Reflection on building appreciative memory

The pathways embarked upon in a reflective practice approach presuppose a constant focus on the narratives, processes and shifts that occur along the way. These elements are not always expressed and do not always become objects for systematic reflection. The risk, for both participants and facilitators, is that of losing the sense of the lived experience. The need to avoid losing the memory of these events and to enhance and build upon them led us progressively to an awareness of the need for a new instrument that would help us in this work of archiving and developing stories, processes and shifts that we were experiencing as participants and facilitators within an EU-founded project called Reflect-OR. The dimensions that this instrument has enabled us to explore concerned the development of an appreciative memory, a way of representing experience and creating a space for relationships that remains stable over time. We called this weaving/mapping instrument - which in effect consisted of more than one instrument - reléchange. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.