Self-awareness and Self-knowledge in Professions: Something We Are or a Skill We Learn

The inspiration for conducting this study was an interest in professional and organizational development. Focus in the theses is on professions concerning practices of care, e.g. teachers, nurses and leaders in social work. In this thesis, professional judgment is in focus, which refers to the understanding of complexity and conflicting interests at a workplace; but it can also be encountered in relational issues and in psychological maturity. This kind of competence is most often described as something you are which means it is considered to be a talent and furthermore regarded as something that cannot be learned in training. Studies on professional education and professional knowledge most often focus on theories and acquisition of skills and less often on the professional as a human being. However in this study, through the concepts of self-awareness and self-knowledge, the professional as a person is addressed. Questions of how to educate the professional as a persons is highligted by investigating training in self-development with psychosyntesis as a method. A phenomenological life-world approach is used in the qualitative analysis.