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Careful Talk: Naming Emotions and Difficulties with Others
Beautiful Practice
How my shoulders ache
I hear the rumbling of my stomach
The heaviness of my breath
The fleeting notions of my death
And yet I am not scared
Even though I feel unprepared
Because I am hopeful too
As I experience life alongside you
Clare Hopkinson 22/06/04
Heen (2005) proposed noticing and sharing one‘s feelings could shed light
on important organisational issues. As I have already shown and
throughout all strands of this inquiry naming issues, difficulties and feelings
in the moment while working with others was considered an important part
of embodying reflexivity. This acted as a counterpoint to the predominant
habitus and field where nurses followed orders in an unquestioning way
(an historical embodied disposition). This inquiry suggests the process of
naming difficulties and emotions can sometimes result in systemic shifts at
the micro and/or the macro levels in the field of practice (Weil 1998). Alice
said in her interview that:
We talked in the group how people can be quite reluctant
and maybe even the nursing profession particularly, of talking about
vulnerability and feelings. It feels that was quite important in our
process; that somehow being able to name the feelings that are
going on opens up the potential for being able to move it forward
somehow, I don‟t quite know how that works but it does seem key.
(Final interview 1/12/06)
Maria, a co-inquirer, saw naming issues directly with people as using her
personal power (at the micro and macro level); what I would call
assertiveness:
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