Critical Reflection

Reflective practice guide, reflexivity, praxis, principles, process, guiding questions, critical reflection practice example

Four sections follow:

1.     Critical Reflection (Reflexivity)

2.     Appendix 1: Key points

3.     Appendix 2: Shelley’s story

4.     Appendix 3: A social work student’s reflection on reflexive practice

Reflective practice

The ability to reflect upon practice in an ongoing and systematic way is now regarded as essential to responsible professional practice; it is essentially a way of improving professional practice.  Peart (2025, October 8) provides hints on how to improve reflective practice.

1) Make reflection small and daily             At the end of each day list one action that helped, one that was difficult, and one to carry forward to tomorrow.

2) Ask better questions of yourself           For example,

1.     What evidence did I actually see or hear?

2.     What meaning did I add, and why?

3.     What else might be true here?

4.     What’s the smallest test I can run next visit?

These questions will uncover leaps, assumptions and gut feelings that need anchoring. They will generate practical next steps rather than abstract good intentions.

3) Turn supervision into a workshop, not a weather report           Use the time to bring one live dilemma, one draft paragraph, or one sentence you need to say in a difficult conversation.  Practise out loud. Ask the supervisor to play back the strengths in the formulation and the gaps in evidence.

4) Build feedback loops that don’t sting                   With clients, use a micro-check at the end of visits: “What was useful today? What would I change next time?”  With colleagues, swap a single paragraph of analysis with a trusted peer. Ask them to underline where evidence is strong and circle where evidence is lacking or more likely opinion.  

5) Use the body to reflect, not just the brain         Do a thirty-second scan after tough contacts: jaw, shoulders, belly, breath. Ask: what is the body telling me about this work?  Protect one small boundary each week: a finish time twice a week, a ten-minute walk after a heavy visit, no emails after eight. Reflection requires a charged battery.

A guide to reflective practice (Bain et al., 2002)

Critical reflection (reflexivity)

Being a critically reflexive practitioner involves thinking about practice in an explicit and critical manner so as to interrogate the reasoning behind all assumptions, conclusions and choices made in the process of practice.  It involves examination and evaluation of beliefs and practices, evaluation of evidence, considering alternative points of view and fairness in representing differing points of view.  Importantly it also relies on an awareness of ourselves and our skills in forming empowering relationships with clients and communities (O’Connor et al., 2008).

Critical reflective practice has four dimensions.

1. Reflective learning – occurs through a process of thinking purposefully before, during and after a piece of practice, i.e. reflection on action.

2. Emotionality – relates to recognising and questioning the emotional element in all relationships, both those you experience yourself and those you discern in others.

3. Criticality – refers to sources of power in relationships and in society, and how that power is exercised and resisted.  Such an understanding draws on critical social theory.  The understanding developed should be linked to action to address the issues that have been identified.

4. Reflexivity –refers to focusing on how our own identities, beliefs, values and attitudes impact on our understanding of and action in practice contexts (Cleak & Wilson, 2013).

Critical reflection should be tailored to the particular historical, social and cultural contexts of servicer users’ lives.  It is important to ask who is exercising power in a given situation, whose interests are being served and who has defined these interests.  There are differences in power between practitioners and service users because of their role and the professional knowledge held by the practitioner.  Social workers should engage productively with the decision-making power they have in different practice contexts and consider how such power can be used in just and humane ways in different contexts.  Essentially social workers should work to empower people on all of the three following dimensions simultaneously: (i) personal—assisting individual to gain greater control over their lives, (ii) interpersonal/social/cultural—challenging discrimination and stereotyping, and (iii) structural/political—challenging power relations inherent is society (Allan, 2009).

Reflective practice encourages practitioners to take time to think about the work they are doing, and to recognise and draw upon formal knowledge, as well as their lived experiences, as the basis for practice.  The critical reflective approach is a way of improving practice by exposing it to ongoing scrutiny and development.  It is critical in that it provides the potential to delve quite deeply into previously unexamined areas of our thinking and practice (Cleak & Wilson, 2013). 

Reflexivity is about looking at the dominant ideas about particular phenomena such as childhood, gender, race, the family, or mental health and how these reflect particular historical, political and/or moral positions. Professional reflexivity requires that practitioners begin listening to themselves more carefully, attending to their rhetoric or persuasion and listening with a critical ear to their sense-making and knowledge-making practices.  It is about practitioners evaluating whether or not they want to make changes to tacit (= implicit) aspects of their work (White, 2009).

