Section 1: Reflecting on Your Own Practice

Boros (2009) defines reflective practice as “the process involved in making sense of events, situations, or actions that occur in practice settings; reflection, in this sense, emphasises a thoughtful approach to understanding experience, whether in real time or retrospectively” (p. 23). So, in this context, reflective practice can be thought of as a way of examining your professional experiences for the purpose of learning from, and improving upon, your work and developing professionally. Indeed, Johns (2017) describes reflection as a “self-inquiry into experience to find meaning gain insight and prompt action that will deepen you.” (p. 2).

However, reflection is not something that comes naturally or easily to most people. It is a skill that needs to be developed over time. Reflection is not simply thinking about past events but thinking about them critically. The extract below outlines some of the ways that a counsellor may consider their interactions with a client.

As the above extract illustrates, reflection is about exploring an experience from several different angles, including critiquing yourself and examining your emotional reactions. By reflecting upon your strategies, your actions, your words, and your outcomes, you can develop an understanding of the effectiveness of your work, which will assist you in continuing to improve and provide the best service that you can. The goal of reflection is about adopting the spirit of continuous development and improvement of your professional practice.

Having a framework for reflection can be helpful, although reflection in itself cannot be taught in a recipe format. Rather, it needs to be practiced, and this Study Guide will provide you with the tools to do so. The extract below provides an additional framework for reflection, as well as an overview of many of the themes that we will be discussing in this Study Guide. We will explore aspects of this information in more detail later, however for now, the extract will give you some idea of the level of depth and thought that should be put into reflective thinking.

As well as developing your own skills for self-reflection, as a counsellor you are likely to work in an organisational setting that provides access to people and supports to assist you to become a reflective practitioner and improve your work performance. These may include:

• Supervision with peers, line managers or professional supervisors through individual and/or group sessions
• Regular team meetings to share experiences and information relevant to cases
• Professional development opportunities via internal and external training.

The importance of continually reviewing your practice and updating your skills cannot be over-emphasised. Counsellors often deal with complex human problems, ethical issues, competing interests, and conflicting values. Evaluating your practice is a significant and necessary aspect of being an effective counsellor. No one is perfect. No one gets it 100% right all the time. Most people are hesitant to objectively look at their performance. However, in counselling, as in many other professions, it is important to be able to critically evaluate how you performed. By doing this you can identify any areas that may require growth and change.

You will learn more about each of the components of reflective practice and reflective practice strategies and techniques throughout this Study Guide. For now, let’s explore one important aspect of reflection – exploring the effect of a counsellor’s own values, beliefs, and behaviours on their practice.

A crucial factor that counsellors must assess during the reflection process is the effect of their values, beliefs, and behaviour in working with clients. You may recall learning about these effects in previous Study Guides. Counsellors must ensure that they always work from a place that considers the client’s values, beliefs, and preferred behaviours. It does not help clients to be judged or coerced into changing their values without their desire to. The extract below outlines some tips for avoiding value conflicts.

To ensure their values are not interfering with their work, effective employees seek to become aware of their own values, beliefs, and preferred behaviours and have an understanding of how they view these factors in themselves and others. Having a self-awareness of your own preferred personal behaviours and personality traits is known as having insight. Insight is developed through the process of self-reflection – the process you are learning about in this Study Guide. When working with a client, a counsellor must ensure that they regularly ask themselves whether they are working with the client’s values in mind, or their own.

In order to help you better understand these concepts, let’s look at an example scenario:

Case Study

Doug is a counsellor at an organisation. He has started working with Tonye, a 40-year-old man from South Sudan. Tonye is a fundamentalist Christian who has extremist beliefs and has requested to work only with male practitioners, as he does not believe women should be able to work. Doug feels conflicted about working with Tonye, as he believes very strongly in equal rights and is also concerned that he may experience serious values conflicts during their work together as Doug is a passionate atheist.

How would you feel if you were Doug in the case study? Would you be able to put aside your values and work to support Tonye? Are there any other values or beliefs that you hold that are non-negotiable? Below is a list of value-laden scenarios that counsellors may confront. Take some time and explore the list, considering whether you would be able to work with the people being described in each scenario, whether this would affect the way you work with them, and why (adapted from Corey et al., 2019, pp. 81-82).

