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Published on: May 14, 2010
Private thoughts in public spheres: issues in reflection and reflective practices in nursing
1School of Nursing, Family and Community Health, University of Western Sydney, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia. a.cotton@uws.edu.au
Journal of Advanced Nursing
|November 13, 2001
Summary
This study critiques reflection and reflective practice in nursing, revealing how private thoughts become public, controlled data. New conceptualizations are needed to value diverse nursing perspectives.
Area of Science:
- Nursing Studies
- Sociology of Professions
- Philosophy of Practice
Background:
- Reflection and reflective practice in nursing transform private thoughts into public data, subject to surveillance and control.
- Existing literature uncritically promotes these practices despite ambiguous definitions and potential ethical concerns.
- The discourse surrounding reflective practice in nursing warrants critical examination.
Purpose of the Study:
- To problematize the concepts of reflection and reflective practice in nursing.
- To analyze how private thoughts enter the public sphere and shape professional identities.
- To challenge the uncritical acceptance of reflective practice in nursing literature.
Main Methods:
- Utilizes Foucauldian concepts of power-knowledge and discourse.
- Critically interrogates contemporary nursing literature on reflection and reflective practice.
- Analyzes the implications of power dynamics in the constitution of subjectivities.
Main Results:
- Demonstrates how reflective practice facilitates the surveillance and control of nurses' thoughts.
- Highlights the ambiguous and diverse interpretations of reflection within nursing scholarship.
- Reveals a hegemonic discourse that promotes reflective practice without critical debate.
Conclusions:
- Challenges the dominant, uncritical discourse on reflection in nursing.
- Advocates for new conceptualizations of reflection that embrace diverse perspectives and contexts.
- Calls for a more nuanced understanding of reflective practice's role in nursing.
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