Reflexivity in practice requires that we not only reflect on our performance but also on the language we routinely use through:

• analysing our talk and text and

• dentifying instances where we are:

  • assembling persuasive words,

  • using ambiguous signs,

  • using culturally powerful and dominant themes that subordinate individual contextual realities and dismiss competing accounts (Kuyini, 2015).

Praxis

Praxis builds on the notion of reflexivity by introducing ideology.  Our ideology is the system of beliefs that influences our thinking, which in turn influences our behaviour.  Praxis involves a conscious process of discovery, that has to do with the reflective questioning of practice-in-situation that enables us to understand how we, as practitioners, impact on the lives of our clients and how this in turn impacts on the way in which we understand the world.  The development of a praxis-oriented action depends on an overall process that involves both reflectivity and reflexivity. 

To establish this as a conscious process, an understanding of the personal self is important.  What we bring to a situation will depend on what we have learned and experienced previously.  What we bring is subjective and unique.  Our interpretation of a situation may well differ from another’s because the factors that influence one person’s thinking may well be different form the things that influence another’s perspective.  Experience as social work professionals help shape the professional-self, which then intersects with that personal-self.  This mix of personal and professional factors influences what kind of social work practitioner one becomes.  Knowing what one brings to the practice arena, both from a person and professional perspective, is an important step towards an understanding of how a person acts and responds as a social worker.  It increases the potential to be both reflective and reflexive practitioners (Harms & Connolly, 2009).

Principles for critical reflexive practice

The following principles assist workers to choose interventions that are fair, effective and equitable:

• Access:  the capacity of individuals to obtain the same quality of service

• Efficiency:  maximising outcomes for a given cost

• Safety:  potential risks are avoided, and inadvertent harm minimised in the care delivery process

• Effectiveness:  degree to which an intervention produces measurable outcomes in survival or quality of life when applied in routine practice

• Acceptability:  degree to which the service meets or exceeds the expectations of informed consumers

• Continuity:  extent to which an individual episode of care is coordinated and integrated into overall care provision

• Technical proficiency:  extent to which the performance of interventions by healthcare professionals is consistent with contemporary standards and knowledge of skills relevant to those interventions

• Appropriateness:  extent to which potential benefits of an intervention exceed the risks involved.

Critical reflexive practice around choice of interventions involves use of evidence to assess what works best under which conditions with which clients.  The worker would need to consider how different theories would influence the choice of intervention and the process of intervention, e.g. feminist theories are relevant to domestic violence.  The worker also needs knowledge of the area in which he or she is working, e.g. knowledge of the effect of domestic violence on self-esteem (O’Connor et al., 2008).

The critical reflection process

The critical reflection process involves a reflective analysis, particularly of power relations, which leads to change effected on the basis of new awareness derived from that analysis. It is important to emphasize these two aspects of the critical reflection process – analysis and change. There is no prescribed or formulaic way to undertake critical reflection.   It is about enabling a climate where the learner can effectively research their own practice, develop practice theory and thereby learn from their own experience.  Learners find they can learn directly from their own concrete experience, to create theory that is applicable to practice (Fook, 2015).

An approach to critical reflection is based on four theoretical traditions.

1. The reflective approach to theory and practice: As well as basing professional practice on theory and skill development, reflecting on relationships ‘in action’ is an imperative for all professionals.

2. Reflexivity: The worker needs to be intellectually supple and to look around as well as look at research; social science research is contextual and situational.

3. Postmodernism and deconstruction:  Pluralism, diversity, multiple truths, different ‘ways of knowing’ and dominant discourses are elements of this approach; social relationships often adopt binary or opposing positions which determine courses of action and perpetuate power imbalances.

4. Critical social theory: the individual and social structures and the relationships that form the basis of individual and collective actions for change.

Evident in these four traditions and their use in critical reflection is the subjective experience of the practitioner; their sense of ‘self’; and their desire to find meaning and an effective course of action in the dilemmas and difficulties that face them in everyday experience (Pockett et al., 2011).

Critical reflection questions

From a reflective practice tradition, questions might include: What was I assuming? What beliefs did I have about power (for example, mine, other people’s)? What are my most important values coming across and how do these relate to power?

From a reflexivity standpoint, we might ask: How did I influence the situation? What preconceptions did I have and how might these have influenced what I did or interpreted? How did my presence make a difference? What sort of power did I think I have, and how did I establish myself in the situation? What were my beliefs about power and how did these affect what I did or chose to see?

Using a postmodern/deconstructive perspective, we might ask: What language/ words/patterns have I used? What perspectives are missing? What are my constructions of power? What is the relationship between my beliefs about power and the mainstream or dominant view? How have I constructed myself in relation to other people, or power?

