Reflective Practice: A guide for nurses and midwives

Reflection helps us understand the impact of our actions and improve our professional skills. This practical guide shows nurses and midwives how to develop a reflective approach to their work and how to sustain reflective practice throughout their professional lives.

Bev Taylor introduces three main types of reflection: technical, practical and emancipatory, showing readers how these can be used in different aspects of clinical work. She acknowledges the issues faced by practitioners in bureaucratic work settings with time constraints and regulated routines, and shows how reflection can help professionals deal with the complexity of their working lives. Readers are given a 'kitbag' of strategies they can use to get started.

With great warmth Bev Taylor describes how developing a reflective practice is part of learning how to value yourself as a nurse or midwife, and as a person. Throughout the book she provides real examples of reflective writing from nurses and midwives, and shows how these professionals have been able to improve their skills as a result of being alert to their practice.

A practical and insightful guide, richly illuminated with stories from everyday practice, to enable the practitioner to become an effective reflective practitioner. The power of Bev Taylor's approach is to view reflection as a way of life and not just as a technique.

Christopher Johns, Reader in Advanced Nursing Practice, University of Luton, UK

Bev Taylor's latest work weaves a tapestry for a reflective frame as foundational to our humanity, restoring and integrating the personal with our professional life, work and experiences.It is a hopeful framework and a healing gift to all practising nurses and midwives.

Jean Watson, Distinguished Professor of Nursing, University of Colorado, USA