1. A woman who is considering an abortion and wants help in making her decision
2. A teenager who is having unsafe sex and sees no problem with this behavior
3. A person who shows little conscience development, who is strictly interested in his or her own advancement, and who uses others to achieve personal aims
4. A gay or lesbian couple wanting to work on conflicts in their relationship
5. A person who wants to leave a partner and children to pursue a sexual affair
6. A person with strongly held religious beliefs that differ from your own
7. A woman who says that if she could turn her life over to a higher power she would find peace
8. A couple who comes for couples counseling while maintaining an affair
9. An interracial couple coming for premarital counseling
10. A high school student who thinks she may be bisexual and wants to explore her feelings around coming out
11. A same-sex couple wanting to adopt a child
12. An investment counselor who misleads clients to get a commission and who is not held accountable
13. An interracial couple wanting to adopt a child and being faced with their respective parents’ opposition to the adoption
14. A client from another culture who has values very different from yours (such as arranging the marriage of their children)
15. A transgender person seeking support for coping with societal pressures and discrimination
16. An undocumented worker seeking assistance in coping with severe discrimination by an employer.
17. A couple that has an “open marriage” and regularly engages in swinging
18. A person with very strong political opinions that differ vastly from your own
19. Parents who want your help in changing a child’s behavior because it does not conform with their religious or cultural beliefs
20. A mandated client who has no intention of changing and who is convinced he does not have a problem

Ultimately, counsellor must seek to reflect upon their own values and beliefs, as well as their professional behaviour, and ensure that their own personal values and beliefs are not detrimentally affecting their work with clients.

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Self-reflection is an important technique that counsellors can use to help identify and address practice issues. It is a form of self-evaluation that involves asking yourself questions about the way you work and how you deal with particular issues. When using self-reflection, you should consider your strengths as well as areas that need improvement. Self-reflection helps your professional development. Over time, your reflections will help to increase your skills, improve your knowledge, and help you to make better decisions.

Self-reflection can be incorporated into daily practice. Every day you could try asking yourself the following questions:

• How do I feel about the interaction with the client?
• Why did I make a particular decision?
• Did I respond to the client in the most appropriate way?
• Did I meet my own needs or the client’s needs?
• What did I do well?
• What could I have done to improve the outcome?
• What can I learn from the experience?
• Who can I discuss this with to gain some more insight?

It can often be helpful to use techniques such as reviewing case notes, keeping a reflective journal, or using a reflective practice tool to assist with self-reflection – we will explore these now.

Reviewing Notes and Reflective Journaling

Generally, all client contact requires some form of record or documentation. This documentation should be written as soon as possible so that important details are not missed. It can be helpful to review your records to help facilitate your reflection of your work with particular clients or types of client issues.

Additionally, it can also be useful to keep notes in a separate reflective journal or diary – a place to specifically note any personal practice issues that you identify. For example, you might note when:

• You felt most confident when working with a client
• You felt the least confident
• You noticed the client was ill at ease or not engaging with you
• You noticed the client appeared at ease and comfortable with you.

It is best practice to ensure that these reflective notes protect client confidentiality – the goal of these notes is not to record your client interactions, but instead to record your own reflections of issues that you have identified in relation to your own practice. Using a journal or diary in this way can help you reflect upon your own practice, paying particular attention to your thoughts and feelings. You may also like to write practical notes to yourself such as “try to speak more slowly and use less jargon with clients” in relation to any issues that you identify.

If you write openly and honestly (while maintaining client confidentiality) about your thoughts, feelings and experiences throughout your practice, you will become more aware of your strengths and weaknesses as a counsellor.

Case Study

Jude has been working as a counsellor for six months. As she is still fairly new to role, she lacks confidence in her knowledge and skills. Jude’s supervisor suggests that she start a reflective journal to help her identify any areas where she would like to improve on, as well as using the journal as a self-care technique to manage some of her work stress. Jude writes a few lines in her journal at the end of every day, summing up what she has learned that day, what she felt she has done well, and what she felt she needs to improve on. After one month, Jude reads back over her journal and is surprised to note that she is constantly improving and learning new skills and knowledge. In fact, she has learned so much new information, she hasn’t taken the time to reflect on how far she has come. The journal helped to boost her confidence by providing a little perspective.

