WEEk 1 - introduction

Question 1

What is counseling?

Answer 1

Counselling is a special way of helping
people which involves the use of
particular verbal, non-verbal and
relationship skills in order to facilitate
change so that the person being
helped can feel better and discover
new ways of thinking and behaving

Question 2

Why is reflective practice useful?

Answer 2

• Essential for responsible and ethical practice – invites us to
  take responsibility for our actions and values
• Enables us as practitioners to learn from experience – to
  question our stories
• Provides strategies to bring things out in the open & frame
  questions never asked before
• Challenges assumptions, social and cultural biases,
  inequalities & questions our own behaviours which may
  silence or marginalize voices of others
• Builds confidence in our practice
  Prevents stagnation – antidote to complacency, habit and
  blindness

Question 3

What is critical reflection?

Answer 3

Critical reflection is a process that
involves the ‘unsettling’ of
assumptions held individually,
socially, professionally, theoretically
and politically that influence our
lives

Question 4

Why is the inductive learning cycle useful?

Answer 4

*Centers you (the participant) rather than the facilitator
*Enables us to constantly grow our practice through building
on and/or changing our behaviour as a result of an
experience or input
*Research has shown that people learn best by “doing.”
*while “ideas are formed in the minds of individuals,
interaction between individuals typically plays a critical role
in developing these ideas … ‘communities of interaction’
contribute to the amplification and development of new
knowledge” Nonaka (1994)
*Overcoming this tendency to simply agree and go along
can increase the team’s access to multiple viewpoints .., a
process that stimulates critical thinking and deep learning
(Kayes, 2001).