THE ROLE OF CRITICALLY REFLECTIVE PRACTICE IN WORKING WITH CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

Siobhan Maclean Writer and independent social worker

Reflective practice / critical reflection : what is it?

• Process of review to inform learning (eg: Schon, Reid etc) • Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge (Dewey 1933) • Mental process of trying to restructure existing knowledge and insights (Korthagen 2001)

Critically reflective practice: key components

    Rethinking / deconstructing power Awareness of values and implications for practice   Exploring emotions / emotional intelligence Drawing on knowledge / developing knowledge and practice wisdom Self awareness Creating uncertainty through dynamic questioning – willingness to live with that uncertainty 3

Child Sexual Abuse: key issues

 Power and powerlessness  Changing societal values  Emotional impact / distress  Developing / emerging knowledge  Impact of personal experiences / values (self awareness)  More questions than answers (uncertainty) 4

5

POWER VALUES EMOTIONS KNOWLEDGE SELF AWARENESS UNCERTAINTY 6

Reflective Practice: Power

• Fook – critically reflective practice • Deconstruction of ‘realities’ with a focus on power dynamics

Reflective Practice: Self Awareness

 Personal process relies on personal awareness

Distress and emotions

Reflection and self awareness are key aspects of emotional intelligence – “keeping distress from swamping the ability to think, to empathise and to hope” (Goleman 1996)

Drawing on Knowledge

Knowledge is fixed and creates limitations to the way that we see things…… Knowledge is time, context and societally and culturally specific..

10

Freud’s Seminar ‘The Ateology of Hysteria’ (1896) “Almost all of my women patients told me that they had been seduced by their father. I was driven to recognize in the end that these reports were untrue and so came to understand that the hysterical symptoms are derived from phantasies and not from real occurrences…… It was only later that I was able to recognize in this phantasy of being seduced by the father the expression of the typical Oedipus complex in women.” (Sigmund Freud 1933) 11

Reflective processes can potentially unearth any assumptions about anything…. Some crucial but hitherto deeply hidden assumptions may be uncovered. (Fook 2004: 59) 12

The earth was flat……….

Child sexual abuse didn’t happen….

Sula Wolff (1973) Seminal text No mention of child sexual abuse

10 years on…..

Judith Herman

“This distributing fact…. Has been repeatedly unearthed in the past hundred years, and just as repeatedly buried….. The information was simply too threatening to be maintained in public consciousness.” (1982:7) 15

• Women don’t abuse… • Where they do they have been coerced or controlled by men….

Critically reflective practice recognises that there is no truth and that we need to be open to all possibilities…..

An ability to “imagine” or think beyond knowledge

17

Difficulties / barriers

  Time constraints Striving for certainty  Evidence based practice  Reflective practice can be painful and create a crisis of confidence  Organisational constraints  Lack of reflective supervision  Lack of clarity about reflective practice

Dangers in Reflection

• Reflecting into a void and seeing only what we want, can take or believe.... 19

Reflexive spaghetti

Burnham (1993) Reflecting on reflections about reflections….

Ties us up and prevents action

Characteristics of a reflective practitioner (Brookfield 1998)

• Assumption analysis : challenging our own beliefs and values • Contextual awareness : recognition of social construction of beliefs and practice • Imaginative speculation: ability to imagine a different way • Reflective Scepticism: Challenging or suspending existing knowledge and beliefs

So what can be done?

(Individual level)

 Find a model of reflective practice which you are comfortable with – this will vary for each practitioner  Seek out “critical friends”  Develop awareness of what is impacting on reflections  Don’t avoid the questions – but likewise don’t delay actions

So what can be done? (Organisational / societal level)

 Critically reflective organisations (Munro)  Challenging power  Educate children and young people to critically reflect 23

Siobhan Maclean Kirwin Maclean Associates [email protected]