Bairbre Redmond - Reflection in Action

First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright Bairbre Redmond 2006

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Redmond, Bairbre
Reflection in action : developing reflective practice in
health and social services
1. Social workers - Attitudes 2. Medical personnel
Attitudes 3. Social workers - Attitudes - Research 4. Medical
personnel - Attitudes - Research 5. Social work education
6. Medical education 7. Self-knowledge Theory of 8. Medical
personnel and patient 9. Physician and patient
I. Title
361.32

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Redmond, Bairbre, 1953
Reflection in action: developing reflective practice in health and social services / Bairbre Redmond.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7546-3356-X (Hbk) ISBN 0-7546-4955-5 (Pbk)
1. Medicine--Study and teaching. 2. Learning. 3. Active learning. 4. Medical education. 5. Reflection (Philosophy) 6. Thought and thinking. I. Title.
R737.R34 2003
610.711--dc22 2003062721

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-4955-7 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-3356-3 (hbk)

Graphic design: Maeve Kelly

When this book was first published in 2004, the concept of reflection and reflective practice was already being introduced on to many professional health and social care courses, particularly in the areas of social work and nursing. Such curriculum developments manifested themselves in different ways, from the ubiquitous learning journal to more thorough exploration of the academic work of the reflective theorists. It was occasionally unclear to students as to whether they were being presented with a new and perplexing practice theory in itself, or just being scrutinised on the motivations behind aspects of their practice. For many of us who had begun to see the considerable gains that could accrue from developing a reflective stance in our practice, the temptation to want to encourage new and developing practitioners to approach their work with, in Deweys words, active, persistent, and careful consideration (1933: 118), was very strong. What many lecturers and trainers soon learned was that undergoing a personal conscientization was one thing, but creating an educational environment where ones students also could begin to appreciate the subtleties of reflective practice was a great deal more complex and perplexing. This book follows the process of the creation of one such environment.

Since writing this book I have, at times, been asked two interconnected questions one is to whether the basis of my work is reflective or reflexive and, if the former is the case, whether that reflection is critical reflection. Payne (2005: 35) notes that two important developments in reflective practice that have come into focus in the late 1990s and the early 2000s have been critical thinking and reflexivity. The debate around what differentiates reflectivity from reflexivity is considerable and the two ideas may be perceived as having emerged from different schools of thought. The roots of reflection are in the educational and professional discourse closely associated with the work of Dewey and developed on by Schn, Argyris and Mezirow, a lineage comprehensively explored in this volume. Reflexivity is more closely connected with a constructionist background and Mead (1934) described reflexivity as a turning back of ones experience upon oneself, with the self and the experience being socially constructed (Steier 1991: 2). Reflexivity also has a strong tradition in qualitative research where both the research process itself and the researchers own position must be open to an on-going process of self-critique and self-appraisal (Koch and Harrington 1998). This approach has many similarities to the action research approach and the use of critical friends adopted in this volume, where both the direction of the research and the position of the researcher are placed under scrutiny. Fook (2002: 43) differentiates between the process of reflecting upon action while the reflexive stance refers more to the ability to appreciate the impact of ones self within the action. While Fook suggests that reflexivity is potentially more complex than reflection, she notes that the reflective process and the reflexive stance are not mutually exclusive and that frequently the reflective process will be underpinned by a reflexive stance. The theory that I have developed in this book proposes that the ability to reflect on ones actions and to appreciate and incorporate the service users perspective in practice can be seen as a phased capability. Chapters Six and Seven explore this increasingly multifaceted reflective ability, from simple to complex reflection. I would contend that the more complex levels of reflection defined in the later chapter contain all the characteristics of the reflexive stance, particularly the appreciation of the self within the action.