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The idea behind reflection whilst in a clinical setting, is that you are able to be more mindful of what has happened (including how you handled a situation) and how you can use that experience to act differently or better if a similar experience was to happen in the future. Being a member of the Society of Sports Therapists, it is a requirement to reflect upon, and keep a record of your CPD training.
There are multiple ways in which practitioners can reflect upon themselves, but most understand that to gain the best insight into the way you develop, there are different stages which you should focus on, presented as; ‘Reflection-before-action’, ‘Reflection-in-action’, ‘Reflection-on-action’, and ‘Reflection-beyond-action’.
Gibb’s Reflective Cycle can be displayed in a diagram, walking you through how you may reflect, and what stages you should think about first. He starts with the Description, what happened? He then moves through five more stages; Feelings (what were you thinking and feeling?), Evaluation (what was good and bad about the experience?), Analysis (what else can you make of the situation?), Conclusion (what else could you have done?), and finally Action Plan (if it rose again, what would you do?).
Kolb’s Learning Cycle consists of only four separate stages, but they both remain fairly similar. Concrete Experience involves having the experience and asking yourself “what happened?, Reflective Observation is reviewing/ reflecting on the experience and asking “why did it happen that way?”, Abstract Conceptualism is concluding and learning from the experience, asking “what can I learn from this?”, and finally Active Experimentation is planning and trying out what you have learnt whilst making a plan to improve.
Just like anything else, the more you practise reflecting on yourself and what you do, the easier it becomes to identify certain characteristics, you begin to understand why you are a good practitioner, and what you must do to become a better one. As you continue to reflect, especially if it is a requirement to do so, it becomes less of a tick-box task, and it feels better to complete it than not.
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