Between Surviving and Thriving—New Approaches to Understanding Learning for Transformation

Abstract

Background: Paramedics and firefighters frequently encounter critical incidents that require both deep learning and emotional processing. This study investigates how reflective writing facilitates these processes, addressing the need to understand professional development in high-stress environments. Methods: The research analyzed reflective writings from 57 second-year Management of Catastrophe Defense undergraduates who were active emergency service workers. Using Mayring’s qualitative content analysis, the study examined participants’ descriptions of critical workplace incidents, emotional responses, and long-term impacts. The theoretical framework combines Paul’s concept of transformative experiences, Schön’s reflective practice, and Jarvis’s experiential learning theory. Results: The analysis revealed three key dimensions: transformative experiences, the role of conversation with the situation in meaning making and the significance of whole-person learning in understanding emotional presence and absence, and the role of reflective writing in understanding learning processes. The study uncovered complex patterns in how professionals process critical incidents and manage emotions in high-stress environments. Conclusions: Reflective writing serves as an effective tool for processing experiences and developing professional resilience, although the process of engaging with traumatic memories through reflection presents its own complexities. These insights contribute to the understanding of learning processes and professional development in high-stress environments.

1. Introduction

Research has established that emergency service workers face elevated risks of mental health challenges and burnout, with higher suicide rates and significant impacts on their psychological well being (Whiting et al., 2019; Williams et al., 2017). However, these same challenging experiences can also contribute to personal growth, enhanced self-worth, and increased resilience (Behnke et al., 2019). This paradox raises important questions about how emergency workers understand, process, and integrate their experiences, particularly in terms of emotional regulation and professional development.

The theoretical framework for this study bridges three key perspectives: Paul’s (2016) framework of transformative experiences; Jarvis’s (2012) theory of learning from experience, emphasizing whole-person learning; and Schön’s (1983/2016) concept of reflective practice, particularly the distinction between reflection-in-action (thinking/reflecting while doing) and reflection-on-action (thinking/reflecting after the event). When participants reflected on critical incidents, they recalled their reflection-in-action—how they navigated the situation and processed emotions in real time. Separately, through reflection-on-action, participants retrospectively made sense of these experiences after the event occurred. This “conversation with the situation” enabled critical self-examination and personal meaning making, facilitating the processing and integration of transformative experiences from a whole-person learning perspective.

This integrated approach allows for a nuanced examination of how emergency workers navigate the impacts of critical incidents through reflective practice. In what ways does researching work and learning within the emergency industry through the combination of these three concepts help us broaden our understanding of their deep and fundamental learning processes? This article suggests that transformative experiences (Paul, 2016) can be understood in the context of workplace learning to foster reflective practice (Schön, 1983/2016) from a whole-person learning perspective (Jarvis, 2012).

This study analyzed reflective writings from 57 second-year Management of Catastrophe Defense undergraduates at Akkon University Berlin. These undergraduates are all active emergency service workers with several years of experience. Participants responded to structured prompts about critical workplace incidents, their emotional responses, coping strategies, and the broader impact of their experiences. The analysis particularly focused on the students’ emotional responses during critical incidents and their lasting effects.,

This research contributes to our understanding of professional development in high-stress environments and the learning processes associated with such contexts. Additionally, the research offers practical insights for educational programs serving emergency service workers. The six core research questions that guide this study are as follows:

(1)

How can we better understand deep and fundamental learning processes from individuals working in the emergency industry?

(2)

What role do emotions play in this high-risk profession?

(3)

How can reflective writings facilitate professional growth and emotional processing for emergency service workers?

2. Methods

This study analyzed reflective writings from 57 second-year Management of Catastrophe Defense undergraduates at Akkon University in 2022. The students submitting their reflective writings were enrolled in a course on trauma and disaster psychology as part of their study program. All participants were active emergency service workers (60% paramedics, 12% of whom were military personnel, and 40% firefighters), all with several years of experience. Seventy percent of the students worked in an urban setting, while 30% worked in a rural setting. The sample consisted of 40% female and 60% male participants, with a mean age of 25.5 years. The participants’ ranking of their job satisfaction was evenly distributed among the categories of “very happy”, “rather happy”, and “rather unhappy”. None self-assessed as “unhappy”.

