Where do we go after we die? This question isn't easy to answer, and most people probably don't want to answer it.

I began searching for the answer in primary school. It wasn't a question that appears in exams or textbooks. It arose when I witnessed my maternal grandfather pass away right in front of me. Soon after he died, I began to feel afraid and cry. I thought that after death there was nothing at all, and I didn't know when I too would come to nothing. My parents and the other adults around me couldn't answer my question. After some unknown length of time, I forgot about it and carried on living, forgetting this important question about life.

At university, the question came back to me. I discovered that religion offers ways of answering it, so I began to seriously study how different religions address it. Basically, they all hold that there is another world after death, each with its own explanations. Around that time, through a fortunate coincidence, I had the opportunity to volunteer in the intensive care unit of Tzu Chi Hospital in Hualien, where I witnessed life and death once again. I secretly shed tears almost every day, and I began to realize that being able to live in good health is itself a blessing. I chose a religious faith that suited me and lived earnestly and diligently, believing this would help me reach the other world.

Around that time, I also came to know, through reading, the great thanatology pioneer Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. I deeply admire this internationally renowned psychiatrist, who studied and shared the experiences of her patients and herself in facing death and being close to it. Her work truly opened my eyes. As she said, death is the greatest revelation in life. It reminds us to cherish the beauty of the present moment, and the most important thing of all is love. I am very grateful to Elisabeth for helping me find my answer: after death, we go to another world and begin the next journey. Although we don't know when that journey will begin, we can live well, experience the present, and be ready at any time to depart for the next stop.

A few years after graduating, I began working in therapy, and I continued to help people look for the answers that suit them. I found that if they already had a religious faith, it was easier for them to draw on the strength of their religion to answer and face this question of life.

During the pandemic, my father passed away peacefully and began his next journey. In the last five years of his life, he had a very hard time. He was often bedridden, and his quality of life declined rapidly. My husband and I did our best to accompany him, helping him organize his life story and look for a religion that suited him, hoping he could be ready to begin his next journey.

The German philosopher Heidegger proposed the idea of "being-toward-death" (向死而生, "living toward death"), reminding us to take the meaning of life seriously. No one can escape death, and every minute and second after birth is a process of moving toward death. When people become aware of this, they gain a strong sense of presence in life. This awakens their inner desire for and vitality in life, leading them to awaken and "live toward death."

Because I am aware that I will one day leave this world, I strive to cherish the people, events, and things of each moment, and to do what I want and ought to do. When the day of death arrives, I can tell myself I have no regrets, and begin the next journey.

In October of 2019, at a friend’s request, we adopted Xiao Xiao. The moment he arrived home, I told him clearly: this is my house — please pee in the corner of the kitchen, and do not bite my sofa or my books. After I said that, he seemed to understand. He obediently went to the corner to pee. Occasionally, he would forget my reminders and nibble on the books. I would nag him about it, and over time, he stopped biting them — as if he had finally taken my words to heart.

Before we knew it, Xiao Xiao had become an important member of our family. He hardly made any sound. Even when he did, it was extremely soft — so soft that only my daughter could hear him. Yet he always expressed himself and his love for us through his actions.

When my daughter felt sad or upset, he would quietly stay by her side and comfort her.

When my son ignored him, he would run over to him to “ask for love,” nudging him to stroke his head.

When my husband had free time, he would go to his feet, play with him, and even “dance.”

When I was on the floor doing yoga or reading, he would come over and use his little mouth to nudge my hand, asking me to pat his head.

When a monk visited our home, Xiao Xiao bit onto the monk’s robe. The monk asked him if he wished to take refuge in Buddhism. He immediately became still and lay submissively at the monk’s feet. The monk then formally granted him refuge.

When guests came, he would approach the ones he liked, hoping they would stroke his head. If a guest was afraid of him, he would tactfully walk away without insisting.

Almost all the children who visited our home loved him. Timid as he was, he would often hide quietly in a corner.

Whenever I spoke to my mother on the phone, I would let her see him through the camera. He would look back at her through the screen, and that made my mother so happy.

In short, he got along wonderfully with all of us. He wasn’t just a pet — he was family.

