The Art of Reflection: Turning the Strange into the Familiar

Abstract

There are a great many useful articles on the dynamics and pragmatics of reflecting teams but few articles address what constitutes a good or inept reflection and why. I provide a conceptual model for thinking about what a good reflection does, distinguishing it from a nice reflection. With some further refinements in place, I then illustrate how reflections can be part of any relationship, not just clinical ones. We have opportunities to make them and to recognize when others make them to us. By using examples from my personal life-as a grandmother, daughter, radio listener, cancer survivor, and client-I attempt to ease the personal/professional binary, a project of mine for the last 35 years. In the second part of the article, I address how writing can serve reflection. Although best offered at the moment one is called for, it is never too late for a reflection. Writing allows people to offer reflections after the fact to those who have shared their stories. Sometimes, it is to ourselves we offer those reflections, when the reflector has long since dropped the thread of obligation or interest. I provide an example of working with iconic imagery to unpack meaning so that reflection can eventually take place, allowing integration to proceed, facilitating the strange becoming the familiar.

Creating a Space for Acknowledgment and Generativity in Reflective Group Supervision

“…Andersen encouraged responses reflecting what team members heard, rather than what they thought about what they heard (Roberts, )—a distinction Weingarten () captures by differentiating “associations to what we have heard from thoughts about what has been said” (p.3). To accomplish this involves minute attention to what Andersen called people's “expressions” (Andersen & Jensen, , p. 164), which include but are not limited to the words they choose.…”

“…It is not always the case that therapists bring “success stories” to supervision; sometimes their accounts feature discouragement, rather than breakthroughs in their practice. This does not rule out the possibility of acknowledgment, however; acknowledgment is not outcome‐dependent and can be expressed in the voice of a “compassionate witness” (Weingarten, , p. 11). It might involve noting the sharing therapist's commitments or intentions, or expressing identification with the challenge of working with a particularly problematic situation.…”

“…Andersen encouraged responses reflecting what team members heard, rather than what they thought about what they heard (Roberts, 2009)-a distinction Weingarten (2015) captures by differentiating "associations to what we have heard from thoughts www.FamilyProcess.org…”

‘Somebody Watching You’: Impact of Reflecting Teams on Hope in Couple Relationships

“…RTs have been used for live supervision (Cohen et al, 1998), as an adjunct to group supervision (Prest, Darden, & Keller, 1990;Reichelt & Skjerve, 2013), for training family therapists (Young et al, 1997(Young et al, , 1989, to create cohesion in multidisciplinary teams (Garven, 2011), and in the community (Swim, Priest, & Mikawa, 2013). One curious aspect of RTs is the lack of research about their effectiveness (Fishel et al, 2010) and about what makes a good reflection (Weingarten, 2016). Another neglected aspect of research is hope in couple relationships, which we address in the following section.…”

“…RTs involve both an epistemological stance and a technique used with various clinical populations. While commonly associated with systemic, constructivist/social constructionist epistemologies, and narrative therapy approaches (Weingarten, ), RTs can be utilised regardless of the therapeutic approach as an innovative approach for training and supervising couple and family therapists. Tom Andersen (, ) had a significant impact on the development of RTs with the focus on members reflecting what they had heard in a session not what they thought they had heard.…”