CHAPTER 3 Writing Self; the First Dialogical Movement
Christopher Johns
The first dialogical movement is to write a description of an experience that becomes the canvass for subsequent reflection. Writing is taking ownership of one’s experience. It is an awakening and inquiry into self. It opens the doorway to become interested and curious about one’s practice. Tufnell and Crickmay (2004, p. 63) note how:
writing gives us time to absorb the feel of what has just happened. While movement is ephemeral, quickly vanishing from our memory, written language remains, giving us a means of dwelling upon and finding significance in what has just occurred.
The practitioner writes to recall the reality of the experience through the rich description, paying attention to detail, and drawing on all the senses in order to capture the experience in the most realistic way. It is ‘replaying the situation in the mind’s eye’ (Boud et al. 1985, p. 27). Recalling the experience is subjective, viewed from the practitioner’s particular perspective. Others involved in the experience may view it differently. This is natural and is not a problem because it is the practitioner’s view that is the focus for reflection. What the practitioner writes is subjective and contextual. It is best written from the perspective of ‘I’ rather than in the third person that depersonalises the experience as if turning self into an object. It is ‘I’ in relationship with others. Gully (2005, p. 151) writes: ‘it is the process of journaling that is by far the most significant act in my practice’, for it records the process of my evolving as a human being and connects me with the other in my nursing relationship; it is the journey from the ‘I’ to the ‘we’. The practitioner may surprise themselves with what they write, as if writing lifts unconscious matters to the surface – ‘where did that come from?’ As Ferruci (1982, p. 41) writes: ‘Writing can be much more powerful that we may think at first. We should not be surprised that unconscious material surfaces so readily in our writing’.
Practitioners may get stuck between telling their story and writing it as if they hit a mental block. Perhaps telling stories is more spontaneous whilst writing is more considered, more cognitive, more self‐conscious, as if an internal censor is at work trying to fit the description into learnt ways of writing that may inhibit expression and stifle the imagination. Some people will always struggle to write despite the advice to just let the words flow in spontaneous flow. However, writing is not arcane or mysterious. It is simply self‐expression in whatever way best suits the practitioner. It is personal, like a diary.
Writing exposes the self and opens a world of possibilities. As Manjusvara (2005, p. 10) writes: ‘the practice of writing takes us to the heart of ourselves and makes it palpable how alive with possibilities we really are’. Manjusvara’s words suggest that writing wakes the self up to our human potential, a self that might have become deadened to the world for whatever reason, where potential has shrunk to virtual nothing.
Keeping a Reflective Journal
I carry a small notebook for making notes that I may reflect later on. These notes are usually facts to remind me about the situation or noting dialogue that I might not quite remember later. These notes can then be worked up on the computer (my digital reflective journal). I write in the present tense to better capture the moment. I let the words come as a spontaneous flow in the rich description, paying attention to as much detail as possible, pursuing signs, running off on tangents. As Wheatley (1999, p. 143) writes: ‘we paint a portrait of the whole, surfacing as much detail as possible’.
Recall the moment, for example – the look on the person’s face, a word said, a tear shed, a feeling, a harsh word spoken, uncertainty, the dance of the trees outside the window.
Writing is perhaps best done as a letting go into imagination rather than a rigid attempt to remember every fine detail. In this way, images and ideas emerge. Tufnell and Crickmay note (2004, p. 63) that writing: ‘may be fluent, or clumsy, abundant of brief, poetic or plain. We have to assume it will be the necessary expression for this moment’. These words offer helpful advice to the practitioner not to be over concerned about what or how they write. As we shall explore later, reflection helps to make sense, fill in detail and reveal significance.
One evening I wrote in my journal after a shift at the hospice where I worked as a voluntary therapist:
Indigo
She lies on her bed. Her arm tucked up behind her head, her eyes are closed. She makes little movements of her waxed lips. Shifts of her pelvis as if trying to get comfortable, little furrows of pain between her eyes. Her swollen abdomen incongruent with her emaciated body. The staff tell me they struggle to keep on top of her pain. The diamorphine dose has reached 160 mg. via the syringe driver. I listen to it’s regular pulse infuse its cargo into Indigo’s tired veins. For a moment technology holds the gaze and then I see Indigo again against a backdrop of flowers with white and yellow heads that adorn the bedside. A friend from church sits with her. The quiet of the waiting room in the afternoon. The aroma‐stone has gone. I find it in the clinical room ‘in soak’. I feel the conflict stir within me, mindful of the merry‐go‐round of careless action. A care assistant says it went dry, adding ‘They have not had time to replenish it’. The conflict rises inside like a malevolent energy. I would like to say ‘It is not a question of time it is a question of attention’. But mindful of the critical parent rising within me, I refrain. Bottle up the anger. Not good!
This description simply says what happened. In my portable journal, I noted ‘Indigo makes me angry they can’t pay attention outside their narrow focus!’ Writing that down was a cathartic explosion. Just writing the word ‘angry’ reduced its hold on me. I returned to the note later that evening to write up the description because the experience felt significant enough to pursue.
Writing cannot be prescribed, although teachers may try and impose some academic order on your writing. Writing is deeply personal. What you write should not be written to suit others, although there are some useful tips to help the writer.
1 Pay attention to everything that seems to impinge upon the experience, no matter how tangential it is. Do not discard anything. It may emerge as significant.
2 Write as spontaneously as possible. In reflective practise workshops, I ask people to write a story about a recent experience for 20 minutes without taking the pen off the paper. It needn’t be about clinical practice. To facilitate spontaneous expression, I assert ‘write without taking the pen off the paper’. Spontaneity is a helpful instruction because it encourages the writer not to overthink the description but let it flow as if it is the body that is writing rather than the mind. When we lift the pen, we pause and think and get stuck. Manjusvara (2005, p. 37) notes: ‘as the hand begins to overtake the brain it is amazing how often there emerges a coherent statement of what I had previously been struggling to say’.
3 Draw on all your senses. What did things look like, smell like, sound like, even taste like? What did I sense? Paying attention to detail – the colour of the walls, what noises permeated the situation? What time of day? Such things may seem immaterial at the time of writing, but on reflection, may gain significance. The more detail, the better.
4 Prepare yourself that you are going to pay attention to your experiences and write your journal. This will prompt you to pay more attention to what is unfolding moment to moment.
5 Give free rein to your imagination. Writing should be approached with a playful and creative spirit. IT is YOU! In writing, you are writing yourself, your body, nurturing your precious and unique self. In writing, you change yourself on a subliminal level. As Ferruci (1982, p. 42) says, ‘it is like cutting a new pathway in a jungle’.
6 Capture
