Reflection, reflective practice and embodied reflective practice

Abstract

Although widely employed in professional practice of all kinds, ‘reflection’ and ‘reflective practice’ can be considered ‘success words’. That is, they elicit positive and supportive responses and yet the concepts are vague, ill-defined, contradictory and reflective skills can be hard to teach. Using examples from education and somatic movement therapy, we argue that a purely analytical approach to reflective practice that involves reflecting on thoughts alone is likely to lead into a negative cycle of rumination. Falling into this cycle of rumination, self-focus has been linked to depression, neuroticism, anxiety and the like. In contrast, an embodied reflective practice focuses on an increased self-awareness grounded in physical sensation, although including images, thoughts and feelings. This embodied self-awareness can increase adaptive empathy, and a focus on embodied experience can lead to a decrease in rumination. Embodied self-awareness can be taught, and this, in turn, can be used to teach the skills of an embodied reflective practice, which could be beneficial for both self-development and professional practice.