What is reflective practice?

At the heart of reflective practice is the idea that our actions should be informed by a knowledge base that we engage with actively, as opposed to forms of practice that are based on unthinking habits or routines or knee-jerk reactions to situations. A reflective practitioner is someone who acts on the basis of understanding and a careful consideration of the situation being dealt with. That understanding is, in turn, based on knowledge and values. The knowledge is based on a mixture of formal study and professional development and the practical lessons learned from previous experience, while the values act as a safeguard to make sure that we are acting appropriately and ethically.

What is critically reflective practice?

Critically reflective practice involves going a stage further, in so far as it entails adopting a critical perspective on our knowledge and values. This means not taking situations at face and value and looking below the surface to see what underlying issues are of significance, what processes might be  operating. A key part of this is the recognition of the crucial role of power in shaping interpersonal interactions and our professional practice more broadly. Without such an awareness of — and sensitivity to — the significance of power, we run the risk of unwittingly reinforcing existing inequalities and potentially oppressive processes.

Being a critically reflective practitioner involves what we like to refer to as critical depth and breadth. Critical depth involves looking at underlying assumptions or biases that can be affecting our thinking and our actions—in other words, it entails using our critical analysis skills. Critical breadth involves being able to look more holistically at situations, going beyond looking simply at individuals so that we are able to take account of broader social and political factors — race, gender, class and so on — and consider the often vitally important role they play in shaping the situations we deal with.

What challenges do we face?

The challenges of becoming (or remaining) critically reflective practitioners are many and varied, but the two we come across most frequently in our training and consultancy work with a variety of organisations are the following:

I am too busy to be reflective. My workload does not leave me space to think about what I am doing

I work in an organisation where reflection is frowned upon. People who stop to think about their work are perceived as not having enough work to do.

How do we rise to them?

In terms of the ‘I’m too busy’ issue, we would want to respond by suggesting that this is a misunderstanding of what reflective practice is all about. It is not a matter of sitting idly around contemplating our navel. Rather, it is a process of making sure that we are fully focused on our task and making the best use of our time and other resources—it is a worthwhile investment of time rather than a waste of time. As we argue in our book, the busier we are, the more reflective we need to be.

The challenge of a non-reflective culture can be more difficult to deal with, but not impossible. One very important thing to recognise is that, while a non-reflective culture can make reflective practice more difficult, it does not make it impossible. Indeed, if we are able to be critically reflective practitioners despite a non-reflective culture around us, we may have a positive impact on that culture by allowing others to see the benefits of a more reflective approach and to show that it is possible to have such an approach even if it is not nurtured by or within your organisation.

In other words, the efforts required may be great but they are highly likely to be worth it.

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