A critical stance would place the emphasis on how the critical reflection process can bring about change. We might therefore ask questions like: How has my thinking changed, and what might I do differently now? How do I see my own power? Can I use my power differently? Do I need to change my ideas about myself or the situations in which I work?

It is not important to differentiate the traditions each type of question is related to, but instead to use these theoretical underpinnings, and the analyses they provide, in an integrated and inclusive way. Using many different ways of questioning will, one hopes, maximize the potential meaningfulness of critical reflection to diverse types of learners (Fook, 2015).

References

Allan, J. (2009). Doing critical social work.  In J. Allan, L. Briskman, & B. Pease (Eds.).  Critical social work: Theories and practices for a socially just world (2nd ed.) (pp. 70-87). Allen & Unwin.

Bain, J. d., Ballantyne, R., Mills, c., & Lester, N. C. (2002).  Reflecting on practice: Student teachers’ perspectives.  Post Pressed.  Source: https://www.caresearch.com.au/Portals/20/Documents/r_p_fs.pdf 

Cleak, H., & Wilson, J. (2013).  Making the most of field placement (3rd ed.).  Cengage Learning Australia 

Fook, J. (2015). Reflective practice and critical reflection.  In J Lishman (ed.), Handbook for Practice Learning in Social Work and Social Care (3rd ed.), pp440-454.  Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Harms, L., & Connolly, M. (2009). The art and science of social work.  In M. Connolly & L.

Harms (Eds.).  Social work: Contexts and practice (pp. 3-18). Oxford University Press.

Kuyini, B. (2015). HSSW301: Social work direct practice skills [Topic notes].  Armidale, Australia: University of New England, School of Health.

O’Connor, I., Wilson, J., Setterlund, D., & Hughes, M. (2008). Social work and human service practice (5th ed.).  Pearson Education Australia.

Peart, V. (2025, October 8).  Five ways to be a more reflective practitioner.  https://www.mysocialworknews.com/article/five-ways-to-be-a-more-reflective-practitioner 

Pockett, R., Napier, L., & Giles, R. (2011). Critical Reflection for Practice.  In In A. O’Hara & R. Pockett (Eds.), Skills for human service practice: Working with individuals, groups and communities (2nd ed.) (pp. 9-19).  Oxford University Press.

White, S. (2009). Discourse analysis and reflexivity.  In M. Gray & S. A. Webb (Eds.).  Social work: Theories and methods (pp. 161-171).  Sage Publications.

Appendix 1

Reflexive Practice – Key Points – A Personal Reflection

Reflexive practice refers to my intrinsic capacity to attend to what I am saying and doing in everyday situations.

It requires a sociocultural analysis of the kinds of ideas in which my practice is embedded—e.g. ideas about childhood, gender, race, the family, mental health—and seeing how these reflect particular historical, political and/or moral positions. 

It is about being aware of my personal self—relationship status, occupation, social class (past and present), education, family type and background, ethnicity, nationality, religion, membership of groups or subcultures, gender, sexual orientation, health, age, particular historical period, particular ideologies—and not letting this colour my work with my clients. 

Reflexive practice enables me to challenge aspects of my work that have become routinised, to evaluate whether I need to make changes to the tacit aspects of my work.  It enables me to continue change for the better.

Reflexive processes are used to analyse and uncover the ways in which unacknowledged assumptions and discourses, of which I may not be conscious, construct power relations.

Reflexivity challenges the idea of what knowledge really is.

Reflexive practice challenges the sources of knowledge and the way power influences the construction of knowledge.

Reflexivity involves reflecting on the language I use, e.g. using persuasive words, using culturally powerful and dominant themes that dismiss competing accounts.

Reflexivity is a circular process: thinking influences actions, which then influence the situation, which in turn affect how I interpret, think and respond to the situation.

Critical reflexion involves thinking about my practice in a critical manner to become aware of the assumptions I am making and question them.  It is about looking at beliefs and practices from different points of view, e.g. the client’s or that of others involved.  It is about using what will work best with the client in these conditions.

Appendix 2

Shelley’s Story

Using critical reflexive practice

This case study (O’Connor, et al., 2008, pp. 75-78) provides an example of the use of critical reflexive practice. 

Jess is the social worker in an NGO providing support to young people: intensive counselling, support and case management for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. 

Shelley, a 16-year-old, is referred by her mother who can no longer handle Shelley’s violent behaviour (destruction of household property); Shelley’s younger siblings are becoming victims of this violence both directly and through witnessing it. 

