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4. Evaluate own communication

4.1. Reflect on and evaluate own communication with clients

4.2. Recognise the effect of own values and beliefs on communication with clients

4.3. Identify and respond to the need for development of own skills and knowledge
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4.1 – Reflect on and evaluate own communication with clients

4.2 – Recognise the effect of own values and beliefs on communication with
clients
4.3 – Identify and respond to the need for development of own skills and
knowledge

What is reflective practice?

Keeping up-to date with knowledge required to perform your daily activities at work to the highest
standards is important in this field. Reflective practice is also crucial for developing skills and
understanding your strengths and weaknesses as a worker in a care/health related environment. Within
this, it is important to act on your findings – if you find you have a weakness in a skill required for
activities you perform on a daily basis you need to find ways to improve your skills.

The Johns model identifies particular areas of reflective practice:

Describing an experience significant to the learner

Identifying personal issues arising from the experience

Pinpointing personal intentions

Empathising with others in the experience

Recognising one’s own values and beliefs

Linking this experience with previous experiences

Creating new options for future behaviour

Looking at ways to improve working with clients, families,
and staff in order to meet clients’ needs.
This model uses evidence from work experiences to help improve provision of care.

Reflection includes asking the questions like:

What am I doing?

How am doing it?

How do I know I am doing it?

How am I measuring its results?

Am I deluding myself about the results?

Am I helping clients to stand on their own feet?

Is there any transference in the client relationships?

Am I self-aware?

Am I professionally sound in my practice work?

Is my work replicable by other counsellors?

How do I relax?

How do I develop myself?
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Reflection nurtures professional growth and development, critical thinking, self-assessment and self-
directed learning. Through self-reflection, the counselling professional builds a broader understanding
and increased self-awareness of their practice. Reflection is part of life-long learning. By reflecting on
daily client work, the counsellor is more likely to understand and practice the standards and
professional behaviours of the counselling profession.

The process of reflection has five core outcomes. They are:

Validation of the counsellor’s work and skills

Introduction to new ideas and skills

Synthesis of past and new knowledge

Advanced learning from reviewing contexts and processes

Socialisation of professional identity including ethics

Who am I?
It is a good idea to capture your feelings as they occur. We suggest that you keep a
journal to track and record your feelings, putting your reflections into the journal. It
will remain your personal record. However, we want you to record feelings about
yourself as a counsellor. They may be funny or sad feelings – it does not matter. If
you record them, then you can reflect upon them at a later time, as a group of
feelings. Past students have found that this technique helps them clear out some
feelings and to integrate others. So, the process is yours to explore.

For any counselling professional, there is a realisation that a significant component

of the interactive process we call counselling is based on ourselves. We are the resource. Our
client/client system is coming to us with the expectation that we are both competent and confident.

When we ask the question ‘who am I?’ we are touching the inner foundations of our personality. We
are also tracing family lines and connections that go back generations. Studies into personality and
development have shown how life experiences can shape ideas and counsellor theories.

How can I develop professionally?

Professional development is an important process in all professions from accounting and engineering
through to counselling and emergency rescue. It does not happen automatically although intuitive
learning is a powerful component of the process. Professionals plan their development and they have
clear milestones which they can use to measure their progress.

Membership organisations that service respective professions often have professional education and
development programs. If you are planning on being a professional counsellor, you are encouraged to
belong to the relevant professional association.

Professional development occurs in a number of ways through a range of resources. Much is planned,
but some is spontaneous. Famous French health scientist Dr Louis Pasteur summarised the situation
when he stated that “chance favours the prepared mind.”
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Some of the sources of professional development include:

Supervision
Writing
articles in
Reading
professional
journals

On the job
Seminars
learning
Professional
Development

In- house
Conferences
training

Special
Accredited interest
training group
meetings

Learning is not a predictable process, but training is. Development is not a simple extension of training.
The development process depends upon a number of influences that merge serendipitously. According
to leading learning theorist Dr David Kolb, the generic model of learning occurs in the following manner:
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1.
Experience
new
knowledge

4. Apply
Our 2. Reflect
new
knowledge
learning on new
knowleldge
process

3. Analyse
value of
new
knowledge

The supervision process may well become a means of introducing new knowledge for the counsellor,
which then becomes open to subsequent interpretation. The supervisor will be looking for the
measureable application of the new knowledge.

Both the supervisor and the counsellor need to consider a constellation of other learning factors:

Adult learning principles

Personal learning style preferences

Barriers to learning

These are no simple sets of information because they integrate without warning. Perhaps one of the
crucial but often unspoken parts of supervision is helping the counsellor to undergo the client
experiences and feelings about counselling. In this way, the counsellor learns to empathise with the
client response pattern – its merits and demerits. This is a challenge for the supervisor because there is
a temptation to take the counsellor into their own therapy process. It can be easier and less time-
consuming. That is not supervision – it is counselling.
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Activity 4A