One of the best presentations I saw at the recent In Sickness and In Health conference (link to conference programme here), was by Trudy Rudge and Amelie Perron titled 'In praise of ignorance? Towards an epistemology of “unknowing” in nursing and health care.' Rudge and Perron are both brilliant critical nursing researchers, and they were previewing some of the ideas in their upcoming book (link). Their argument was in part that although we might like the idea of certainty in our practice, certainty is not always available. More than this, certainty and risk have become hallmarks of good practice, when in fact, our ability to embrace uncertainty is a much more significant feature of … [Read more...] about Why is ignorance so important to clinical practice?
Thinking about silence
This is a general call out to anyone who reads this blog who might be interested in looking further into the therapeutic and educational possibilities of silence. I'm interested in the idea of silence as a way to stimulate thought and practice in the way that Erin Manning talks about the thousand possibilities that exist for dancers before they finally resolve into this movement or that (Manning, 2007). I'm also interested in its deliberate use as a postmodern strategy designed to leave problems unresolved as a way to keep open the possibility of thinking otherwise or a thousand alternative 'lines of flight' (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). And as an educational strategy akin to Jacques … [Read more...] about Thinking about silence