Being reflective

We’re getting closer to the results of the first phase of the selection process, which will move us to the interview stage. In this blog post, we’ll explore an important skill for both the interview stage and your overall clinical journey: being reflective. But what does it really mean to be reflective?

What Does Being Reflective Mean?  

Being reflective means thinking carefully about your own thoughts and feelings to understand them better. 

The Role and Benefits of Reflection in Clinical Practice  

Clinical supervision provides a valuable opportunity for assistant psychologists to practise reflective skills. Ooi, Coker, and Fisher (2023) emphasise that supervision is a key platform for fostering reflective practice in trainees. Supervisors play a pivotal role in encouraging self-awareness and critical thinking, which ultimately enhances professional growth and therapeutic skills.  

Reflection offers numerous benefits for clinical psychologists. According to Fisher, Chew, and Leow (2015), reflection helps psychologists better understand their clients and improve therapeutic engagement. It also aids in managing emotional challenges and maintaining professional boundaries. Furthermore, reflection is seen as a way to foster empathy and promote self-care among clinicians. Reflective writing, in particular, supports continuous learning by encouraging deeper processing of clinical experiences and facilitating metacognition—helping psychologists critically evaluate their own thought processes and assumptions. This study highlights the importance of incorporating reflective writing into clinical training programmes.  

Deliberate reflection also enhances clinical reasoning and decision-making. Mamede and Schmidt (2023) found that it improves diagnostic accuracy and reduces cognitive errors. By learning from past experiences, clinicians can adapt their approaches to future cases, making reflection especially useful in complex or ambiguous situations.  

In summary, reflective practice is essential for personal and professional development in clinical psychology, benefiting both clinicians and their clients. Integrating structured reflection into supervision, training, and clinical routines can significantly enhance therapeutic effectiveness and self-awareness.  

Interview

To help explain this further, we spoke with two Trainees Clinical Psychologist: Sabreena Hussain and Sarah Sodimu, who shared their thoughts on the importance of being reflective.

Sabreena Hussain

1. How has being reflective helped you in your career and interviews?

Being reflective has been helpful in being able to explore my layers of identity. It has helped to bring awareness aspects within my personal and professional life that I am not aware of. Being reflective clinically has enabled conversations with clients to support their guided discovery in to some of their untold parts of themselves. During interviews, reflecting has helped me to think in depth about my own work experiences and thought processes behind my clinical practice. 

2. How did you manage to stay reflective during interviews?

Staying reflective during interviews is something I needed to practice in which I am still practicing to develop further to provide in depth answers which draw upon the whole self personally and professionally. I tend to think use a mental template when answering interview questions which would tend to touch upon the point in which I am making, my clinical work experience, how my social graces played a role, and what could have been done differently. Being able to reflect during interviews has helped to showcase not only my professional self but what parts of my identity have shaped the ways in which I work with clients. 

3. Which reflective models have you used, and why?

I have often used the Gibbs reflective cycle because it has enabled me to think about a structure for my responses which include describing the situation, my inner thought process and feelings such as biases, anxiety etc., evaluating the effectiveness of the approach in which I took and impact, analysing the situation by taking a deeper dive to making sense of the experience quite literally but also the multifaceted layers to the situation, reflecting on what I may have done differently and alternative approaches to the situation and lastly thinking about a plan for the future if I were to come across this situation and what I have learnt from the process. 

This model has also been helpful in clinical case reports when structuring how I have used a particular therapeutic approach working with clients. 

4. What advice would you give to someone wanting to develop their reflective skills?

For interviews, I would highly recommend structuring some of your responses on practice questions. It has been helpful for me to voice record my responses and listen to these back as part of practice. During interviews, it can sometimes be challenging to get your reflections across whilst in a highly anxious situation therefore practicing what you would like the interviewer to know about you and your experiences can be quite helpful. 

Sarah Sodimu

1. How has being reflective helped you in your career and interviews?

Being reflective has helped me to go beyond descriptions and really think about why I have made or not made certain decisions, what went well, what to improve on and external/internal influences that I may not have considered naturally. I think in my career specifically it has really helped me to grow as a clinician and think about the future and wider implications decisions/outcomes have on a population, service, client, the NHS and myself. In interviews, it has helped me to stand out and be more authentic by showing parts of myself that I usually would not. It also allows me to develop my answers more and show a holistic in-depth view to interviewers rather than something more surface level. 

2. How did you manage to stay reflective during interviews?

By having lots of sticky notes around me saying ‘BE REFLECTIVE’! But in all seriousness, I think the other thing that helped me was questioning their question! I know that sounds very meta but, I would ask myself what was the interviewer really trying to find out here? It helped to guide and shape my answer in a reflective manner. For example, the question ‘tell me a challenging situation at work/a case that didn’t go well’ is really asking you to talk about things like decision making under pressure, clinical judgement, experiences of team working, self-awareness and seeking support from others. For me, when it’s broken down like this you have then created so many avenues to be reflective and it feels less daunting than the original question – don’t feel like you need to cover everything though – quality over quantity is good here! I also managed to stay reflective by questioning why I was sharing this information or what did I want the interviewer to take away from what I was saying. Doing this helped me stay reflective and avoid of going off on tangents and losing the point. 

3. Which reflective models have you used, and why?

The main reflective model I use is Driscoll’s reflective cycle – this is the, what, so what, now what model. If I’m honest I initially started using it because it was the easiest to remember without having to search for it! I also appreciate how brief it is as it prompts me to be concise in my reflections where possible and not waffle but still allows me to be reflective enough. I have also used other models occasionally like the Kolb’s reflective cycle, which has been helpful especially in identifying any assumptions I may hold that I didn’t realise but I just can’t remember all the stages as easily as Driscoll’s!

4. What advice would you give to someone wanting to develop their reflective skills?

It sounds cliché but practice, practice and more practice! Being reflective is a skill so it takes work to cultivate it to a point where it comes more naturally. Where possible practice with your supervisors, other colleagues and even friends/family – I send my friend a weekly reflection about anything just to help me practice! Using a reflective model is also a great place to start, it helps guide you into reflection and can help you to identify where you can be more reflective. YouTube also has some videos on reflection which I found helpful! Lastly, give yourself credit! Reflection is not easy, but the likelihood is you are reflecting more than you think but just haven’t named it as a reflection!!

In conclusion, developing the skill of being reflective is not only essential for interviews but also a cornerstone of your clinical journey. To support you in this process, we’ve created a range of resources, including templates of the reflective models mentioned in this post and innovative strategies to enhance your reflective practice. These tools are designed to help you build confidence, deepen self-awareness, and prepare effectively for your interviews. 

Digital Reflective Journal: https://www.psychologycap.com/product-page/digital-reflective-journal-your-key-to-interview-success

References 

Fisher, P., Chew, K., & Leow, Y. J. (2015). Clinical psychologists’ use of reflection and reflective practice within clinical work. Reflective Practice, 16(6), 731-743.

Mamede, S., & Schmidt, H. G. (2023). Deliberate reflection and clinical reasoning: Founding ideas and empirical findings. Medical Education, 57(1), 76-85.

Ooi, S. M., Coker, S., & Fisher, P. (2023). Clinical psychologists’ experience of cultivating reflective practice in trainee clinical psychologists during supervision: A qualitative study. Reflective Practice, 24(4), 481-495.