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Kolb’s Reflective Model

One of the reflection models that you can adopt when performing reflective practice is the Kolb’s Reflective Model developed by David Kolb, which is sometimes referred as the “experiential learning cycle”. The model, as shown in the diagram below, emphasises reflection as the key element in the learning cycle.

Kolb’s model holds the belief that learning is not an automated process and counsellors should carry out the responsibility for their own learning which then improves future practice. To be more exact, the Kolb Model consists of four stages as listed below (Kolb, 1984):

• Concrete experience: “having the actual experience”; you experience a particular situation which made you realised you need to reflect on it to learn something new or improve on existing practice and/or skillset.
• Reflective observation: “reflecting on the experience”; you reflect on the new experience based on your existing knowledge. Emphasis is placed on inconsistencies or discrepancies between the specific experience and current understanding. The main objective is to reflect what has happened in that experience, e.g., “what worked and what did not work?” and “why did the experience happened?”
• Abstract conceptualisation: “learning from the experience”; reflection you performed would lead to realisation of a new idea and/or a modification or update to an existing understanding. You can consider questions such as “what could I have done better or differently?” and “what are some ways I can improve?” You can consider discussing with your peers and/or your supervisors to gain a better understanding of the experience.
• Active experimentation: “trying out what you have learned”; You can experiment the newly learned or modified knowledge and skill by applying them and see what happens.

Through reflection, counsellors can process what happened during a specific experience or event. This allows them to learn from their experience and evaluate how they could improve their future practice through developing plans for further learning experiences. In other words, the Kolb’s Reflective Model helps counsellors to improve their practice by facilitating a genuine and effective learning and development process.

ERA Model

The ERA Model (as shown in diagram below) is one other reflective framework developed by Jasper (2013) and is commonly used by counsellors in the community service sector. The ERA is a simple reflective model that stands for Experience, Reflection, and Action. The model explains that counsellors will usually have an experience and will then start to reflect on what happened. This experience can be either a new experience or something experienced they have experienced before. When reflecting, counsellors will be able to think through the experience and assess their own feelings, then decide on the next steps to take. The actions taken by counsellors will mostly likely differ between individuals, as it is based on their own experiences and reflections. Then, this cycle of learning and reflecting, which feeds into their future experience will be repeated.

Gibb’s Model of Reflection

Gibb’s model of reflection is a reflective exercise that helps a practitioner to examine an event or experience with the purpose of developing an action plan to make improvements. The model has been embraced by several professions, such as nursing and education, as well as in counselling. It assists practitioners by offering a structure or process to guide their reflection (Edmondson, 2014).

The model and the structure of how a counsellor can undertake self-reflection is described below; the extract below describes how the model works.

Below is the Gibb’s Reflection Model:

Engaging in a structured reflective process can help ensure the thoughtful and honest recording, reporting, and analysis of one’s practice.

So far, we have been reviewing self-reflection techniques that a counsellor can use themselves; however, effective counsellors also engage in self-evaluation in conjunction with their supervisors and peers.

Engaging in self-evaluation processes with supervisors and peers provides counsellors with opportunities to participate in structured discussions regarding practice issues and methods for dealing with difficult cases. In order to obtain the most benefit from these discussions, employees should seek input about any practice issues that they have identified from their own self-evaluation (e.g., what they have written in their journal notes or issues that they have identified in their work).

We will now briefly describe how supervision can assist with the reflection process, as well as outline several other ways that you can work with supervisors and peers to better understand your practice and improve upon your skills.

Individual Supervision

Regular individual supervision is one of the best ways for a counsellor to develop their skills and make progress towards achieving their professional goals. Supervision with a skilled supervisor allows a counsellor to talk through practice issues, receive feedback on their professional abilities, and try out skills in a safe environment. A supervisor will have usually undertaken one or more specialised courses in supervision and will most likely have a wealth of knowledge working with different client groups; as such, they are able to bring considerable experience to the reflective process.

