Professional Practise Blog 6 Professional Development, reflective practise and supervision Due 23rd October Hannah Howley

Professional Practise
Blog 6
Professional Development, reflective practise and supervision
Due 23rd October
Hannah Howley

Professional practise isn’t just something that is given to you. It is a sub heading for several influencing factors of a professional practise. As a massage therapist yourself, it is important to be learning new things and keeping up to date at all times and also being vigilant and knowing what areas you need to work on and improve and also notice the things that you are doing well.

Being able to reflect well on what you are doing is a great attribute and skill. The reflective practitioner strives to develop self-awareness and improvement on their effectiveness. Developing awareness to reactions within your environment and the interactions that you have with others makes for effective communication. Being able to notice how your attitude and moods around clients and other staff members is a good thing to be able to notice. You affect others around you by your moods so it is important to know how to make this better. It also has a big part to do with continual clients. If they aren’t happy with you or your service they may not want to come back.

Once you are able to identify your strengths and weaknesses and what you are doing well and what you can do better you will be able to begin to improve and you will be on your way to being successful and professional. A few steps that could be taken to improve the massage practise would be;

- Writing up more thorough S.O.T.A.P forms and asking yourself what you did well in the session and what you could improve on
- Asking a supervisor for help and feedback on how you are doing
- Having good client feedback forms with questions relating to the bigger picture and not just comfort levels (however that still is important).
- Writing up in a diary or journal or something of how you performed overall before, during and after the massage session.


All of these things help to support your professional development in several ways. However it is still important to notice the things that you are doing well. Practise, select, describe, reflect research plan, alter, practise and monitor.

Notice what you’re not happy with and change it.

When it comes to supervision, I believe that it is an important aspect of you professional development. For example, in the clinical situation we have at polytech, we always have someone there to guide us and supervise us as we are not fully qualified yet. If u weren’t aware of a supervisor u might want to go with asking the NZ association of counsellors (NZAC) as they have a list of registered supervisors around the area. The NZ association of pyscotherapists (NZAP), depending on whether it is necessary and can be incredibly valuable but not really an expectation of the professional body however this may change. It’s about self development and has an impact on other people. I feel that it is important to be able to have these ‘guides’ in place or available for you to contact if you need to especially to watch over your practise and give you feed back. It also sets your mind to the fact that you have someone you can ask for help and that you are not alone in the business. Creates mind/body security.

To have a professional practise, it is important to keep up with and follow all codes of conduct as well as your own routine and the way you work. Being able to understand yourself and the way you learn is very helpful to becoming successful. It’s also important to keep up with MNZ and continue to further your training at all times where possible. Once qualified, it would be a good idea to sign with the RMT’s not only for legal tax reasons but to be able to further knowledge and gain points for it. Like Debbie has said in her blog, it would be a good idea to join the professional development policy which is run through MNZ. It would help gain awareness and further education and knowledge while gaining points.

In summary, all of the above all have a influencing factor on professional development. Being able to reflect on your processes and do something about them to create a positive and effective change is a great attribute and can really help to see you become successful. It all ensures that your business is maintained at the highest level of professional performance. It creates an understanding of yourself which therefore leads to people enjoying their experience when they come to you.