Joost van Wijchen - 30 DoS - Day 7
The water splashes in my face each time I take short breaths between the strokes. Swimming amidst lakes, close to the trees, I see the plants, animals, water flowers. It’s like a hike in the water. Encountering the different smells, the changes in temperature, the difference in colours, shadows, and life. A group of carps are swimming below me without changing their pace, they don’t seem to take notice of me at all. The swans and ducks swim past, sometimes next to me. Without realising, I have joined a family of common coots, and we are swimming together a couple of meters through the water. Although merely just my perception, I encounter a sense of belonging in the water. A sense of being part of the world in its diversity and symbiosis. Of course, knowing that the latter is probably more my desire than anything else. All of a sudden, I am swimming amidst a flock of freshwater jelly fish, at first directly entering in stress, would they sting? Within a second, my mind and perception changes from fear to adoration of the beauty of the flock. The gentle movements by the millions, the tranquillity and the field of light white bodies, a moment of joy. Out of the blue, a transformative power emerges. Fear changes into beauty and adventure, fear changes into daring, restraining changes to exploration. While swimming, I feel that I’m moving into a world of freedom, a freedom which comes with responsibilities. Responsibilities to the environment, to others and to myself. A freedom that can create hope. A hope to learn and explore, to discover the beauty of life.
When taking my experiences of swimming into the world of physiotherapy, also this world changes. Physiotherapy has been an intertwined part of my life for the last quarter of a century. A natural flow between different plateaus of life seems to be logical. When looking at different perspectives in physiotherapy, its ambiguities and contradictions, become clearer to me. At first, small anomalies submerged to me, for example variations in application techniques and reasoning processes. Although we teach this in specific manners, its use seems to have a huge variation in practice. Variation, which is highly context-specific. This led to more questions. Questions on premises used within everyday practice, questions on underlying assumptions, and questions on why it seems to be structured in this way, and not in different ways. These questions moved slowly from instrumental and technical to more around ways of conception and action.
At this moment, I came in touch with the Critical Physiotherapy Network (CPN). The blogs, podcasts, books, interactions, and emerging conversations helped me to give meaning to my questions. During the years, CPN has provided openings and invitations to cross liminalities into new spaces. Often it has been with some resistance. Though, it has always developed my thinking and made me seen situations in a new way. CPN to me is a forum which acts as a critical support. A support to get off the beaten path, a support who invites getting lost and to discover new paths. This moved me to connect questions with actions. A sense of obligation, not only to ask questions, but actually be acting in accordance with them.
Questions relate to the why(s) of physiotherapy. Are we of necessary and real service to society and to the world? Sometimes it feels as if standards, universal ways of organising the world, are of more importance than the world we are itself. Could there be other ways? What if we embrace more curiosity? What if we explore more of the different ways? What if we take uncertainty and variation more as a basic premises? Would this enlarge our ways of becoming physiotherapists? Would we be of added value in changing worlds? What if we just give it a try?
Could an educational program in physiotherapy be structured around variation and uncertainty from day one? We do so in the delta-stream at HAN University. We mean that to support upcoming physiotherapist, we need space for discovery and possibilities for creation, to manage to find new ways. At the same time, we can support socialisation into the profession and creating physiotherapeutic competences. We do this in such a way that the upcoming physiotherapists experience confidence in their competences, that they can act also in the unknown circumstances. In line with physiotherapeutic service, each individual is unique and follows a unique developmental path, the educational program it is self-organised. Still, there is a close collaboration between all learners (students, teachers, and administration), and the team has a strong role The changing and double roles, different perspectives and objectives creates continuous challenge to all learners. Ambiguities and frictions submerge and pass away. Learners move between comfort, fear, and learning zones. Next to development of technical skills and knowledge, learners develop navigating skills in known and unknown situations. To me, physiotherapy is not an entity outside us and the world, physiotherapy is part of the world, physiotherapies are owned by society.
My name is Joost van Wijchen. I work as a physiotherapist, senior lecturer and educational designer. I have had the privilege of learning and working in the Netherlands, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Norway. The above-described journey on education is situated at the HAN University of Applied Sciences in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, amidst the delta of the Maas and Waal rivers.
Next to this work, I am part of the Erasmus+ Physiotherapy & Refugees Education project (PREP). I support Environmental Physiotherapy Association (EPA) by being an executive board member. To support physiotherapy education, I am part of the executive board of European Physiotherapy in Higher Education Network (ENPHE).
Concerning CPN, I hope I support the ongoing becoming of this critical community.