Reflexive Thinking Practices of Bordered Helping Professionals: A Review of Zingaro’s Speaking Out

Results from an interview based social science investigation into the organization of how the critical thinking and decision-making practices of thirteen experienced helping professionals are shaped are explicated. The skills and techniques these people use in their day-to-day support of people who have, like themselves, experienced oppression, inequity, and violence, is examined. The complex choices and consequences stemming from mobilizing one’s narrative as a resource in the support of others, and the price people pay to disclose the truth about themselves in this context, is carefully and compassionately explored. We learn how this group of helping professionals find sand employ practical solutions to ethical, philosophical, and political dilemmas organizing their work. Practitioners and applied researchers will gain valuable insights from this book.