The Power Of Reflective Journaling

Marci:

I have had the privilege of being one of the participants in the first class of the Multiculturalism Certificate as part of my Master’s in Speech-Language Pathology. I don’t think I can put into words how meaningful and transformative this certificate process has been. I have grown so much as an aspiring clinician and as a person through this process. 

For me personally, one of the most meaningful facets of the Multiculturalism Certificate has been the clinical journal entries. As part of the Multiculturalism Certificate requirements, we have been tasked with writing a weekly journal entry about our clinical experiences relating to multiculturalism in a broad sense. I have found myself mentally flagging experiences during the day, thinking to myself that this would be a good interaction to unpack in a journal entry or an experience/interaction related to a multicultural issue really bothered me for some reason so I need to examine that in a journal entry to figure out why. I’ve been building a list of experiences that warrant further exploration. Some experiences I have chosen to write about immediately, whereas others I wait for a few weeks or even months. Sometimes, I have found that distance from these experiences has better equipped me to examine that experience and learn from it. I don’t know what it is, but there has been something so powerful in unpacking clinical interactions and multicultural issues that come up in clinical practice in a journal entry that makes me better understand the client and myself. I usually learn a valuable life lesson that I want to apply moving forward when working with various populations. 

I think that the most valuable part of this clinical journal entry experience has been the interactions that I’ve had with my paired faculty advisor. Each of us in the Multicultural Certificate has been paired with a faculty member who reads our journal entries and responds to us about our entries. Having this dialogue with a highly seasoned clinician has helped me look at these interactions that I have struggled with from a different perspective. While journaling and self-reflection are invaluable tools, I have found that I get stuck at times, and there is a lot I don’t know that can help further my growth as an aspiring clinician and person. Tomma’s guidance has helped spur this growth so much more quickly and from another perspective. She helps me see that I am not the only one with these blind spots and helps me to forgive myself when I make a “mistake” from a multicultural perspective. I feel like my journal entries are a safe space where I can unpack areas I am struggling with that I am not comfortable to do so elsewhere.

Tomma:

When we thought up and developed the multicultural certificate program, it was clear that we needed to incorporate a significant clinical aspect for our students. One way to ensure that they were getting the most out of their clinical experiences with a variety of populations was to ask them to reflect on their experiences from a multicultural perspective, to reflect on their individual interactions, their responses (internal and external) and to process what they experienced and what they learned from these interactions and experiences. Thus we instituted weekly journal entries, each one analyzing an interaction with a different kind of patient/client.

When I was tasked with reading and discussing the students’ journal entries, I was excited and really looking forward to finding out what they were getting out of their clinical experiences, these journal assignments in particular, and the multicultural certificate in general. But reading Marci’s journal entries exceeded any of my expectations of what this process would look like. She approached each of her client interactions with an open-mindedness and selfless vulnerability that was heartwarming. It was clear with the progression of her journal entries that she took any and all of the thoughts and discussions to heart for future clinical interactions.

Life and lives are made up of stories; and each individual journal entry was a story in itself. Marci always reflected on her role in the story and on how she could make (or could have made) it a better story for her clients. The only part I had to caution her about in this process is that she not forget herself in these interactions. It is important to not be too self critical, to care for yourself and keep in mind that you are human and always learning. It is ok to seek help and you must forgive yourself when you do feel that you have made a “mistake”. Learn from it and move on, that’s what this multicultural certificate experience should be about.