Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development [Paperback]

Gillie E J Bolton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 5, 2005 | ISBN-10: 1412908124 | ISBN-13: 978-1412908122 | Edition: 2nd

In this fully updated and revised Second Edition author Gillie Bolton draws on her considerable experience as well as extensive research and development in the area to demonstrate and explore a creative dynamic mode of reflection and reflexivity. Using expressive and explorative writing combined with in-depth group work or mentoring and appropriate focused research, it enables deep, sensitive, critical examinations of practice. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development offers a searching and thorough approach which increases student and professional motivation, satisfaction, and deep levels of learning.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`I was interested in the work of Gillie Bolton and her ideas on the use of writing in personal and professional development. I decided to try one of her suggestions and write the story of the family's complaint from the point of view of the parents. The first line came easily: "She nearly died you know. Our daughter nearly died." At that point my perspective on the complaint changed. By thinking about the complaint from the family's point of view, I understood that my role in the meeting wasn't to defend but to listen' - General Practitioner, Bedford, British Medical Journal

‘Reflective practice and writing can change lives. It changed mine. The very act of writing down the problem, clarifying, thinking, working through the issues, being forced to commit, is powerful. Read Gillie’s book and learn more’ - Kenneth C. Calman, Vice-Chancellor and Warden, University of Durham

'I have adopted reflective writing into my medical practice and teaching over the years but never knew what I was doing. After reading Bolton, I feel I do. She has enabled me to place this method not only within clinical teaching but within human experience, joining my doctor/nurse/social worker/student writers and me with teachers, midwives, businessmen, and government workers. Trans-cultural and trans-disciplinary, this multi-voiced and highly textured work enacts the power and the practical wisdom of reflective practice. The book gives me fresh ideas for my teaching, solid theoretical frameworks for understanding it, infused commitment to the method, and grateful pride to be a member of this band of the searchers for truth and joy through writing' - Rita Charon, Program in Narrative Medicine, Columbia University, New York

'To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, despite our wonderful technological wizardry, the physician has ultimately to fall back on his or her way of being in the world, his or her sense of self. That is the critical instrument and reflective practice is a wonderful means to that end. Gillie Bolton captures the why, what and how of this movement in medicine, and the writing examples are full of gems from physicians who have used this process with great results' - Abraham Verghese MD, Author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner and Director, Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

'As a reference book it is excellent. As a handbook for method it is thorough. As a stimulus to thinking afresh - and in encouraging others to do so - it may prove revolutionary' - Towards Wholeness

'One of the strengths of this book is that, although the intangible nature of reflection could leave one hungry for more "bullet points" to pin down exactly what "it" is, Gillie Bolton here tends instead to punctuate her text with real examples of professional' writing work... This book as a whole is a rich invitation to consider not just the how of reflectivw writing - but also the why' - Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd; 2nd edition (November 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1412908124
• ISBN-13: 978-1412908122
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,816,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revisiting Your 'Self' In Practice, October 10, 2010

By 

Donald Scott "Donald Scott: osteopath" (Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development (Paperback)

There's a saying from William Carlos Williams: `despite our wonderful technological wizardry, a doctor has ultimately to fall back on his or her way of being in the world, his or her sense of self'. This idea is an important concession to accepting unreservedly the onslaught of technological progress in modern medicine. Technology tends to come with an accompanying mindset, which puts the measurement of specific parts of the patient above understanding the person as a whole.

Reflective Practice suggests a means of exploring the sense of self within the professional identity as a whole. Gillie Bolton attempts to describe how to use this process and its accompanying benefits. She uses individual examples to effectively convey the human side of their internal deliberations.

`We do not `store' experience as data, like a computer: we `story' it'.
Winter 1988, p.235

The following are the key issues examined in this text; Effective reflective practice; Deep reflection; Authority and responsibility; Willingness to stay with uncertainty; Professional identity; Deep values.
The author explains "The structures in which our professional and personal roles, values and every day lives are embedded are complex and volatile. Power is subtle and slippery; its location is often different from how it appears." She adds that deep reflection and reflexivity for development involve:

* Authority and responsibility for personal and professional identity, values, actions, feelings.'
* Contestation
* Willingness to stay with uncertainty, unpredictability, questioning

Paradoxically she proposes that "the route is not through angry and uncomfortable confrontation: such revolution leads to destructive cycles of action and reaction." She feels that "The route is through spirited enquiry leading to constructive developmental change and personal and professional integrity, based on deep understanding. It is a creative process demanding the practitioner adopt a dynamic, self-affirming philosophy in their work.

"But reflective practice is not a thorn-less rose bed." She warns "People only learn and develop when they enjoy the process, and benefit personally." She goes on to develop her theme. "Serious professionals may cavil at adopting such creative methods, and feel suspicious of using deeply accessible varied sources of wisdom."
Einstein could be promoted as an advocate and exemplar of this approach to professional development. His success in science derived partly because he doggedly and constantly asked questions to which everyone thought they already knew the answers. Childlike, his genius comprised of asking essentially simple questions from a different vantage point than the norm, trying to `see' theoretical problems in a way that could provide a solution.

"He loved the questions themselves like locked rooms and certainly lived the questions" (Rilke,1934) There is a paradox proposed-that the events we forget easily, are the ones that perhaps most need reflection-giving rise to the deepest reflexivity: to this effect Bolton recommends a human resource development exercise, namely `Writing What You Do Not Remember'.

Plato, said, "The life without examination is no life." The author suggests that we accept his wisdom. Authentic education should explore methods of digging into material to discover what we don't know we know.

The method of travel affects what happens along the way-and the destination may be different as a result. A medical student commented: "We spend so much time studying medicine that we never have time to study sick people." Some argue that enquiry based learning should become the organised logic of entire teaching education programmes, with students learning through Medical courses need shaking up and more enquiry-based methods introduced. (`Curriculum' is Latin for `racecourse'-perhaps we need to lose the association with ancient Romans and its attendant bellicosity and the mayhem of the amphitheatre)?

A story is an attempt to create order and security out of a chaotic world. But for our experience to help us develop-socially, psychologically and spiritually,- our world must be made to appear strange. We, and our students, must be encouraged to examine our story-making processes critically: to create and recreate fresh accounts of our lives from different perspectives, different points of view, and to elicit and listen to the responses of peers. Listening critically to the stories of those peers also enables learning from the experience. `It is the exploration of experience, knowledge, values, identity that matters, rather than any attempt to arrive at a true account.' (Doyle 2004)
Without doubt the subject Bolton writes about so eloquently is essential to any professional working in healthcare and doubtless other areas of work. In any job it may be easy to forget that the practitioner needs to keep their practice authentic and responsive to those they contact. I cannot recommend Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development sufficiently. It's an excellent work, which provides opportunity for the reader to find out why they're working as they are and how to improve their practice.