The Significance of Reflective Practice in Clinical Psychology

This essay explores the significance of reflective practice in clinical settings, focusing on its importance for psychologists and counselors. It highlights how reflection aids in self-understanding, ethical practice, and therapeutic relationship development. The essay discusses the experience-reflection-action (ERA) cycle and the role of evidence-based reflection in decision-making. It also examines the contributions of Lavender and Schol in conceptualizing reflective practice and emphasizes the value of self-awareness and appraisal, as advocated by the British Psychological Society (BPS). The Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is presented as a useful theoretical design for data collection and analysis, exploring personal experiences and the importance of those experiences. Furthermore, the essay discusses how reflection helps professionals manage personal feelings, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and enhance creative thinking. For counselors, reflective practice bridges the gap between theory and practice, improves expertise, and leads to higher professional standards and client satisfaction. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of feedback from clients in the reflective process and the need for counselors to maintain ethical professional practice.

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SIGNIFICANCE OF REFLECTION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE
By
Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
School (University)
City and State
The Date

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Introduction
Reflective practice means learning through our previous experiences. For a counselor to be
proficient, it is important to be able to reflect on the working methods and Identify where to
make changes for better services. Counseling job is most of the time emotional and stressful.
Reflection helps one to clarify issues and develop the effectiveness in handling clients.
Psychologists who have knowledge in scientific practitioner training are expected and required to
utilize their best scientific rationale within the clinical field of work. Previous researches
concerning the reflective practice concentrated on the training and expansion of reflective skills
with little attention paid on how these skills are of importance in the clinician’s field of practice
(Greenfield et al, 2015).
Critical Evaluation
Reflection can be demonstrated by evaluating what had happened or the similar situations that
one has experienced and looking in different ways that will enhance suggestions of essential
actions. The experience- reflection – action (ERA) cycle is a reflective practice which has three
components;
1. An experience (things that happened to a person)
2. Reflection (the reflective processes that help one to learn from experiences0
3. Action (the new actions that result in perspectives undertaken)
Through such a reflective cycle a counselor, a psychologist or any other health
practitioner can be able to learn, notes errors and perform proficiently in their field of practice.
Clinical reflective practices enable healthcare practitioners to recall past observations of events
and reflect on them to make efficient decisions. Reflective learning is a productivity activity

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useful in planning for future learning based on what someone already knows and on what he/she
can anticipate. Guidance in the whole reflective process assists in a deeper understanding of new
concept within current experiences (Bassot, 2016).
Significance in Psychologist
Reflection helps the psychologists to understand themselves in a better way and how their
work affects them personally. Reflection helps the psychologists to have a better understanding
of their professional, their role as clinicians and how to maintain their ethical standards of
professionalism. Through reflection, the psychologists are able to engage and understand their
client and find ways of developing a therapeutic relationship as well as dealing with cases that
felt stuck. In real life situations, the psychologists have a difficult time in making decisions
within their practice due to many unknown and uncontrolled variables (Cropley et al, 2016).
However, they are able to handle all this through evidence-based reflections and research
findings incorporated with the best guidelines for the treatments (Fisher, Chew and Leow, 2015).
Through reflective practice, professionals such as psychologist and psychotherapist make tough
decisions based on rational, academic and technical knowledge. These decisions involve two
major processes; during the event (in action-reflection) and after the event (on action-reflection)
(Mansell, Carey and Tai, 2015).
The reflection helps the psychologists to make tough and quick decisions while at difficult
situations even if there are inadequate information. This shows that technical knowledge such as
cognitive behavioral therapy only is not adequate for a health professional to make a quality
decision. Therefore, reflective practice enables a professional to become over simplistic and
technically driven while applying their knowledge (Freda, Esposito and Quaranta, 2015).

