Reflexivity dialogues : an inquiry into how reflexivity is constructed in family therapy education

Reflexivity has had a long standing presence in professional education and therapy practice. In family therapy our knowledge about reflexivity has largely been produced through its application in practice. This is reflected in its multiple forms, described in the literature as therapeutic reflexivity, self reflexivity, relational reflexivity, group reflexivity, reflexive loops, recursiveness, self- reflection, self-awareness, reflexive competence, personal development, organizational reflexivity and cultural reflexivity. The practice context for conceptualising reflexivity fixes taken for granted knowledge as theory. This research constructs a history of reflexivity which draws upon narratives from diverse contexts across time and relationships, and weaves these together to examine discourses of influence which have led educationalists, practitioners, researchers and authors to construct reflexivity in many different ways. The influence and implications of these reflexivity discourses for practice and education are explored using a social constructionist approach to knowledge creation. A reflexive research design and methodology generates relational and dialogical contexts for constructing new knowledge about reflexivity and at the same time makes the processes of constructing this reflexive mode transparent. The question: ‘How is reflexivity constructed in family therapy education?’ is examined within a collaborative community constituted between educators and students. As we coordinate our polyvocality, episodes of transcendent storytelling and transformative dialogical moments are distinguished in which new knowledge emerges between participants. Using CMM heuristics, these transformative episodes are laminated to make visible the dialogical process of knowledge production. Different ‘forms’ of reflexivity are reconstructed as artefacts of conversations in relational contexts over time, shifting the discourse from looking at multiple reflexivity ‘forms’ towards ‘reflexive looking’. ‘Reflexive Dialogues’ transform positioning and offer new horizons which scaffold resourcefulness, including transfering relational practices from therapy to research and education. ‘Reflexive Dialogues’ transform hierarchical power and colonizing knowledge creation in research, therapy and education and invite empowering and collaborative relationships in which we produce knowledge together. ‘Reflexive looking’ affords theoretical pluralism and local coordination of multiple reflexivity discourses. This produces new knowledge and transforms relationships through scaffolding connected learning, engaged pedagogy and coordination of horizons between research, practice and educational communities

Using relational reflexivity as a resource in teaching family therapy.

In this paper we talk about creating coherence and transparency in the relationships between teacher, model of adult learning and subject taught. We describe how we have made connections between adult learning theory and family therapy to generate resources for action in teaching on the qualifying level course at Northumbria University. Using a recent teaching session and the voices of trainees, we illustrate these connections with an example of teaching about relational reflexivity, using methods which enabled us to generate reflexive 'flow' in the learning context

Sustainable, agile technology navigation accessing virtuality for real-world learning: A SATNAV for social work educators

The reality-virtuality continuum offers a breadth of opportunities for technology support which can scaffold authentic learning. In social work education approaches to authentic, real-world learning rely heavily on a placement model the sustainability of which is under pressure. While successfully used in the US, virtual reality is not yet commonly used elsewhere, and barriers include perceptions of usability, usefulness, and costs. Harnessing virtual technology for real-world learning requires agility for innovation, understanding how this technology can fit into existing practices to add value, skills to design and deliver learning using the technology and that resources required are not significantly greater than existing approaches. This project developed a sustainable approach to real-world learning by applying instructional design principles, drawing on accessible assets available at low cost, and the curation and re-purposing of existing virtual artefacts. The SATNAV approach: Sustainable, Agile, Technology Navigation Accessing Virtuality for real-world learning is transferable to a wide range of contexts. Scaffolding agile innovation through the integration of virtual reality technologies with low risk and high authenticity, the approach adds both value to traditional real-world learning approaches and contributes to an evidence informed digital transformation of learning and teaching in social work.<br/

Decolonizing digital learning design in social work education. A critical analysis of protocol practice for cultural safety and cultural capability

