Linda Lundgaard Andersen

Introspection as intra-professionalism in social and health care

Abstract This article analyses two cases from health and social care, adopting a psycho-societal approach. The analysis highlights how professionalism evolves and develops through an introspection of the relational and scenic processes between professionals, as well as between the professional and the client or patient. As a phenomenon at the core of professional practice, it will be argued that introspection needs to recognize and encompass the intra- and inter-psychic responses and understandings of professionals and their clients and patients. The first case places supervision as a learning space, where framing and complex exchanges of loss and confirmation, and of denial and displacement take place between a group of social workers and their supervisor. In the second case, it becomes apparent how the research interview opens up an opportunity for processing the emotions and socially critical experiences involved in hospital work.

The psycho-societal in social and health care: implications for inquiry, practice and learning in welfare settings

I always feel bad if I know that I leave personsclients in the wake of my professional work. Usually they don’t get what I think they are in need of because I am driven by what the politicians have decided. Or someone in charge thinks that I am capable of doing everything between heaven and earth . . . and I know that if I haven’t had time for my last patient’s client, if and they have been sitting and waiting for me all day then I have ruined their day. But I don’t know what the heck I should do . . . that I find deeply frustrating. It really bothers me. So I’ll just have to run . . . (Hospital nurse cited from Dybbroe, 2006)