In recent years, he began to fall ill. Even in sickness, he did not make a sound. He would simply lie quietly in his cage, not coming out, not moving. I brought him to the vet many times, and he underwent several surgeries. We hoped he could continue living with quality and dignity. We were also prepared, more than once, that he might leave us on the operating table. We only wished for him to end this phase of his life free from pain and illness, and to go to a better place.

On February 19, 2026, after he was given anesthesia, his heartbeat became irregular. We were called to the hospital. After our whole family arrived and said our goodbyes, he left peacefully.

Thank you, Xiao Xiao, for the joy, love, and inspiration you brought into our lives over these six years. You reminded me that life is short, and that we must cherish our limited time to love ourselves and love others.

I hope that after ending this life, you will begin the next — go wherever your heart wishes, and continue bringing joy, love, and inspiration to those around you.

Xiao Xiao, Thank you. I love you.

Xiao Xiao's Mom
22-2-2026

A Reflection Sparked by a Late-Night Conversation

One night in 2019, the office was quiet except for the sound of keyboards. My colleague Oiling and I were working late, writing reports. Exhausted, she suddenly murmured, "I really don't know how to help this family anymore..."

Though I was tired and silent, I could feel her frustration and sense of helplessness. After a brief pause, it was as if something shifted within her. Her eyes lit up and she said:

"Maybe these clients come into my life for a reason. They bring me 'life lessons.' If I don't learn the lessons, I'll keep encountering similar cases—and I won't truly be able to support them."

In that moment, Oiling regained her strength and continued on.

This led me to reflect: What kind of belief sustains helping professionals like Oiling—enabling them to accompany individuals and families in deep distress, year after year?

Exploring Across Faiths: What Is Spirituality?

Driven by this question, Oiling Yong, Rachel Koh Min Choo, and I formed a small study group. We came from different backgrounds—one without a specific religious affiliation, one Christian, and one Buddhist.

Through many discussions and literature reviews, we sought to understand and define this inner force—spirituality.

Spirituality is a universal dimension to every person. It provides meaning, purpose, morals, values in people's lives and for connectedness with others. It is often highlighted during periods of struggle.

From Sharing to Resonance: Discovering the "Invisible Wings"

To deepen our understanding, we interviewed nine professionals from Family Service Centres in Singapore. Despite differences in ethnicity, religion, and roles, one finding stood out: Spirituality is a crucial pillar that helps helping professionals navigate professional challenges. It not only fosters resilience but also supports openness, sensitivity, and congruency.

We later shared this small study at conferences such as the Asian Academy of Family Therapy (2019) and an AMKFSC seminar (2021). The strong response made me realize something important: Spirituality is deeply significant in the helping profession—yet it often remains "non-mainstream" and difficult to articulate.

In many ways, spirituality functions like invisible wings, enabling helping professionals to move forward—and even soar.

To reach a wider audience, I conducted workshops:

• In November 2019: At the Singapore Association for Counselling, I led a workshop titled "From Secularity to Spirituality." Participants shared powerful personal stories. One that stayed with me was how spirituality helped a participant and her husband face repeated life-and-death hospital situations with calm acceptance.
• In October 2021: I conducted an online workshop on "Spiritual Health and Inner Happiness." Many participants were encountering their spirituality for the first time and began to understand the distinction between spirituality and religion. This was especially meaningful during the COVID-19 pandemic, when inner resources were critically important.

Spirituality as a Core Mechanism for Sustainable Helping

Traditionally, helping professionals have relied on the bio-psycho-social model. However, since the late 20th century, the World Health Organization and scholars such as George L. Engel and Kenneth Pargament have advocated for including a spiritual dimension.

Research by Pargament shows that how individuals draw on their spiritual resources during hardship—known as spiritual coping—directly influences their psychological outcomes. Understanding a client's spiritual background is therefore not optional, but essential for providing high-quality care.

At the same time, I believe that helping professionals who are aware of and actively engage with their own spirituality are better able to recognize and support the spiritual strengths of their clients. Yet, spirituality among professionals often remains something "felt but not spoken"—continuing to stay invisible.

Across psychology, nursing, and social work, there is growing consensus: Spirituality is a dynamic process of seeking and expressing meaning, purpose, and connection—with oneself, others, nature, and the transcendent.

Research increasingly shows that spirituality is not an added resource, but a core mechanism that determines whether helping professionals can sustain their work over time. In essence, the ability to help others comes not only from skills, but from whether professionals possess a stable, integrated, and meaningful inner system.