Participants were asked to provide detailed reflective responses to six questions within a clear reflection framework. They were (1) invited to identify and describe a critical workplace incident, including contextual details about the event, its consequences, and their emotional responses during the experience. Participants then (2) reflected on the current significance of this incident and shared the coping strategies that they now know and use to navigate potentially traumatic experiences within their workplace. They then (3) reflected on how the daily exposure and confrontation with potentially traumatic situations affected them across three domains: personal, professional, and within their relationships. Participants were also asked (4) how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed their work and (5) what workplace changes they hoped for to improve or mitigate the challenges within their profession. In addition, (6) they were asked if there was anything else they wanted to share that they considered relevant.

This paper specifically focuses on responses addressing the participants‘ emotional responses during the critical incident, how the incident affected them, and what they wanted to share that had not been asked.

The submissions averaged 15 pages, yielding, in all, approximately 850 pages of data. The data were analyzed using Mayring’s (2022) qualitative content analysis (QCA) methodology, supplemented by approaches from Diekmann (2021) and Flick (2021). The analysis adhered to Mayring’s seven-step process for extracting the essence of written material: (1) initial material inspection; (2–5) progressive content reduction through multiple refinement phases; (6) systematic categorization of the reduced content; and (7) iterative repetition of the preceding steps to ensure analytical rigor. As noted by Kuckartz (2016, 2019), QCA methodologically treats all data sources equivalently, regardless of origin type—transcribed interviews and reflective writings undergo identical analytical processing. Therefore, the analysis treated these writings as equivalent to half-standardized episodic, biographical self-completed interviews, following Kuckartz (2016, 2019). The University Research Committee approved the study, with written consent obtained for anonymized publication. An external ethics review was deemed not necessary.

3. Theoretical Framework

Working and learning within the emergency industry offer participants many defining moments for transformation (Eschenbacher, 2023, Eschenbacher & Marsick, 2024), both via transformative experiences (Paul, 2016) and through transformative learning processes (e.g., Mezirow, 2012, 1991). The transformative dimension of their learning is not surprising, as paramedics and firefighters are confronted with trauma daily—they work in what is considered a high-risk profession, with higher suicide rates than the average population (e.g., Whiting et al., 2019; Williams et al., 2017), and experience significant negative impacts on mental health (e.g., Behnke et al., 2019; Berger et al., 2012; Halpern et al., 2012; Johnson et al., 2005; Rowe & Regehr, 2010; Whiting et al., 2019). While working in the emergency industry might have a negative impact on participants, emergency services are also considered to be an important and meaningful profession that not only holds subjective value but can lead to transformative experiences that may result in resilience (understood as one’s ability to bounce back from trauma) (Shakespeare-Finch & Daley, 2017), personal growth, and feelings of self-worth (e.g., Behnke et al., 2019; Eschenbacher, 2023).

Recent research (Eschenbacher & Marsick, 2024) has shown that one way to process and cope with what emergency workers experience is to engage in different kinds of conversation, where they can share their experiences, sometimes in the form of a (1) debrief, reflecting on the rescue mission from a professional perspective. Another type of conversation, classed among (2) “transformative conversations”, allows them to process and integrate what they have experienced on a personal level, making room for emotions and grief in an attempt to get what they have experienced “off their souls” (Eschenbacher & Marsick, 2024). Having conversations with others is also a way to facilitate learning from experiences. This paper explores still another and different kind of conversation, (3) a “conversation with the situation” itself (Schön, 1983/2016, p. 136). Schön’s (1983/2016, 2009) concept of reflective practice provides the foundation for the study’s theoretical framework, particularly his distinction between reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Reflecting on the critical incident participants chose allowed them to recall how they navigated the event, what emotions occurred, and their overall process of reflection-in-action. Through reflection-on-action, they are able to make sense of their experiences after the event. This “conversation with the situation” (Schön, 1983/2016, p. 136) may foster critical self-examination and personal meaning making as a way of processing and integrating transformative experiences through engaging with what they have experienced. Schön (1983/2016) emphasizes the practitioner’s ability to learn continuously from their experiences through critical self-reflection as a key component of personal and professional development. It is the recursive process of reflection before, during and after action that provides the ground for the entirety of “reflective practice”. As emergency workers continue to encounter unique, complex scenarios that cannot simply be addressed through the algorithms they learn in their training, they have to remain open to the unique elements of each situation and be equipped to make meaning of it. Reflection-in-action enables them to react to new situations adequately, while reflection-on-action—such as through writing, in which they revisit the experience and can reflect on their reaction and how they navigated the situation overall—allows them to make sense of the experience once the situation is over.

