Reflective Practice: making space for thinking together
A summary of a talk by Gerard Drennan
Gerard Drennan is a clinical psychologist who has worked alongside Bethlem Gallery for over a decade, holding a reflective practice space for the Bethlem Gallery team. As part of our recent symposium The Art of Practice, he shared some reflections on what it means to hold a Reflective Practice (RP) space within an arts organisation in a mental health context.
What is reflective practice?
Reflective Practice is a facilitated, shared space where a team can come together to think about their work. It offers time to reflect on experiences, relationships, dilemmas and the emotional impact of all of these.
Rather than focusing on problem-solving, the purpose is to make sense of what is happening, together.
At Bethlem Gallery, this takes the form of a monthly, open-access group for staff – a regular, bounded hour where reflection can take place.
Why might an arts organisation need it?
Reflective practice sessions at Bethlem Gallery began about a decade ago in response to a moment of difficulty – a complex situation involving long-term artist relationships. This will feel familiar to many organisations. Work in creative health settings is often relational, long-term and emotionally complex. Artists, volunteers and staff may stay connected over years, even decades.
Reflective Practice can offer a steady structure during both calm and challenging times as a place to bring uncertainty and complexity, a way to process significant or unexpected events anda shared point of support when pressures rise.
Importantly, it is not only for moments of crisis. It also helps to maintain connection during quieter periods, so something is already in place when challenges emerge.
What happens in a reflective practice session?
Sessions are held with a simple but careful intention: to create a psychologically safe space.
Within that, people might; reflect on a recent situation or interaction, explore different perspectives on a relationship, notice emotional responses to their work, or sit with uncertainty or not-knowing.
The aim is not to “fix” issues, or to provide supervision or therapy. Instead, the facilitator supports the group in thinking, feeling and making meaning together, helping to build resilience and shared understanding over time.
What are the key elements that make it work?
Gerard described two “cornerstones” and a “keystone” that hold the space in place.
- Psychological safety
Participants need to feel able to speak openly, while also trusting the boundaries of the space. This includes attending to moments when safety feels under threat – whether physical,emotional or organisational. - Values and ethics
Reflective Practice creates room to think about how values are lived in practice, especially in complex or pressured situations. It allows teams to stay close to questions of care, power, representation and responsibility. - Relationships (the keystone)
At its heart, the work often returns to relationships between staff and artists, between colleagues, and/or between organisations and the people they support.
Reflective Practice offers a place where these relationships can be noticed, understood and sustained over time.
How does this relate to working with artists?
The space encourages a non-pathologising, relational understanding of behaviour and experience. It helps teams to stay connected to the meaning behind what is happening, the individuality of each artist, and the importance of creative expression and identity.
Gerard also spoke about the role of the art object itself – how artworks sit alongside human relationships as a kind of “third presence” in the room, shaping dynamics and meaning in subtle but important ways.
What ethical questions can it hold?
Reflective Practice can be especially valuable in holding the tensions inherent in arts and mental health work, including balancing support with autonomy, navigating power dynamics between staff, artists and volunteers, questions of visibility, representation and authorship and concerns about exploitation or over-involvement.
Rather than resolving these neatly, the space allows teams to stay with complexity, recognising that uncertainty is often part of ethical practice.
Does everyone need to attend?
No – attendance at Bethlem Gallery’s sessions for example. is optional. Sometimes only a small number of staff are present, yet the space still holds value for the whole team.
Gerard described this as a kind of “containment by osmosis” – the knowledge that a reflective space exists can itself provide support, even for those who are not present at every session.
What is the role of the facilitator?
The facilitator holds the boundaries and tone of the space. They sit at an intersection between mental health understanding, relational awareness, and an appreciation for artistic practice.
Crucially, they support reflection without becoming a therapist, manager or decision-maker. Their role is to protect the space for shared thinking.
Key references Gerard used in his talk: –
“If we do not transform our pain, we will always transmit it.” (Richard Rohr)
Gerard used this quote to highlight how unprocessed experience -particularly trauma or distress -doesn’t disappear. Instead, it can quietly shape how we relate to others, often in ways we don’t fully notice.
Reflective Practice offers a space where these experiences can be thought about, shared, and gradually “metabolised”-so that people can begin to live with difficult experiences, rather than acting from them.
Living with trauma, rather than from it
Building on the quote above, Gerard reframed the idea in simpler terms: teams can learn to live with hurt or trauma, rather than from it.
This speaks to a subtle but important shift – Living from it can mean reacting automatically, defensively or protectively whilst living with it allows space for thought, choice and care in how we respond.
Reflective Practice supports this shift by creating time for reflection before reaction, helping teams stay grounded even in complex or pressured situations.
The “brick mother” (Henri Rey)
Gerard also referenced psychoanalyst Henri Rey’s idea of a “brick mother”—something consistent, dependable and steady that people can rely on over time.
He used this to describe the role of the gallery environment itself as a place that feels solid and reliable, something that continues even as staff come and go and a setting that can hold relationships safely.
In this sense, Reflective Practice contributes to building that same feeling within a team -a dependable space for thinking and support.
A takeaway for arts organisations
Reflective Practice does not need to be complex or highly formalised to be meaningful.
At its simplest, it is about making and protecting a regular space where people can think together about their work.
If you are considering introducing it in your organisation, you could begin by asking:
- What kinds of experiences currently go unspoken in our team?
- Where do we make space to think, rather than just do?
- What would it take to create a psychologically safe, regular moment of reflection?
Even a small, consistent space can become something steady and dependable over time – a place to bring the “swamp of action” into thought, and to support one another in working with complexity, rather than feeling overwhelmed by it.
This post is a summary of a talk written by Gerard Drennan for the Art of Practice Symposium at Bethlem Gallery, 15 May 2026.
The summary blog component was written in dialogue with co-pilot, closely based on text written by Gerard.
For more information about reflective practice, please see these links –
https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/meeting-our-standards/reflective-practice/
https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/reflectivepracticetoolkit/whatisreflectivepractice
https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/meeting-our-standards/reflective-practice/
Gerard Drennan has published on Reflective Practice in clinical settings:
Drennan, G., Casado, S., & Minchin, L. (2014). Dilemmas and ethical decision-making: reflective practice in community settings. In R. Shuker and Z. Ashmore (eds.), Forensic practice in the community. London: Routledge.
Drennan, G. (2023). The fears and tyranny cycle: the movement between mental pain and tyranny in the forensic patient. The International Journal of Forensic Psychotherapy, 5 (2), pp. 110-119.