Promises and pressures of critical reflection for social work coping in change

Abstract

Critical reflection is a method for self-evaluation and critical analyses of the premises and contextual constraints of social work in order to find alternative ways of action. In this article I will discuss the pressures and promises of critical reflection for social workers trying to cope with their work in changing contexts without losing their faith and motivation to stay in the career and without getting caught into a self-made professional trap of becoming exploited by their idealism. Critical reflection does have potential to promote conscious agency and critical subject positions. In its pressures to produce transformation and political emancipation, critical reflection might simultaneously constitute a trap for practitioners. However, critical reflection may offer the potential for coping with the challenges of change and of differing contexts of action by helping to orientate and re-orientate professional action in a contingent world where change is continuous.