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Chapter Ten – Summary and Conclusions – Page 317
and it invites and encourages discovery in practice, a key means to develop truly
practice-based evidence-based practice.
From this summary and synthesis of findings, I am aware of the potential for both
condensation and expansion of this material.
A major condensation is an enhanced and demonstrated awareness of the layered nature
of experience, and the importance of considering the range of contexts that may be
relevant to an understanding of that experience, such as associated fields and allied foci,
generated by processes involving both metonymy and metaphor.
A major expansion of the findings is to consider their application in other learning
groups, and indeed in other settings. A key question might be, do individuals and teams
of staff have the capacity to explore anxiety in the performance of their primary task, to
reflect on the nature and meaning of that anxiety, and to make use of that anxiety in the
successful conduct of their work. This study offers a means to explore and understand
whether this question can be answered in the affirmative, and if not, to deliver and
evaluate interventions to make that so.
More personally, I hope I have contributed to an enhanced understanding of how the
mind can learn and develop. This learning and development has been studied
specifically in relation to learning to help to heal other minds, but has much wider
application. In particular, I hope that I have illustrated how this learning and
development can be fostered when it takes place in a certain kind of association with
other like minds.