Writing your reflective journal

Writing your reflective journal

In your reflective journal, you are aiming at writing about your own experiences in a way that is useful for you in your development in your profession.

As you would imagine, Ive read a lot of reflective writing over my years teaching this subject. Different writers interpret the notion of writing reflectively differently. Some ways of thinking about your experiences and writing about them will be more valuable for your own learning than others.

Below I list the six different ways of writing reflectively in order of increasing value in other words, the first way I describe is usually the least interesting or valuable to the person writing it, and each of the subsequent additions increases the value of the writing. Here they are:

objective recounting of what happened in the specific class, with a focus on the content as presented by the lecturer, and the activities as directed by the lecturer (e.g. Paul told us about what OARS stands for; our group answered question 3; There were some interesting responses to question 4). Please do not do this.

recounting of your subjective experience of the class, with a focus on the meaning of the content for you, and your experience of your experiments as you took part in the class activities (e.g. I found the object relations material difficult to read, but interesting all the same). Keep such reflections to a minimum.

The following types of reflection will be much more useful for you, and are what we expect you to focus on:

specific appraisals of your experience, and making new meaning from this e.g. describing what the value of the different experiences are for you (e.g. Teyber & McClures chapter 1, on new counsellors being anxious, made sense for me when I noticed in my trio work how worried I was about saying the right thing. I then remembered Paul & Brendon talking about all counsellors making mistakes, and that took a bit of the pressure off);

linking these appraisals with your larger subjective experiences from your life outside of the classroom e.g. describing new links you may be making between your experiences of the classroom materials (in content and/or in experience) and your outside life (e.g. I realised that I get anxious like this in other situations that are new to me (just as Teyber & McClure say in chapter 1) for example, when I met my boyfriends parents for the first time I felt really self-conscious);

experimenting with changes in your outside life that are explicitly informed by your reflections on your classroom experiences, and reflecting on such experiments (e.g. I realised how I give advice when my friends are suffering and try to ease their suffering by getting them to reinterpret their situation positively. Based on Teyber & McClures therapeutic alliance discussion on validating peoples experiences, last weekend when my friend started complaining about his work, and instead I tried to validate his experience by saying... He rang me back the next day to say thanks!);

reflecting on how your learning from these experiments may be useful for you in your future work in the field, and/or in your future life outside of the classroom (e.g. reflecting on chapter 4 of Teyber & McClure, on helping people share their painful experiences, I want to ensure I dont stay on the surface when Im trying to help my clients. I know Im going to need to practice this.).

So remember the following points in writing reflectively:

be specific in your descriptions of what has struck you in your seminar learnings;

talk about what it is you find useful / interesting / good, and why you find it so;

explore how this links in with your life experience from outside of class, and

what you found happens with your experiments with this material as you learn it; and

how might you want to alter your own ways of being and communicating when you look at this material and how its likely to relate to your future profession?

Other factors: whats the emotional honesty of your work? How much insight are you experiencing into why it is that you may like or dislike certain experiences youve had? How much have you been willing to expose your own vulnerabilities in your writing, especially of emotionally salient experiences of your life outside of the classroom?

Least important of all, but nevertheless worth mentioning, is your basic literacy as expressed in their journal. Do you write clearly that is, is it easy to understand exactly what your meaning is? Is any jargon used accurately and appropriately? Does your journal demonstrate that you understand the purposes and uses of sentences and paragraphs?

Too long: didnt read?

be specific

whats significant to you, and why?

What have you done differently in class?

How does your learning from class link to your outside life?

How might this link to your future work?

Be brave in your writing

Be clear in your writing