Sustained spiritual practice may help build such an inner system—enabling professionals to better support both the external and internal worlds of individuals and families facing life's challenges.

Conclusion: Finding Common Ground in Diversity

Singapore is a multicultural, multi-religious society where people regularly attend churches, mosques, and temples—or pray at home. There is mutual respect for different ways of practicing faith and celebrating traditions. I believe people here are ready to engage in conversations about spirituality.

If helping professionals can openly understand, discuss, and draw upon their own spiritual resources, it will not only empower themselves—but also help others find inner stability and well-being in the face of life's challenges.

In our work as social service practitioners, we often find ourselves navigating complex situations where every interaction we have with clients can make a significant difference. It's not just about providing help but about how we position ourselves in those conversations and the intentionality behind our actions. By being mindful of how we approach each client, we can better support their needs and encourage their growth. Inspired by the Ethical Postures by Dr. Karl Tomm, this article explores the idea of positioning and intentionality of practitioners in the community, and how these concepts can enhance the way we engage with individuals and families in the community.

Understanding Ethical Posture

A helpful way to think about our work comes from Dr. Karl Tomm's concept of Ethical Postures. In simple terms, ethical postures are about how we choose to position ourselves when working with clients. Are we guiding them? Supporting them? Influencing them to make decisions without their awareness? These choices—whether we make them consciously or not—shape the impact we have on the people we serve.

Dr. Karl Tomm reminds us that every decision we make in therapy or counselling isn't just about whether to intervene, but about how we intervene. By being aware of our ethical postures, we can make sure that our decisions always put the client's needs first. This helps us stay grounded and intentional in the way we work, ensuring that we are creating a supportive environment for clients to feel empowered.

Putting Ethical Postures into Practice

In practice, ethical posture plays a big role in how we interact with our clients. Take for example, a situation involving a family where there is ongoing spousal violence. At first, we might need to take a firm stance (a posture of confrontation) to ensure the safety of the family. As the relationship with the client develops and trust is built, we may shift to a more supportive posture (succorance), helping the client open and take steps toward healing.

An example from a Family Service Centre (FSC) case illustrates this well. The practitioner initially worked with the father, Andy, using a safety plan designed to protect the family. At first, the approach was firm and structured, ensuring compliance. However, as Andy became more engaged in counseling sessions, the practitioner shifted to a posture of empowerment, helping him take ownership of his actions and work toward positive change.

This intentional shifting of postures—from manipulation to empowerment—created a new interaction pattern for conversations to open between Andy and the worker which, helped Andy find his own solutions. It's not about forcing change, but about adopting a position that best fits the context and interest and needs of the client.

The Benefits and Challenges of Being Intentional in Our Postures

When we are intentional in our work, we give our clients the space to take an active role in their own growth. By positioning them as co-experts in the process, we foster a sense of agency that can lead to more meaningful outcomes. This kind of intentional practice also helps us build stronger relationships with clients, based on trust and collaboration.

However, being intentional is not without its challenges. It requires us to be aware of our own emotional responses and biases. Shifting between postures—such as moving from a more confrontational stance to a more empowering one—can be emotionally demanding. There are also moments where it might be more helpful to take on a 'manipulative' or 'confrontational' posture to ensure safety and risks are managed well. Instead of sticking to only one posture, the practitioner will need to discern when to switch other postures that best serves the client throughout the session. It takes self-awareness and reflective practice to ensure that we are responding to the client's needs and not our own.

How to Strengthen Our Ethical Posture

So, how can we ensure that we are intentional in our posture? Dr. Karl Tomm suggests several strategies:

• Be clear on your values: Understanding your own values and emotional triggers is key. This helps you avoid letting your personal feelings guide your interactions with clients.
• Improve your perception: Practice seeing the strengths and challenges of your clients. This helps you tailor your interventions to best support their growth.
• Practice your skills: Be deliberate in practicing how you implement interventions. This will help you become more confident in navigating complex situations.
• Stay flexible: Be open to integrating different approaches from various schools of thought. This gives you more tools to meet the needs of your clients as situations evolve.