Similarly to Schön’s emphasis on reflection, Jarvis (2012) distinguishes between non-reflective learning and reflective learning. His theory of learning from experiences further enriches the theoretical framework that shaped this study. Following Jarvis (2001, p. 37) learning is the process of “transforming experience into knowledge”, and this process involves the whole person. His emphasis on the whole person involves emotional and practical aspects and not just cognitive dimensions. This is particularly important in a workplace that is charged with powerful emotions arising from navigating life and death daily. Given the emotionally charged nature of emergency work on the one hand, and the avoidance and dissociation that are a crucial part of the work mode of participants—here, paramedics and firefighters—on the other (Eschenbacher, 2023), a theoretical framework must necessarily emphasize the role of emotions working in this profession. This is true for the absence of emotions within certain situations as well as their presence during a rescue mission and afterwards. Jarvis’ (2012) theory of learning from experience highlights the social and biographical dimensions of learning, which are crucial when empirically charting and theorizing critical and transformative experiences of those working within the emergency services and therefore builds the cornerstone of this study. What generates learning opportunities, according to Jarvis (2012), are experiences of disjuncture that can promote learning through reflection, action, and emotion. Jarvis’ work thus helps us understand how paramedics and firefighters integrate their biographies with professional experiences through reflective writing.

Experience can then be understood as a teacher, allowing us “to gain new knowledge of something by having an experience about what something is like and how one will react to that experience” (Paul, 2016, p. 10). This is particularly relevant for those working in the emergency industry, who are routinely confronted with potentially traumatic and transformative experiences as part of their profession. Paul’s (2016) notion of transformative experiences allows us to shed light on deep processes of change and transformation being triggered by certain experiences: “Having a transformative experience teaches you something new, something that you could not have known before having the experience, while also changing you as a person” (p. 17). Even though many critical experiences (within the emergency industry) might not change one’s point of view fundamentally and dramatically, transformative experiences do. They are considered as such when they are both epistemically and personally transformative. An epistemic transformation occurs when one’s knowledge of what something is like and, consequently, one’s point of view changes. An experience that is personally transformative changes the kind of person you are, what you care about, and what it is like to be who you are.

Reflective writings (see Lukinsky, 1990; Meyer, 2009) offer an innovative approach to supporting learners in general as well as those working in high-risk professions to understand what their experiences taught them, how they affected their way of being in the world and their professional identity. Learners need to be able to grasp epistemic and personally transformative dimensions of their learning processes and to make meaning of critical incidents and how they navigate and process these incidents to enhance their reflective practice. Through a conversation with the situation, they can learn from their experience by reflecting on actions and making meaning of their emotional responses to ensure whole-person learning.

4. Results

When participants reflected on critical incidents, they recalled and described their thoughts, emotions and behavior in that very moment and what their reflection-in-action felt like for them, such as how they navigated the situation and processed emotions in real time. However, they also made sense of these experiences in the aftermath of the event, through reflection-on-action. A critical assessment of the events at hand and one’s reaction is crucial for continuing to work and learn within the emergency industry.

How can reflective writing, then, support students in their learning processes? What role do emotions play in this high-risk profession? What do these transformative experiences look like, both on an epistemic and personal level?

4.1. Transformative Experiences

The newness and uniqueness of each rescue mission and the moments of disjuncture (Jarvis, 2012), i.e., being confronted with a situation that is unlike other situations, hold the potential for deep learning. This learning has to be identified, understood, and processed, especially when experiences have a lasting impact on one’s personal and professional development. As one person noted, “In my training as a paramedic, I was often confronted with situations and events that were completely new to me and, at the same time, formative” (R 2). The paramedic describes what Paul (2016, p. 10) refers to as “epistemic poverty” or an “inability to grasp crucial information about the nature of [one’s] future experiences”.

