PDF (PhD Thesis) - UWE Research Repository - University of the ...

The story above highlights the loss of action through whinging. I blamed it
on a lack of time but really it was a lack of will. I didn‘t want to change
anything; I had no energy to try because the work life balance had tipped
the scales. I didn‘t have a sense of my own agency. I realised whinging
could be related to the culture of martyrdom through feelings of being
overwhelmed, powerlessness and resentment. The writing piece also
raised issues about self awareness and reflecting.
Before starting this PhD I had a reasonably fixed concept of ‗self
awareness‘ divorced from any context, seeing it as part of and developed
through reflective practice. It was a journey and an ideal to strive for. I
didn‘t understand the post-structural notion of contradictory ‗multiple
selves‘. I tended to see concepts in a binary or polarised way, that is, I was
either whinging or I was co-inquiring; I was either emotional or I was
rational. This also related to research; it was either objective or subjective
depending on which paradigm the work was situated. The idea that I could
hold both contradictory positions simultaneously, related to a specific
context and irrelevant to a context, seems obvious now but was not the
case in 2003.
The dominant discourse in the nursing reflective practice literature
emphasises development of self and self-awareness as transformative
aspects of reflecting 35 . It tends to imply a linear and ‗whole‘ consistent
sense of self devoid of a context. Consequently, it rarely focuses on how
the NHS structures and professional ‗norms‘ shape professional identity or
how this might relate to nurses‘ ability to reflect (Platzer et al 2000a). The
assumption is that self awareness is a positive process and in learning
more about herself, the nurse will improve her practice, but is this the
case? I turn now to the tension of exposing oneself through reflecting.
35 See for example Glaze 2002, 2001, Johns 2000, 1997, Jasper 1999, Durgahee 1996,
Mezirow 1990
148