The first meeting: Following Jess’ rapport building and after Jess demonstrating positive and supportive regard, Shelley reported couch surfing for three months, while simultaneously engaging in drug taking, but not of an addictive kind, just with mates.  She had links with a Job Network and a drop-in service for homeless people but had no income support for the previous three weeks as she failed to attend Centrelink interviews.  She supported herself during this time by ‘doing stuff’.

Jess’ reflexive practice: Jess was pleased the initial connection had been established, hopefully establishing a platform for later disclosure.  Mother’s report appeared incorrect, as Shelley had not been living at home.  Jess had concerns about risks of sleeping rough and drug taking.  Jess considered approaches to use such as critical social work where her options were to work within the confines of her NGO and work from Shelley’s strengths to address her issues, or advocate for change at a higher level where she could influence the lack of resources available to people in Shelley’s situation, something not uncommon with a small group of young people.  Given the immediacy of the situation Shelley was facing, Jess decided to consider how to engage Shelley next time, the issues to explore, and how, if possible, to have Shelley agree to supported accommodation.

The next meeting: Jess had reflected on the guidelines of her NGO that would provide accommodation for Shelley and thought about how best to present these to Shelley.  Shelley agreed to the guidelines and to engage with the support that could be offered.

Jess’s reflexive practice: Through reflection on the first meeting and using her prior experience and acquired knowledge about people in Shelley’s situation, Jess had noted Shelley needed immediate support around safety, health and hygiene and further support around legal, financial and long-term housing issues.  These issues arose from Jess’s awareness of the impact of structural disadvantage on personal circumstances (e.g. the level of income support available to young people).  She was aware of the disempowering feeling young people could have when dealing with institutions.  She knew she may have to advocate for Shelley and use ecological and systems theories to help determine connections and supports that existed for Shelley as well as anticipating issues that could arise in the future.

Shelley’s sharing of her past: During the first week in supported accommodation Shelly spoke about risk-taking behaviours; negative experiences with the police, hospitals and mental health services; being placed in care when young; being a victim of sexual abuse as a child by males; seeing her younger siblings being subject to torture; protecting her siblings from this when possible; mother’s addiction to alcohol; violence experienced when sleeping rough; experiencing blackouts at times; experiencing bad dreams; using heroin; desire to continue to use drugs; would like to get her life back on track but doubted her ability to do this because she felt like a ‘piece of shit’.

Jess’s reflexive practice: Jess uses Shelley’s disclosure, her knowledge of theory and her past experience to develop a case management plan for Shelley.  She alerts Shelley to the harm minimisation policy of the agency that recognises substance use is a reality of young people but states that if under the influence of a substance, the young person must stay in their room until the effects have worn off.  Because Shelley may continue drug use, Jess concentrates on strategies that will keep Shelley safe while doing so while addressing, through counselling, the aspects of Shelley’s life that trigger drug use; the hope is that Shelley will see for herself that she needs to reduce or cease drug use, an aspect of feminist theory, and community development theory.   Jess’ knowledge of psychological and human development theory shows the importance of peers in young people’s lives and the influence they can have.  Jess works with Shelley to raise her consciousness about her peers and their importance.  While doing this Jess is aware of the behavioural and emotional responses young people experience during adolescence.

Shelley admits to self-harming behaviour.  Jess realises her experience is limited in this area so explores current research around best practice for dealing with young people and self-harm.  She realises that a harm-minimisation approach may be the best approach rather than trying to prevent Shelley from engaging in self-harm—her research shows it is a way of expressing emotional pain and a means of coping.  Jess is not qualified to deal with the sexual and physical abuse Shelley has experienced so notes that, when Shelley is willing and feels safe enough to do so, Jess will refer her to a specialist counsellor in this area.

This process will continue for some months with Jess engaging in constant critical reflection and supervision to ensure that her practice is as ethical, effective and sustainable as possible.

So, based on Jess and Shelley, what are the components of reflexive practice?

1. Planning interviews to ground the interview process in strategies to elicit relevant information, e.g. Jess’ awareness of the need to build rapport and establish a relationship; planning for next interview after initial interview; anticipating future issues based on Shelley’s story, e.g. need for advocacy, need for support at Centrelink

2. Linking Shelley’s disclosures and Jess’ observations to Jess’ prior knowledge and experience: discrepancy with mother’s account; danger to Jess of sleeping rough; Jess’ safety, health and hygiene as important

3. Awareness of social work theories and considering the relevance of these: critical social work approaches; strengths-based approaches; ecological systems theory (with knowledge of psychological and human development theory); structural disadvantage faced by young people in dealing with powerful organisations; advocacy approach may be necessary; awareness that behavioural and emotions responses will need to be accommodated

4. Awareness of agency guidelines: potential impact of these on Shelley and need to educate her to them to ensure success; harm minimisation approach

5. Drawing information together into case management plan: strategies to accommodate and reduce drug use (harm minimisation and feminist theory); addressing self-harming behaviour and, after reflection, adopting harm-minimisation approach; referral of sexual and physical abuse to specialists.