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In various research the conceptualization of the reflective practice regarding Lavender’s and
Schol’s contributions, they suggested that reflective practices have to involve for processes to
overcome its negative definition as a theoretical construct. Therefore, processes by the two
researchers are Schol’s two original reflections in action and reflection on action and reflection
about self and reflection about the effect on other people. According to the British Psychologists
Society (BPS), psychologists should be cognizant of much significant in self-awareness and have
to reflect and appraise on their practice. There is evidence that suggests that clinical psychologist
and trainee find the reflective practice much essential in the day- to – day carrier activities
(McEwan and Tod, 2015).
Knight builds evidence through evaluation of the impact of reflective practice trainee on
particular clients to find out their qualifications on clinical psychologists professional. The
participating clients revealed the value of the reflective practice through their expression. In a
study, the qualitative approach explanation would be much useful in exploring how the clinical
psychologist account and experience the significance of reflection during their practice. Bearing
in mind that clinical psychology is an international profession, reflective practices are
encouraged in different parts of the world. It is crucial to encourage for more research on
reflective practice in many regions especially Singapore and SriLanka for the contextual and
potential usefulness of the practice (Morgan, Pullon, and McKinlay, 2015).
In an evaluation of the pivotal importance of the clinical practice, an Interpretive
Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) can be a very useful theoretical design for data collection and
analysis. The IPA explores how people feel about their professional experiences, and it
concentrates mainly on the phenomenon instead of what is responsible for such a phenomenon.
This design is influenced by three areas of the philosophy of understanding mainly the

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ideography, phenomenology and the hermeneutics (Vaughan‐Graham and Cott, 2017). The IPA
phenomenological focuses on the understanding of the person’s experience and reflects on the
importance of such experiences. The hermeneutics theory of interpretations pays attention to the
relationship and interaction when people are conducting research with other people. It also
recognizes the implications of the point of view of the researcher. The IPA ideography focuses
on understanding the phenomenon at a personal level and n a specific consent. This theoretical
knowledge of IPA basis on their area of investigation and the concept of the reflective practice
has aligned itself with it. The IPA phenomenon uses a small sample other participants for
analysis which evaluate all the areas; hermeneutic, idiographic and the phenomenological
underpinnings. The design involves interviews, process analysis and finally the result (Tsingos-
Lucas et al, 2016).
The above IPA design is much useful for such research of investigating the positive significance
of the reflective practice in psychologists. Some of the importance of clinical reflective practice
was deduced. Clinical reflective practice enables the psychologist to manage personal feelings
such as inadequacy, anxiety and their impact on others. It also helps the clinical trainee to
understand the strength and weaknesses in their field of practice. The more one reflects, the more
he/she gains the benefits of reflective practice for it is a gradual evolving practice, particularly
when dealing with support systems and at reducing self- doubt and enables one to work without
much supervision. Clinical reflection enhances the psychologist to develop a sense of creative
thinking, generate a case formulation and use of past experiences while building upon it to a
point where regular supervision and consistency meetings are not necessary. Reflection helps the
new young professional understand what to reflect, how much to reflect and how many layers are
required to reflect (McConville, McAleer and Hahne, 2017).

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In one investigative study, one of the participant clinicians deduced the reflection as similar
experience as to driving a car. When one is driving a care for the first time he/she, the recruit
keeps on looking at everything on the road. But after gaining experience after driving for a long
time he/she can step on the accelerator, put on the gear and can drive as fast as a rally driver.
Therefore through several clinical reflective practices, an individual can achieve quality
experiences and become efficient in his/her professionalism. Reflective practice helps
psychologists to manage troubling and negative feelings and also increases awareness of
personal issues that a clinician have on others (Greenfield et al, 2015).
Significance in counselors
The reflection approach is of much importance to the counselors for the efficiency and quality
deliverance of the counseling services to their clients and for competence on their
professionalism. Reflection acts as a tool that distinguishes between theory and field of practice
for the trainee or the learning student. Reflective practice helps the health practitioner to expand
his/her expertise skills which improve with time for competence sets of proficiency (Doyle et al,
2016).
Critical reflective practice is a useful tool that leads someone on how to process his/her thoughts,
actions and feelings. It helps one to one to develop a high standard within the working
environment and enhances one to achieve his/her professional goals. Reflective practice is more
useful by the health practitioner like healthcare counselors on their placement or on their
professional practice who are encouraged to reflect critically and more deeply on what they do.
Through past clinical experiences, a counselor gets knowledge of some situations where he/she
has to say no or yes. Reflections help the counselor to understand that saying no is not a
weakness, but it is essential for intelligence. Counselor learns that although it is their profession,