Conclusion: The Power of Being Intentional in Our Postures

As social service practitioners, positioning ourselves intentionally in each client interaction is crucial. Whether we are offering guidance, support, or empowering clients to take control of their journey, the choices we make in how we position ourselves matter. Ethical posture helps us stay focused on what is best for the client, ensuring that our work is always aligned with their needs.

By being mindful and adaptable in our approach, we can create a more meaningful and empowering experience for clients. This not only helps them grow but also strengthens our ability to make a lasting impact in the communities we serve.

• Researcher and interviewer: Tan Siew Foong, SAC Registered Counsellor & Clinical Supervisor (C0199)
• Study design: Exploratory qualitative study
• Participants: Three experienced practitioners in Singapore: two social workers and one counsellor
• Data collection: 27 August – 7 September 2026

1. Study Purpose and Research Question

This exploratory study examines how the Ethnographic Family Interview (EFI) may support reflexive practice by inviting practitioners to revisit family experiences, values, relationships and cultural meanings in relation to their professional identity, use of self and work with individuals and families.

Research question: Can Ethnographic Family Interview support reflexive practice?

2. Background and Researcher Curiosity

The study emerged from a systemic curiosity: practitioners regularly invite families to explore their relationships, histories and patterns, yet the family history of the practitioner is less often brought into explicit reflection. The study therefore asks what may become possible when practitioners are invited to revisit their own family stories from a position of curiosity and not-knowing.

The starting proposition is that practitioners do not enter therapeutic or helping relationships as blank slates. Family experiences, values, relationships and cultural meanings may continue to participate in professional perception and relational practice. The study explores whether EFI can provide a structured relational space in which these influences and meanings can be noticed and re-examined.

3. Methodology

3.1 Participants and recruitment

In August 2026, six invitations were sent to local practitioners/supervisors with at least six years of clinical experience. Three invitees declined and three accepted. The three participants had 15–23 years of clinical experience across Singapore Family Service Centre, FAM, hospital and community settings. All participants provided informed consent.

3.2 Data collection

Three 90-minute, in-depth interviews were conducted between 27 August and 7 September 2026. The interviews were informed by the Ethnographic Family Interview approach. Interviews were voice-recorded, and a scribe assisted with transcription.

3.3 Data analysis

The interview transcripts were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke). ChatGPT assisted with transcript analysis. The analysis was treated as an exploratory interpretive process rather than as a basis for statistical generalisation.

The three interviews do not justify generalisation. Instead, they offer a small exploratory window into how experienced practitioners understand the relationship between family, self and professional practice, and raise questions for further discussion and research.

4. Cross-Case Findings

Theme 1 — The Family Behind the Practitioner: Family Experience Becomes Part of Professional Identity

Across all three interviews, family-of-origin experiences were described as enduring aspects of the practitioner self. Family values, relationships, communication patterns and experiences of care appeared to be embedded in how participants understood themselves and approached others. Interview 2 described family influence as extending into subtle habits and ways of behaving. Interview 3 connected family experience with a preference for person-centred relationships rather than task-focused practice. Interview 1 identified experiences of kindness, vulnerability and connectedness as influential in professional orientation.

Interpretive meaning: The practitioner does not enter practice as a blank slate. The family behind the practitioner is already present in professional identity and relational practice.

Theme 2 — Inherited Strengths and Shadows: Family Legacy Can Resource and Constrain Practice

Participants described family inheritance as multidimensional. Family experiences could be associated with strengths such as kindness, resilience, responsibility, patience, calmness and service, while also creating possible vulnerabilities such as conflict avoidance, critical judgement, excessive helping, defensiveness and unrealistic expectations. Interview 1 identified tension between being helpful and developing a "saviour mentality", while Interview 3 recognised how a critical personal lens could become projected onto clients.

Interpretive meaning: Family influence is neither inherently positive nor negative. The same inheritance may function as a professional resource in one context and a blind spot in another. Family inheritance is therefore context-dependent.

Theme 3 — The Family as a Mirror: Professional Practice Re-activates and Re-organises Personal Experience

Across the cases, work with clients and families became a mirror through which practitioners encountered aspects of their own family experiences. Interview 2 described parenting and couple work informing reflection on the participant's own marriage and parenting. Interview 3 described relationships with elderly clients and caregivers as connected with personal experiences involving his grandmother and family.

