Opening
Schön shifts from the tangibility of design studios to the intimacy of the consulting room, arguing that psychoanalysts, like designers, construct workable worlds with their clients. He then turns the lens on his own teaching, tracing how a reflective practicum in counseling exposes and reshapes the defensive habits that block learning.
What Happens
Chapter 9: Learning the Artistry of Psychoanalytic Practice
Schön reframes psychoanalysis as a design-like practice by contrasting two stances. The objectivist, aligned with the model of Critique of Technical Rationality, seeks “facts” and “historical truth.” The constructionist treats the analyst as a “worldmaker,” crafting coherence with the patient and elevating Professional Artistry vs. Technical Skill. Erik Erikson exemplifies the objectivist hunt for the patient’s past, while Donald Spence advocates for interpretations judged by “narrative truth”—their coherence and therapeutic effect.
Viewing supervision as The Reflective Practicum, Schön introduces the “hall of mirrors,” where the supervisor–student dynamic reflects the student–patient dynamic. In a supervision case, a resident feels “stuck” with a patient. The supervisor performs a subtle frame experiment but shrouds his reasoning, coaching through mystique rather than transparency. The resident’s frustration mirrors the patient’s impasse—yet this powerful parallelism never becomes discussable in the room.
As a counterexample, David Sachs and Stanley Shapiro design supervision around the “hall of mirrors.” In case conferences, they surface parallel processes: when students want supervisors to deliver magical answers, it echoes their patients’ wish for cures. They make both diagnosis and intervention “parallel”—helping students experience, in supervision, the very inquiry they should enact with clients. This is a sophisticated form of Learning by Doing and Coaching that leverages the interpersonal nature of the work.
Chapter 10: A Reflective Practicum in Counseling and Consulting Skills
Schön analyzes a seminar he co-teaches with Chris Argyris, built on their theory of action: people’s “espoused theories” often diverge from their tacit “theories-in-use.” Two patterns dominate. Model I governs with unilateral control, winning, and suppression of negative feelings; it produces self-sealing systems. Model II values valid information, free and informed choice, and internal commitment; it invites public testing and double-loop learning.
A central case—the X/Y incident—exposes the class’s learning bind. Students easily diagnose manager Y’s clumsy, Model I confrontation of subordinate X, but their own proposed confrontations of Y are Model I too. This “shocking discovery” reveals a gap between their Model II ideals and Model I habits. The result is a failure cycle: high standards and vulnerability trigger defensive “intercepts,” which produce psychological failure and discouragement—stalling learning.
Schön and Argyris run interventions to interrupt the cycle. Students first write candidly about fears of incompetence, making them discussable. Next comes the “method of decomposition,” slowing action into three moves—construct meaning, invent strategy, produce action—so students can reflect in real time. The “incompleteness theorem” becomes a breakthrough: no single move needs to be perfect; intervene, then correct online. Later, they tackle a class climate of protectionism by making the group process itself a topic. An imitation exercise—mimicking a Model II dialogue—initially feels degrading, but reframed as reflective imitation, it helps students “try on” a new way of being. The seminar culminates in the hardest work: acknowledging and owning defensive feelings so Model I reflexes can change, positioning Model II not as technique but as a way of living.
Character Development
Schön spotlights how supervisors, students, and co-teachers evolve as they confront the demands of reflective practice.
- Chris Argyris: Co-creates the Model I/Model II framework and models Model II in action. His direct, testing interventions set a standard students struggle to match and provide a foil to Schön’s style in 1984.
- The Resident and the Supervisor (Chapter 9): The resident is earnest, perplexed, and stuck; the supervisor is masterful but opaque, coaching through “mystery and mastery” that leaves the resident outside the reasoning.
- Sachs and Shapiro (Chapter 9): They design supervision to exploit parallelism, making the practicum’s dynamics discussable and modeling the inquiry they want students to practice.
- The Seminar Students (Chapter 10): They move from confident diagnosticians to humbled learners. After hitting the failure cycle, they slowly adopt decomposed action, tolerate incompleteness, and begin to own defensive feelings.
Themes & Symbols
Schön recasts expertise as artistry. In psychoanalysis, the constructionist stance privileges narrative coherence over fact-finding, redefining what counts as knowledge and elevating judgment, framing, and improvisation over rule application—core to Professional Artistry. Supervision becomes a live arena for The Reflective Practicum, where the coaching relationship is inseparable from the content. In the counseling seminar, students learn through practice and public testing, embodying Learning by Doing and Coaching and cultivating Reflection-in-Action under pressure.
Symbol: The “hall of mirrors” turns the practicum itself into a case. By recognizing and naming parallel processes, coaches give students immediate data about their own patterns. The mirror doesn’t distort; it reveals. When supervisors refuse the mirror, learning stalls. When they use it, the room itself becomes a site of transformation.
Key Quotes
“Historical truth” versus “narrative truth.”
Spence’s distinction reframes what counts as a good interpretation. Therapeutic power lives in coherence and usefulness, not archival accuracy, shifting analysts toward design-like construction.
“The hall of mirrors.”
Schön’s metaphor captures how supervision reflects therapy. Making this reflection discussable turns relational dynamics into evidence, accelerating learning that abstract case talk can’t reach.
“Model I” and “Model II.”
These names crystallize invisible habits. By labeling governing values and their consequences, the seminar makes students’ tacit strategies public and testable.
“Failure cycle.”
The phrase names the emotional engine of stuck learning: perfectionism and fear trigger defenses that guarantee the very failures students dread. Naming it helps interrupt it.
“Incompleteness theorem.”
Permission to act imperfectly lowers anxiety and restores curiosity. Students learn to intervene, observe, and correct in flight—core skills for reflective practice.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
Chapters 9–10 broaden Schön’s claim: reflective practice isn’t just for design studios; it’s essential in interpersonal professions marked by ambiguity. Chapter 9 supplies the constructionist lens and the “hall of mirrors,” showing how supervision can either mystify artistry or make it teachable. Chapter 10 offers a rare inside view of building a reflective practicum: diagnosing the failure cycle, inventing tools like decomposition and the incompleteness theorem, and reshaping group norms. Together, they demonstrate that the skills of open inquiry and public testing are both the subject and the method of effective professional education—and that changing how we learn is inseparable from changing how we live and work.