Skillful coping: processes of becoming and being in practice

This chapter examines and accounts for skillful coping and its complexity in a way that linear and staged models cannot. We propose a morphogenetic approach of enskilment that surmounts the limitations of such stepwise progressions from novice to expert. Based on rich empirical data that follows forwards the process of one author’s craft apprenticeship over time, we show that becoming enskiled is an ongoing process that unfolds against the background of practice. This reveals a recursive, multidirectional pattern of movement that is specific to each practitioner, depending upon his or her prior experiences and circumstances. Thus the pattern of enskilment may be shared by a range of skillful copers, but is given its specificity by each practitioner’s particular background practice(s).