Interpretive meaning: The relationship between family and practice appears circular rather than linear. Practitioners bring family experience into practice, while practice can simultaneously bring practitioners back to themselves and their families. The important question may therefore be less about how family "influences" the practitioner and more about how family meanings are continually re-interpreted through professional relationships.

Theme 4 — From Automatic Inheritance to Intentional Response: Reflexivity Creates Space for Alternative Responses

Across the three interviews, a central process was movement from implicit family influence toward greater awareness and intentionality. Awareness enabled participants to question reactions, recognise possible projection, distinguish personal experience from client experience, establish boundaries and reconsider expectations. Interview 2 described awareness as supporting greater responsibility and more effective boundaries. Interview 3 described movement from a critical lens toward curiosity and listening rather than imposing a personal interpretation.

Interpretive meaning: Reflexivity does not remove family influence. Rather, it may create a reflective space between family inheritance and professional action. Participants described moments in which increased awareness appeared to create greater space for alternative responses. The emerging process can be understood as: awareness → pause → possibility of alternative response.

Theme 5 — EFI May Create a Relational Space for the Practitioner to Revisit and Re-author the Relationship Between Family, Self and Practice

All three cases suggest that family reflexivity depends on relational safety and cannot be reduced to a technique. Supervision, personal therapy, training and other reflexive experiences already provide important spaces for self-examination. Interview 2 emphasised trust, rapport and safety in individual supervision, while Interview 1 highlighted the difficulty of vulnerability when supervision is closely associated with performance appraisal. EFI appeared to provide an additional structured opportunity to revisit family experience and connect it with professional identity. Interview 3 described EFI as a "recap" because the participant had already engaged extensively in family-based reflexivity and supervision.

Interpretive meaning: EFI should not be conceptualised as a method that creates reflexivity from nothing. Rather, it may provide a dedicated relational space in which practitioners can revisit, clarify and reorganise the relationship between family, self and professional practice.

5. Emerging Process of Family Reflexivity

Across the three interviews, an emerging process can be described as a movement between family histories, practitioner self, professional relationships and current life context. Rather than a one-way pathway, the process appears circular: professional encounters may reactivate personal meanings, while reflection can subsequently reshape how practitioners understand themselves, their families and their practice.

1. Family histories and current life context
2. Practitioner self and professional identity
3. Professional relationships and practice
4. Personal reactions and meanings become noticeable
5. Reflexive awareness: What am I noticing? What assumptions or expectations are present?
6. Reflexive pause: Is this mine, theirs, or something emerging between us?
7. Curious examination of alternative meanings and perspectives
8. Intentional and context-responsive response
9. Personal and professional development
10. Reconnection with family, self and purpose

The circularity is important. Professional practice may feed back into the practitioner's personal and family understanding. Thus, family reflexivity is not simply about looking backwards at the family of origin; it is also about noticing how family meanings are being reworked in the present.

6. The Emerging Contribution of EFI

The findings suggest that the potential contribution of EFI may lie less in discovering how a family has permanently shaped a practitioner and more in creating a relational space in which practitioners can revisit and re-author the meanings of family experience in relation to present professional practice.

• From family experience as something in the past → family experience as something that can be reflexively noticed in the present.
• From "My family shaped me." → "What am I noticing about myself as I meet this person or family?"
• From automatic reaction → reflexive pause → possibility of alternative response.
• From individual self-reflection → relational exploration of what is happening within and between people.

Emerging proposition: EFI may offer one relational space for making the participation of personal history in professional practice visible, discussable and open to choice.

7. Implications for Practitioner Education and Professional Development in Singapore

The three interviews suggest a need to consider practitioner education and professional development beyond the acquisition of professional knowledge, technical competencies and practice skills. Participants described development as an ongoing process of becoming more aware of oneself, personal and family experiences, emotional responses, values and motivations for helping others. These findings point towards a more holistic view in which development of the practitioner as a person is connected with development of the practitioner as a professional.

Integrate self-awareness and reflexivity into professional education

Self-awareness and reflexive practice could be made an explicit component of professional education rather than being left as an incidental outcome of clinical experience. Structured reflection on personal values, assumptions, emotional responses and family-of-origin experiences could be revisited at different stages of professional development.