Many universities situate digital learning and embedding Indigenous perspectives as key dimensions for educational transformation. Internationally, recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples in relation to education, culture, and knowledge holds universities accountable to social justice goals and educational design can contribute to the realization or failure of this endeavour. Applying protocol is an internationally recognized method for scaffolding cultural safety, building cultural capability, and demonstrating accountability. However, protocol applied specifically to digital learning is not yet widely developed and at the same time, non-Indigenous educators need cultural capability for the codesign with Indigenous people, of digital learning. To scaffold this development of cultural safety practices and capability in codesigning digital learning in social work, this article presents the case that critically reflexive approaches to applying protocol will better support decolonizing practices. A systematic review of research and policy literature generates key considerations for protocol use by non-Indigenous social work educators. Findings provide critical insights to activate practices that realize the transformational potential of protocol for decolonizing digital learning design. This research demonstrates how social work educationalists can provide leadership in the development of critically reflexive approaches to protocol practice to achieve emancipatory digital education

Curating stories in teaching family therapy

Abstract In this article I explore the use of Pearce and Pearce's (1998) notion of ‘curating stories’ and ‘transcendent story‐telling’ for teaching about models in family therapy. Taking a position of curator; the discussion invites students into inclusive and pluralist thinking about the many models in family therapy's collection. Two story‐making frameworks of Stratigraphy and Australian Aboriginal ‘Dreaming’ are curated in a sequential way allowing a thick description and lived story of pluralism to emerge. Creative use of metaphors invites a context for transforming knowledge and abilities towards pluralism. I outline how family therapy can be taught using these metaphors as a way of freeing students to see its history as both interpretation and lived experience

Co-working in Live Supervision: Improvisations for Transformative Learning

In this article, we outline an improvisation in live supervision that we have used on a placement for training family therapists and supervisors at Northumbria University. We explored this as a way of coordinating pluralism across modernist and post-modernist contexts, through generating a lived story of pluralist supervisory-practice. We have engaged in simultaneous multiple positioning as co-workers, live supervisors, teachers and therapists. Co-working contributed to a reconstruction of our relationships to include identities as mutual learners and equal participants. This contributed to the development of a collaborative-learning community through dissolving hierarchical constraints and uncertainties generated by discourses of expertise, assessment, observation and power in supervisory relationships. This difference helped us to access resourcefulness in bringing forth preferred stories about our abilities as learners. Transformative learning was afforded by this improvisation through the integration of different learning modes within a lived story of 'relational being' (Gergen, 2009)

Conversations about transformation: exploring the Master's dissertation as a relational context for re-authoring personal and professional development

n this article, we share some aspects of our conversations about the dissertation as a context for personal and professional development. Our two voices reflect from our diff erent positions as family therapy graduate and programme leader. We explore the metaphor of dissertation as generative relationship which can scaff old transformation in personal and professional 'selves'. We have invited the editor's artistic licence to illustrate the article and John Burnham to add his voice as an extended context for multi-vocal generativity Cedric: My transforming relationship with my dissertation 'Some relationships start o with candlelit dinners, lead to heart-beating excitement and the uncertainty of where it might go next and then plunge explosively into wild sex. Not ours. We started in the library. I was feeling low. Some bad experiences had got me thinking that I was emotionally illiterate and insensitive. Could I be these things? Ignoring the mood and the self-deprecation, she led me gently to the bookshelves. I li ed out several books and together we poured over them, taking copious notes. en following assorted writers' ideas, we searched pools of journals, throwing key words into internet search engines, hoping this would gradually lead us upstream to nuggets of wisdom about emotion and feeling. In our clumsy uncertain fumbling with scraps of ideas, stitched and jumbled together, patched here and there, I began to wonder if we could ever discover anything by reviewing the literature or devising our li le vigne es together. Were we just starry eyed and navel gazing? In these early stages we were companions, hardly aware of each other, yet together keeping solitude out of the lonesome task ahead and dulling its pain. Looking back, I wonder how much that relationship changed me and what we actually achieved by being together. Some memories are a blur. Others are bright and shiny. I look back on what happened between us as a time when I shared some of the intimate details of my past and present relationships. Yet I shared also of the more public me, of my relationships with my clients and my responsiveness to their feelings in particular. Rather than my telling of these things, we communed through the black and white of the printed word. When I wrote, I knew I had been heard because the words were inscribed and visible. Once that had taken place, the words seemed to dance, move and mingle with each other and then amazingly re ect back other connected but new, refreshing ideas. I heard these as new whispered possibilities. My heartbeat quickened because somehow in this process, from within the unknown space that existed between us, we were creating and discovering new aspects of ourselves and doing it together. e thrill of being connected was mostly in this experience of creating together, new ideas emerging from the space between us. It is what I miss most about there not being an 'us' now. It's all over now and I am le with realisations about myself, our creations and thoughts about the process

