, newer workers to pick up new skills and behaviours. Starting out your carer using reflective practice is vital and gives for a richer version of the experiences when you pass them on at a training level. Although it can feel a bit contrived, it can be helpful, especially at first, to keep a journal of learning experiences. This is not about documenting formal courses, but about taking everyday activities and events, and writing down what happened, then reflecting on them to consider what you have learned from them, and what you could or should have done differently. It’s not just about changing: a learning journal and reflective practice can also highlight when you’ve done something well.
Best practice is seen as the way that works best and should be followed by all. Reflective practice allows the individuals to see how they have followed or drifted from best practice and therefore may need professional development training or a change in attitude or staff culture. This is particularly true of new skills, which will need to be practiced and honed and followed according to best practice. It gives an excellent opportunity for reflection.
Feedback when delivered in a constructive way is a useful way of reflecting on practice. another person’s viewpoint on your work. It can be a great confidence builder if feedback is delivered in a constructive positive way. It may point out ways for improvement, however, this should also be delivered in a positive way. On the opposite side of the feedback is the person observing someone doing their work. This can lead to seeing better ways of doing things or for a change to best practice.
Observing someone can lead to a development in your own way of working as you reflect on how they did what they did.
Neil Thompson, in his book People Skills, suggests that there are six steps:
Read – around the topics you are learning about or want to learn about and develop
Ask – others about the way they do things and why
Watch – what is going on around you
Feel – pay attention to your emotions, what prompts them, and how you deal with negative ones
Talk – share your views and experiences with others in your organisation
Think – learn to value time spent thinking about your work
In other words, it’s not just the thinking that’s important. You also must develop an understanding of the theory and others’ practice too and explore ideas with others.
Reflective practice can be a shared activity. It doesn’t have to be done alone. Indeed, some social psychologists have suggested that learning only occurs when thought is put into language, either written or spoken. This may explain why we are motivated to announce a particular insight out loud, even when by ourselves! However, it also has implications for reflective practice, and means that thoughts not clearly articulated may not endure.
Reflective Practice is the foundation of professional development; it makes meaning from experience and transforms insights into practical strategies for personal growth and organisational impact. Reflective Practice is a way of recognising and articulating what we’re learning on a moment-by-moment basis. Reflection deepens learning. The act of reflecting enables us to make sense of what we’ve learned, why we learned it, and how each increment of learning took place. Moreover, reflection is about linking one increment to the wider perspective of learning – heading towards seeing the bigger picture. Through reflection, learning is integrated, internalised, and personalised.
Thinking about an experience is essentially a cognitive activity, but reflection is also emotional and physical, and is linked with our values and social identity. Viewing issues from different perspectives challenges assumptions and established patterns of behaviour and encourages the development of new ways of seeing.
For individuals, the outcomes of developing a regular habit of reflective practice can be:
An increase in self-awareness, emotional intelligence, the capacity for emotional regulation and
therefore, the ability to inspire, influence and motivate others. An enhanced ability to make decisions which show good judgement, awareness of risk and systemic impact A growth in the capacity to generate innovation through the technique of asking open questions and attending to the answers with an open mind.
The ability to be compassionate to self and others and inspire trust through demonstrating
trustworthiness. It allows you to recognize your own strengths and weakness and use this to guide on-going learning. By reflection you will develop your skills in self-directed learning, improve motivation, and improve the quality of care you are able to provide.
In Using Reflection and Metacognition to Improve Student Learning (ed. Kaplan, Silver, LavaqueManty & Meizlish, 2013), reflection is defined as “conscious exploration of one’s own experiences.” Reflective practice involves reflecting and debriefing on an experience as part of the learning experience. Instruction or experience alone may not lead to true learning; reflective
practice is an essential ingredient to deep understanding and increases the probability of application and transfer of learning.
What is “SKAP”?
S – Skills – may include a set of procedures to perform specific tasks, life skills, social skills, study, and organizational skills
K – Knowledge – content knowledge, comprehension/understanding of new information/concepts
A – Attitudes/Beliefs – a way of thinking or feeling – more difficult to measure or observe
P – Practice/Professional Dispositions – observable behaviours, set of valued behaviours aligned to specific profession/discipline.
Reflective practice is a learned habit. Once you get started and get your first few thoughts on paper it can be an amazing way to develop yourself, and self learn from your mistakes.
Pick up a good journal, maybe one that is ready to fill out with set questions. Like the MIND Journal https://www.mindjournals.com/products/the-journal or Reflective journal, based on thee Gibbs Cyclic Reflective model, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reflective-Journal-Guided-Based-Cyclic/dp/B099T23PR4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2S9G2137JXXHC&keywords=reflective+journal&qid=1643637035&sprefix=reflective+journal%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-3