Create supported opportunities to explore personal and family-of-origin influences

Practitioners may benefit from ethically appropriate opportunities to explore how personal and family histories relate to ways of relating, responding and making meaning. Possible approaches include genograms, reflective conversations, experiential learning and personal-development groups. Such approaches should not require unnecessary disclosure or pathologise personal difficulties.

Normalise personal development as part of professional formation

Personal therapy and other forms of personal development may be understood as developmental resources rather than primarily remedial interventions. This recognises that practitioners themselves are an important instrument of practice.

Strengthen psychologically safe reflective supervision

Reflective supervision can provide space to examine not only what happened in a case, but also what happened within the practitioner. Useful questions include: What did I notice in myself? What was I feeling? What assumptions was I making? What might this interaction be evoking from my own experience? How might my position, identity or values be influencing my understanding of the client? Psychological safety remains important so that reflection can occur alongside professional accountability.

Embed self-care and emotional grounding within professional development

Self-care can be understood as an ongoing dimension of professional development rather than only a response to burnout. Training and supervision can support awareness of emotional and physiological responses, boundaries and grounding practices. Organisational conditions also matter because workloads and performance expectations can limit protected time for reflection.

Balance competency and performance requirements with person-centred practice

Competency frameworks, documentation, accountability and service outcomes remain necessary. At the same time, professional development can create opportunities to reflect on how organisational culture, power, professional expectations and performance measures shape ways of working and the relational dimensions of practice.

Promote shared responsibility for practitioner development

Practitioner development should not rest solely with individual practitioners. Educational institutions, professional bodies, supervisors and employing organisations can contribute through protected supervision and reflection time, continuing professional development, access to personal-development resources, reflexive supervision training and organisational cultures that value thoughtful reflection alongside productivity and measurable outcomes.

8. Towards a Holistic Model of Practitioner Development

Taken together, the interviews point towards a developmental approach in which professional competence and personal development are mutually connected. One possible formulation is:

Professional knowledge and skills → Self-awareness → Personal and family reflexivity → Reflective supervision → Emotional grounding → Greater professional choice → Context-responsive, person-centred practice → Continuing development

This does not suggest replacing competency-based education with personal exploration. Rather, the two can be brought into dialogue. Technical competence addresses what practitioners know and can do, while reflexive development invites practitioners to consider who they are when they practise, how they participate in the helping relationship, and how their histories and contexts enter that relationship.

From a systemic and postmodern perspective, the practitioner is not a neutral observer positioned outside the helping relationship, but participates in a relational and meaning-making process. Awareness of one's position, histories, assumptions and responses may support greater curiosity, humility and flexibility.

9. Limitations and Interpretive Boundaries

• The study involved three experienced practitioners; the findings are exploratory and are not intended to be statistically generalisable.
• The participants had substantial prior professional experience, including exposure to supervision, training and personal/reflexive development. The study therefore cannot attribute reflexivity solely to EFI.
• The study explores participants' accounts of their experiences and meanings. It does not establish a causal relationship between EFI and changes in professional practice.
• The findings support further exploration of EFI as a reflexive practice approach; they do not establish EFI as a validated or superior method.

10. Conclusion

This exploratory study suggests that family experience may continue to participate in practitioners' professional identities, relational responses and ways of making meaning. Across the three interviews, family influence appeared neither simply positive nor negative. The same inheritance could function as a resource in one context and a blind spot in another.

The findings also suggest that professional practice can reactivate and reorganise personal and family meanings. Reflexivity does not require practitioners to remove their personal histories from practice. Rather, it may create a space in which they can notice how these histories are participating in the present, pause, become curious and consider alternative responses.

Within this exploratory study, EFI appears to offer an additional relational space for practitioners to revisit the relationship between family, self and professional practice. Its potential contribution may therefore be less about producing reflexivity and more about supporting an ongoing process of noticing, revisiting, re-authoring and making intentional choices in practice.

The study invites further discussion and research into how practitioner education and professional development can integrate reflexive, relational and developmental approaches alongside technical and competency-based learning.

11. Note on AI-Assisted Analysis

ChatGPT assisted with transcript analysis as part of the study's analytic process. The findings presented here remain an interpretive account of the interview data and should be read in conjunction with the researcher's reflexive responsibility for interpretation, contextual understanding and ethical handling of participant material.

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