The importance of reflective practice has long been acknowledged in the fields of careers and coaching. It is widely agreed that as practitioners, it's part of our professional duty to continually reflect on our practice and to think about what's working and what could be better.
It is not, however, something that we're usually taught to do. Being reflective is something that we assume that we are able to do, and to a large extent this is probably not unreasonable. But there are some frameworks out there which can help, and I think it's useful for us as practitioners to engage with them.
I have been reading a bit about Schon, whose book 'The Reflective Practitioner' is widely acclaimed.
Schon makes a distinction between reflection-in-action , which is a version of thinking on your feet, and reflection-on-action, which is what you do after the event. Reflecting-in-action involves assessing the new situation in which you find yourself, analysing it, and making links between what's in front of you right now, and your existing body of knowledge, techniques and ideas for action.Reflecting-on-action refers then to the process of post-match analysis, where you think back over what happened, why you made the choices that you did, and what alternative strategies would have led to different outcomes. This can be done individually using for example a journal, or together with a mentor or colleague.
Schon is keen on the notion of building up a repertoire.A repertoire is a collection of techniques, ideas and images that you can draw on. He suggests that every time we encounter a new situation, we make sense of it by linking it to past experiences, identifying the ways in which is it similar to a previous event and the ways in which it is different. A repertoire which identifies a range of actions that worked well in a particular situation in the past can help us easily identify how to act in this new situation. A key purpose of reflection-on-action is to hep to crystalise and cement (am I mixing my metaphors too much here?) these solutions in our minds.
At the heart of Schon's theory is that reflection should be enacted, not applied. So whilst he devised a theory for reflection, he is not particularly advocating that we should all take his theory and apply it to our practice religiously. He seems more keen to make sure that we find ways to incorporate reflection into our daily practice.
There have been criticisms of Schon's theory, with critics highlight the lack of detail given on the psychological processes involved and the exact nature of the link between reflection-in and reflection-on, but many practitioners find this a useful distinction to help them to structure their self-reflective processes.
I think this could be a helpful framework for career practitioners. I like this emphasis on continual reflection. There is some evidence that career practice trainees conduct more effective career sessions than experienced practitioners, and this is thought to be all about differing levels of reflection. If we as a profession start to incorporate reflection as an automatic part of our practice, not as an occasional or a nice-to-have, perhaps using Schon's ideas of journalling or talking with a mentor, or going down the more formal route of supervision, then surely this will be a good thing for our profession and our clients.
Here are a couple of useful websites for further information:
Smith, M. K. (2001, 2011). ‘Donald Schön: learning, reflection and change’, the encyclopedia of informal education.[www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm. ]
http://www.imprint.co.uk/C&HK/vol7/Pakman_foreword.PDF
