Donna Frost

Chapter 8 254 The seemingly paradoxical nature of these aspects of professional artistry are congruent with Parse’s ( 1998 , 2002 ) theory of human becoming. Paradox is a central concept within this theory: processes of being and becoming co-exist, for example, such as acceptance for what is while bringing that which could be – and thus might not be – into being. Parse regards human existence, with its ambiguity and complexity, as inherently paradoxical, and describes several paradoxical patterns of human becoming, ‘joy-sorrow’ (Parse, 1997 ; Bunkers, 2006 ; Pilkington, 2006 ) for example. Parse’s theory of human becoming is a good fit with the paradoxical nature of professional artistry, particularly with the idea of people being capable of reaching out to and beyond the boundaries they have created, being at once constrained and inspired by what is possible, being at once immersed in human experience while at the same time transcending it. Similar ideas are discussed by (Scharmer, 2009 ) in his Theory U and the notion of learning from the future as it emerges. Relationship with Titchen’s conceptualisation of professional artistry The CCCI findings concerning the nature of professional artistry extend Titchen’s work on professional artistry (eg. Titchen &Higgs, 2001 b; Titchen et al., 2007 ; Titchen, 2009 ; Frost & Titchen, 2010 ; Titchen & McMahon, 2013 ; Titchen, 2019 ; Titchen & Kinsella, 2019 ). Professional artistry, according to Titchen (personal communication) ‘is a conceptualisation of how a professional person melds, blends and harmonises the dimensions and processes of professional artistry in their everyday practice, thus ultimately, creating the conditions for human flourishing .’ Her nine professional artistry dimensions of self and the eight – often hidden – professional artistry processes are reproduced in Figure 8 . 2 and Figure 8 . 3 respectively. These dimensions and processes are identifiable in the practice examples shared in Chapter 6 .