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they can’t deal with everything for they are still human beings. Through professional
experiences and intelligence, they refer their clients to someone else they think can handle the
situations further (Bassot, 2014).
Preservation of the counselor’s ethical professional practice: a professional counselor has to
consider legal and ethical strategies to be vital while doing their work. Clinical experiences and
academic skills are combined with personal experiences in counseling fields to produce efficient
resources or methods which address challenges that face therapeutic practitioners on a daily
basis. According to guidelines of Tribe and Morrissey, there is particular emphasis on current
codes of practice and ethical rules that demonstrate implications and safe, ethical practice for
healthcare counseling practitioners. It is essential for the counselor to reflect on the client’s
experiences and ensure that he/she is emotionally detached to offer the best counseling session
(Tribe and Morrissey, 2015).
Sharing experiences: Although clinical counseling shares many common methodologies in the
workplace, it is essential for one to find out more distinct techniques and theories from other
counseling experts. The counselor also is required to seek more advice from his/her senior
clinical supervisor in handling some contradicting situations. The clinical supervisors use the
constructivist principles to provide supervision strategies that facilitate and guide psychologist
and counselors with critical self-reflection. Counselors work in several dissimilar situations, and
each situation has its own challenges. Having a responsibility to run a business or a healthcare
institution or being self-employed requires a lot of mindset and organization, but workings
within a team have distinguished types of pressures (Guiffrida, 2015).
.

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Client satisfaction: Reflective practice enables counselors to tailor the customer with formulaic
options that will help them improve their conditions. The reflective strategies help clients to
realize what matters and personalize the services themselves (Redmond, 2017). Every client
expects to see changing results after they have undergone counseling. Through experiences and
reflection from past clinical practices, the counselor is able to deduce an example to demonstrate
to the clients. The clients need to know that things do not change instantly and they have to take
some period of months or years. This will help the clients to overcome the feeling that there is no
change happening or that they are not benefitting after counseling if they don’t observe small
changes. There are certain professional standards that the counselor needs to maintain as a
reflective healthcare practitioner. When some of these standards are not met the clients maybe
end up being disappointed and dissatisfied (Redmond, 2017). A counselor without the use of
reflection becomes stagnant and loses motivation and thus self- evaluation is a vital part of the
role of a better counselor (de Vries and Timmins, 2016).
The feedback from Counselor’s clients is an important factor in counseling reflection. The client
is the greatest supplier of information about the working method to the counselor. When
obtaining the feedback, the counselor needs to have much confidence to avoid showing
weaknesses to the client. This feedback can be obtained from the client subconsciously through
questioning the client on how they feel and about their progression (Mullen and Uwamahoro,
2015).
Conclusion
The essay has described how reflective practice within healthcare has great significance to both
the psychologist and counselors and their clients. In conclusion, it is clear that reflection in
clinical practice is a positive factor in the role of a counselor, and one has to use it to expand his/

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her clinical skills usually. Only successful healthcare reflective practitioner will always see the
benefits of changes required on the past methods used and did not succeed. The essay has
elaborated on how the reflection helps and benefits both the counselors and psychologist. It has
been shown that it is through past experiences, reflective clinical practices that the counselors
and the psychologist perform best and at high standards. The client’s feedback remains the
crucial tool of obtaining information and thus advancing in knowledge.

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