Co-working in live supervision: Improvisations for transformative learning

In this article, we outline an improvisation in live supervision that we have used on a placement for training family therapists and supervisors at Northumbria University. We explored this as a way of coordinating pluralism across modernist and post-modernist contexts, through generating a lived story of pluralist supervisory-practice. We have engaged in simultaneous multiple positioning as co-workers, live supervisors, teachers and therapists. Co-working contributed to a reconstruction of our relationships to include identities as mutual learners and equal participants. This contributed to the development of a collaborative-learning community through dissolving hierarchical constraints and uncertainties generated by discourses of expertise, assessment, observation and power in supervisory relationships. This diff erence helped us to access resourcefulness in bringing forth preferred stories about our abilities as learners. Transformative learning was aff orded by this improvisation through the integration of diff erent learning modes within a lived story of 'relational being' (Gergen, 2009). " There is nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfi nished. Or an old address book. " Carson McCullers, American Novelist (1917-1967) The context for improvisation Current theory and practice discourses in family therapy are embedded within both modernist and post-modernist contexts. Th e tensions between these discourses can challenge us when we practice or teach about pluralism. Sheila McNamee describes pluralism as " promiscuity " ; fi nding ways to engage with incommensurate discourses to coordinate multiplicity (McNamee, 2004). Having considered these issues in relation to therapy, Sheila poses a question about how we can create training programmes that build a freedom to 'mix things up' into the very fi bre of trainees' experiences. Th is question resonated for us as we worked together in 2010 on a training placement for Northumbria University students undertaking the MA in family therapy and systemic practice and the PG diploma in systemic teaching, training and supervision. As a student on the supervision training (Gail) and a placement supervisor (Jeanett e), we thought about how we could generate a lived story of pluralist supervisory-practice. On placement, we off er live supervision of qualifying-level student's practice, required as part of family therapy training (AFT Blue Book, 2007 and Red Book, 2009). Our roles in this practice invite and evoke hierarchical relationships as these embody contexts of assessment, observation and power which can constrain learning. We wanted to loosen these constraints through 'mixing things up'. How could we bring forth a pluralistic and heterarchical context in live supervision? We looked at the 'old address book' of models for supervisory practice across fi rst, second and third-order landscapes in family therapy. From this emerged a curiosity about the potential of co-working. When writt en about and practised in 1974 (Norlin &amp; Keung Ho), co-working refl ected the dominance of behavioural, fi rst-order thinking of that time. In bringing to life Lynn Hoff man's metaphor of 'throwing out the urn' and creatively recycling the contents (2002, p. xiii), we improvised with co-working to explore continuing potential within post-modern applications and to see what new versions of the 'songs' of co-working and of live supervision might emerge from within this diff erent context. Th is resonated with our intentions for educating through a lived story of supervision which could move us beyond looking at pluralism to look through pluralism (Pearce, 2007), and thus to embed it in the 'fi bre' of the trainees experience (McNamee, 2004). Some descriptions of co-working in live supervision As an example, we share a story of positioning which took place in one case of family therapy where our therapy/supervision team consisted of: G = Trainee supervisor J = Supervisor of supervision L = Student therapist T = Team (other student therapists and placement supervisor). In the team, there were two other trainee therapists in our placement, and another placement supervisor. Whilst not working directly with this family, they were connected through pre and post-session dialogues. In our improvisations of co-working, we positioned and repositioned ourselves in a variety of diff erent relational confi gurations Co-working in live supervision: Improvisations for transformative learnin