As well as providing a reflective space for counsellors, supervision also has other functions, including:

• Assessment of delivery of professional services (e.g., a counsellor and supervisor may review the counsellor’s actions throughout service provision)
• Monitoring of counsellor’s safety and wellbeing (e.g., the supervisor may monitor the counsellor’s mental health and check if work is detrimentally impacting them)
• Professional and educational development (e.g., a supervisor can provide information and skill development opportunities for the counsellor and enable them to work more effectively with particular clients/issues. A supervisor may also keep track of the progress towards professional goals or alert them to particular training opportunities)
• Maintenance of ethical and professional conduct and addressing issues identified (e.g., a supervisor is able to monitor the ethical practice of a counsellor. Supervision also allows the supervisee a safe space to discuss any legal or ethical dilemmas that may arise, in relation to areas such as:
  • Appropriate work role boundaries
  • Code of Practice
  • Duty of Care
  • Rights and responsibilities of counsellors and employers

The important and varied role of supervision is reflected in the following extract, which outlines the respective responsibilities of the supervisor and supervisee in relation to individual supervision at the Queensland Department of Child Safety and Disability Services. While the extract outlines responsibilities specific to this department, most community services organisations dictate similar responsibilities.

Supervisors may use several different methods to supervise the counsellors they work with. We will explore some of the different formats and supervision techniques below.

Live Supervision/Observation

Live supervision allows a supervisor to observe a counsellor at their place of employment. A supervisor may accompany them on a home visit or to a case management meeting in order to observe them in practice. After this observation, the supervisor can then discuss their observations with the counsellor and prompt them to reflect on aspects of their practice. Alternately a supervisor may accompany them to visits or meetings and take the lead to allow the counsellor to observe certain skills or practice.

Group Supervision

Group supervision can be provided in several different formats. Most commonly it will involve one supervisor bringing together a group of their supervisees to discuss and reflect upon their recent issues and concerns or to learn a new skill together. Supervisees can receive valuable reflections and insights from other members of the group, however, unlike individual supervision, the amount of time each supervisee has to discuss their own issues is limited due to the number of other participants.

Group supervision can also take the form of a pair of colleagues working together, each having equal time to discuss their own reflections and talk through the reflections of their partner. This may then be discussed in a group setting. At this stage, each member can focus on the most significant discussion points and can receive feedback from a wider source (other group members). In this type of supervision, every counsellor has the opportunity to assist their counterparts in reflection.

Peer Feedback

Counsellors can also benefit from peer feedback, especially when boundaries for giving and receiving effective feedback are in place. In this situation, colleagues can work with each other in a mutual mentoring role. The aim should be to share insights and promote confidence and self-awareness among peers. Boundaries that describe how feedback is provided can ensure that any feedback that is communicated is respectful and constructive and all participants involved benefit from the interaction.

Specialist Supervision

Occasionally you may find yourself with a client or a situation that you and your supervisor have not encountered before. In these cases, it is good practice to seek supervision from a manager/supervisor who has more experience in that particular area. In addition to having more experience, managers/supervisors can also obtain specialist knowledge in areas such as trauma, children and family, and mental health.

Feedback is an important feature of all the above evaluative techniques. It is important for counsellors to be able to accept feedback and give it in a constructive way. If you work as a counsellor in an organisation that promotes group learning or take part in peer supervision, there will be many opportunities for you to receive feedback from your colleagues and to provide feedback to them. Having team members that you can discuss areas of practice with is a powerful learning tool and a way of evaluating and developing quality work practices because colleagues may be aware of different aspects of your performance that supervisors do not have the opportunity to observe. It is also important to consider feedback from clients, as they are the people who are experiencing your practice. Given their position, clients may also have an alternate viewpoint or be able to provide certain insight into your practice that cannot be provided by a supervisor or colleague.

Receiving Feedback

Receiving feedback can be difficult and stressful if it is not given and received in a supportive way. One strategy to become more comfortable with feedback is to actively seek it out from colleagues whose work you respect. If you know that a colleague has strengths in a particular area, ask them for advice and feedback about how to improve your own skills in this area. In most cases the colleague will be pleased to have their skills recognised and will also be pleased to guide your development in an area in which they have expertise.

Clients are also a useful source of feedback, and you should plan regular reviews with your clients throughout their involvement with you to check their perceptions of how they are progressing as well as how you are working with them. As previously mentioned, clients may be able to provide a unique insight into your practice that cannot be supplied by a work colleague. Depending on the organisation you work with, your organisation may request clients to administer a feedback form or survey regarding the service they received.