6. Engaging in supervision to check Jess’ practice is ethical, effective and sustainable.

Appendix 3

A student’s reflection on reflexive practice

What is reflexive practice?

                  Reflexive practice can be thought of as a circular process.  To illustrate, let’s consider what will happen when I start my practicum in July.  At some stage I will be given a task to do or a client to work with, something that will provide me with practical experience in the field.  Reflexive practice is about reflecting on the task I was given and its outcome with a view to changing or confirming how I will act next time.  I may observe some fundamental issues I have to address in future work, or my learning may be context specific, e.g. how to conduct an intake interview.  Reflexive practice continues to build on my theoretical and practical experience by preventing me from unthinkingly routinizing my practice—it is a continuous cycle: action to reflection to confirm or change to action to reflection to confirm or change to … and so on.

It is the reflection process itself that holds the key to reflexive practice.  Conducting an interview with a client can be used to illustrate this.  In an interview my previous practice knowledge, specifically the practical work I did in the recent intensive and my learning during the practicum, will form the basis of my approach along with the theory work in interviewing I studied during this unit. To this I will bring my knowledge of practice theories and practice fields, knowledge of my personal self, e.g. my values, my social class background, my views on issues, my politics, and I will have organisational guidelines to follow.  This practical and theoretical knowledge will be the starting point for the reflexive cycle.  All of these will impact either consciously or unconsciously on the approach I take, as will the involuntary or voluntary nature of the client. 

After I conduct the interview, as a reflexive practitioner, I will reflect on my effectiveness, but my reflection needs to be more than thinking if the interview went well or could be improved.  Reflexive practice involves reflecting with a critical mind.

• What aspects of my interview approach to clients need to improve?  In this case I would consider the aspects of the interview process, e.g. building rapport, questioning, paraphrasing, summarising and normalising, and examine my strengths and weaknesses.

• I should reflect on the social and political factors that impacted on the client, on the client’s situation, and on me as the worker, to further educate myself about these influences.  This will include a reflection on the voluntary or involuntary nature of the interaction.

• I should reflect on whether my own worldview impacted on my relationship with the client, a worldview formed through my life experiences—my relationships, employment, social class, education, family, ethnicity, religion, membership of various groups, gender, health, sexual orientation, and age—and a worldview that may differ to a significant extent from that of the client.

• I need to consider the underlying themes that emerged in areas such as gender, race, mental health, religion, family type, sexual orientation, social class, occupation, and education.  These themes, held by me, clients and others (especially those with power) can lead to unjust or unequal outcomes and may need to be challenged.

• Being aware of the role of social workers as advocates, I should reflect on whether or not advocacy is appropriate in this situation, e.g. will the client need support to negotiate a legitimate (e.g. organisational) or coercive power situation?

• The assistance I offer to clients should also be grounded in theoretical and practice approaches that I have internalised.  My reflection will assist me to refine and see their place in practice, approaches such as critical social work, strengths-based approaches, feminist theory, ecological systems theory, human development theories and relevant agency guidelines.  It will also guide me about additional knowledge I need to acquire, e.g. knowledge about specific practice fields.

• Reflexive practice will make me aware of the power relationships that are operated in the interview—legitimate, expert, reward, coercive, power and referent—enabling me to evaluate my and the client’s use of power appropriately.

How is reflexive practice developed?

                  Reflexive practice is developed and refined by the process itself.  Being circular, it continues to build on previous experience in a constructive manner.  However, it is, first of all, based on a critical reflection of my personal self so I become aware of my ethnocentric viewpoint formed through my life experiences—my values, beliefs, culture, class, education, as noted above.  This will help me more easily recognise clients’ viewpoints and accommodate and work with views that are different to mine.

Formal reflection on the language I use, how I use my power, and whether I am being dismissive or supportive of client views and wishes can also assist in developing my ability to engage in reflexive practice.  Approaches include journal writing, using discourse analysis or a process record approach.  These approaches should explore what was said and how it influenced the interaction, what I think was happening, and what I would do differently the next time I meet this or a similar situation.

Supervision is also essential to reflexive practice, where I discuss issues to clarify my actions, what I learned, how my personal values impacted on the situation, the use of power—in other words, the aspects of the reflexive practice cycle.