ABSTRACT
One of the principal objections to practising reflexively is the uncertainty it is said to produce. It can seem much more straightforward to work with the certainties of evidence-based research and the technical problems of applying it to practice; or so it may seem. However, the fit between ‘objective theory’ and ‘practice’ may not be so easy to manage in daily work routines where formal propositional knowledge may seem to have little bearing on how to manage the client/worker relationship. Herein lies the appeal of reflective practice because it switches focus from the application of technical knowledge to managing the (often painful and difficult) minutiae of day-to-day practice. It offers the comfort of dealing with ‘the real issues’ and focusing on the subjective elements of practice. However, while reflective practice opens up the possibility of a more uncertain, ambiguous and complex world, it tends to close much of this down again by obscuring clients’ perspectives and freezing practitioners’ confessional accounts as true representations of what happened.