On top of that, you can actively seek feedback from your client specifically about your practice and whether they have any suggestions to improve your practice. You could do so by asking clients questions directly, e.g., “Was there any part of today’s sessions that you find (un)helpful and would (not) like to see again in our next session?” and “Was there any aspect from today’s session that you think I could improve on?” Another way of asking clients for feedback is to ask them to rate the session, e.g., “On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being a horrible experience and 10 being the best experience, how would you rate our session today?” After the client has provided their rating, you could seek further feedback by asking them to expand the reason they gave their rating.

Additionally, this also applies to other counsellors who may be working with the client, such as other professionals you come into contact with in relation to the client. For example, you may be working with a non-compliant client who is refusing to talk to you, so you may ask another counsellor who has a good rapport with the client for advice and feedback on your practice with the client. It is important to actively seek out client feedback or feedback from other relevant sources and reflect upon it.

In general, you can improve the way you respond to feedback by realising that you will benefit from carefully considering all the constructive and objective feedback you receive from supervisors, colleagues, and clients. If feedback is not constructive and is overly critical, you are not obliged to accept it, however it may still reveal useful areas for reflection. You will soon learn who you can rely on to give you honest and constructive feedback.

You can respond to feedback in an open and non-defensive way by:

• Listening to what is said without interruptions or objections
• Being responsive and willing to hear what’s being said
• Accepting the feedback without denial
• Interacting appropriately with the speaker and asking for clarification and examples as needed
• Trying to understand the meaning and point of the feedback
• Thinking about how you can apply the feedback

A negative and defensive response to feedback occurs when you:

• Are argumentative and frequently object to the speaker’s comments
• Resent the speaker and try to point out their faults
• Disrespect and devalue the speaker and speaker’s right to give you feedback
• Rationalise and find excuses to abdicate personal responsibility
• Listen superficially and agree but do not take the feedback seriously
• Are disinterested and ignore the feedback
• Refuse to communicate with the person who gave the feedback for a certain timeframe afterwards

Case Study

Gracelyn has been working as a counsellor for a domestic violence service for over eight months. She is passionate about her role and is always seeking out opportunities to learn from her more-experienced co-workers. Generally, Gracelyn has had little trouble with her clients, developing a good level of trust and rapport. However, recently one of her clients, Mariana, has been causing her some trouble. Gracelyn discussed the issues she was having with her supervisor. Her supervisor tells her that she had also noticed this problem with Mariana and believes that although Gracelyn is generally doing very well, she had let some of her boundaries slip with Mariana and needs to try and re-establish an appropriate counsellor–client relationship.

Gracelyn was a little shocked and offended by this feedback. Initially was going to disagree with her supervisor but then she realised she had asked for the feedback so she should take some time to reflect on it. Gracelyn thought about her relationship with Mariana compared with her other clients and realised that she did feel a personal affiliation with Mariana and that perhaps she had become too familiar with her. As a result, Mariana was treating Gracelyn more like a friend than a counsellor and making unfair demands on Gracelyn that she was having difficulty denying her.

Remember, it is always important to reflect upon feedback that you are given. Reflecting upon feedback is part of the process of becoming an effective and introspective counsellor who will continue to improve and grow as a professional. Another important point to remember is that you should always hold an open mind about the feedback received so you could reflect and learn from them and improve your future practice.

Giving Feedback

Giving honest feedback is not always easy. Some people find it very difficult to give feedback. This could be due to a range of reasons including cultural norms, power differences, and fear of conflict. If you can learn how to receive constructive feedback in an open and non-defensive way you should be able to give it in the same manner. Peer evaluation and feedback is most helpful when team members are supportive of each other. Co-workers must feel comfortable and trust one another in order to provide honest and constructive feedback. It can be helpful to have some ground rules about giving and receiving feedback. The extract below outlines some guidelines for giving feedback to peers.

How not to take things personally?

The presenter in this video discusses how to not take feedback personally.

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This topic  has introduced you to some of the methods and techniques that counsellors use to become reflective practitioners. In the next section, we will explore how counsellors can enhance their practice as a result of their reflective practices.

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Johns, C. (2017). Becoming a reflective practitioner (5th ed.). West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Queensland Government. (2018). Child safety practice manual. https://www.cyjma.qld.gov.au/childsafety/child-safety-practice-manual/chapters/10-general/10-12-professional-supervision/key-steps/2-fulfil-roles-responsibilities

Summers, N. (2016). Fundamentals of case management practice: Skills for the human services (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.