Role: Senior Lecturer University of Derby
Your connection to the course: I was a Systemic Programmer Lead from 2005-2019 and developed the qualifying Systemic Course.
What’s important about systemic learning
I have spent a long time and had multiple ideas about how to write this patch. Big Picture/small detail? Personal/broader? I have drawn lots of diagrams, thought about lots of “techniques” e.g. six-part storyboard, systemic and agency mapping. The conclusion I have come to about my patch is that whilst I love change, I am really not that good at endings. The ending of the courses at the university was on the horizon for a little while before I decided to take my teacher’s pension and step away from my role as programme lead for the systemic courses, in particular the qualifying course. I have been really grateful for the opportunity to “end” with the courses as an associate lecturer, be part of the training team of the last ever MSc Systemic Psychotherapy and most recently the intermediate trainees. What has been important to me about the role at the university and my endings/redefinition?
A brief biography: I started my systemic journey a long time ago when I realised that not everyone joined the dots in their thinking and for some people there really was an either/or, there never was for me, sometimes this is liberating, sometimes torturous as I try to make decisions in what often feels like a linear, binary world. So I took a training journey that has lasted the whole of my Nursing and Family Therapy career and what I realise now has been a focus on learning informing practice and practice informing learning, hand in hand.
The things that have been important to me have really crystalised in the moving away from a programme leaders role and in helping the courses to end.
- Relationships: too countless to name , these have been the precious building blocks, the people who have mentored and taught me, the people who have sustained me emotionally and when I was tired, the people who challenged my thinking; All valuable, all adding to thinking , feeling and action.
2. Seeing the world in a systemic way: does anyone else feel that systemic thinking could really help the world be a kinder and more sustainable place but that the ideas are sometimes not understood and at other times feared as if being more relational might do damage? I suppose I am thinking both politically and also in terms of how that filters into how organisations are run and how big decisions get made.
3. Life long learning, we have a slide in the induction for the Derby courses about philosophy and the thing that stands out to me is “knowledge is shared, not owned”, I hope this has inspired the many trainees we have had to bring their knowledge with them to the courses, it has definitely helped me to learn from everyone around me. I have found living at the edge of that philosophy at the same time as being in a role that assesses peoples “performance” in our profession as an important and real challenge. I have taken the challenge of lifelong learning seriously and worked hard to keep myself “open” to new ideas at the same time paying respect to and integrating ideas we have been familiar with before, as they morph into new possibilities.
4. Use all of you, your thoughts, your feelings, notice what you do and what this means, be reflective and turn that reflection into reflexivity by asking “how come?”. For example, trying to write a clever patch with technical systemic aspects was a great way of putting off how sad I feel as well as how proud I have been to be part of so many peoples development. This version is requiring the feelings to come, the tears to fall, smiles and the need for tissues!
5. Relationships: it’s no good, as I try to write I just keep remembering the many people that have touched me throughout my development, the families I have met, colleagues and trainees, accidental meetings of minds on campsites and train journeys and on and on and on.
A systemic presence in the East Midlands has been strong for more than 20 years and I can already sense that as the University relinquishes its connection to the courses, new developments will spring up, I am not sure about my place in any of these going forward, however, just as I have been touched by the relationships I have had across my career, I hope I will be present at least in some small way as the next chapters unfold.
A huge heartfelt thank you to anyone and everyone who has been a part of my learning and development.
