"Each Leaving Something for the Other" Reflections on a Person of the Helping Professional Retreat in New Zealand

Abstract

Eight helping professionals – social workers, psychologists, counsellors, group and family therapists – meet as a facilitated group for a five-day mid-winter retreat in New Zealand to explore and reflect on themselves, their family and intimate relationships, their relationships with clients, and their role in society. They utilise collaborative methods, such as interventive interviewing, reflecting teams, storytelling, poetry and action methods, to practice self-reflection and reflection of the other. The purpose of this paper is to share snippets from the retreat in the form of autoethnographic poems and statements written by participants in the hope these may stimulate the reader’s self-reflection.