Transformative experiences involve both epistemic and personal transformation (Paul, 2016; Paul & Quiggin, 2021). An epistemically transformative experience has been described in writing by one participant during a rescue mission at her former school when a young boy attempted suicide

Together with my team, we began trauma care and examination. (…) I then asked the boy if he knew what had just happened. He confirmed the teacher’s statement: ‘I jumped out of the window—I just don’t want to live anymore.’ Immediately, as if someone had turned on a light in a previously pitch-black room, I understood what had happened, and yet I still felt as if I were standing in darkness, my eyes still closed.

(R 2)

The paramedic describes this experience as new and different, a moment of knowing and not knowing at the same time. Experience in this case teaches her something she could not have learned without having had the experience. Reflecting on critical incidents through writing helps learners understand their learning process and how certain experiences—or the continuous experience of potentially traumatic events—affected them, which can result in deep personal transformation, as seen in the quotations from others, below:

The continuous experience of traumatic missions has shaped me despite my still young age and has also changed my work, my relationships, and myself. (…) Overall, these experiences in emergency services have made me appreciate my own life more. In a way, experiencing traumatic missions makes me feel grateful.

(R 16)

During my training, I had to say goodbye to people close to me in both personal and professional contexts, and I also witnessed the fates of strangers during rescue missions. All of these experiences have shaped or influenced me in different ways. Reflecting on myself at this point, I would say that my character traits have expanded or been complemented by these experiences.

(R 10)

What both participants describe is a personally transformative experience; it changed their way of being in the world and the kind of person they were. It changed what it was like for them to be themselves. The first experience can be considered transformative in both spheres, personally and epistemically, as the participants‘ subjective perspectives and points of view have changed overall. The other participant reflects on the different ways in which working within the emergency industry has shaped and influenced her way of being in the world.

4.2. Being in Conversation with the Situation—The Presence and Absence of Emotions & Whole Person Learning

The way these emergency workers understand, make sense, and come to terms with their experiences is crucial for their personal and professional well being. Jarvis (2012) highlights the importance of emotions to learn from experiences, and the data support the crucial role emotions play in the situation itself. It suggests that (1) the presence, as well as the absence of emotions, is key to why an incident is critical to them, both during the rescue mission and in finding closure in the aftermath, and that (2) their understanding of the presence or absence of emotions during and following these incidents is central to their decision to remain in their profession. Participants note that there is a difference in how they manage their emotions at work and in their personal lives:

In summary, I act and feel differently while performing my job than I do in my private life. For example, I am not as easily or at all hurt, become upset much later, show more patience, and process experiences differently, faster, and better than I do in my private life. With each mission, I become increasingly resilient.

(R 7)

When my neighbor accidentally sawed off two fingers and the other people present were on the verge of a breakdown, I quickly treated the wound, collected the fingers, and drove my neighbor to the hospital in my private car. Later, I was told how calm but also emotionless I had been during the situation. In my memory, I simply recognized an emergency and dealt with it. I immediately switched to work mode.

(R 54)

Displaying less emotion than others in similar situations is part of their professional identity; it allows them to “function” in their job. The absence of emotions is considered to be helpful when on duty, whereas being “emotional” is considered challenging, if not a barrier to working in the emergency industry, as several participants noted:

I had to initiate rescue measures. (…) Within the first few seconds, helplessness prevailed before routine mechanisms and the skills I had recently learned in (…) paramedic training took over. Thoughts and actions became rational, not emotional. I could block out everything affecting me and would describe it as a form of dissociation in which one functions. Suddenly, I remembered things and knowledge that were not usually present. At that moment, I surpassed myself. The pain was not perceived. Only when calm returned in the ambulance, did an enormous feeling of fear and renewed helplessness set in at the hospital, as no one could tell me how my colleague was doing.

(R 50)

I always say that missions involving children are the worst. (…) A stroller was stuck under the truck; the mother was screaming hysterically. (…) When I looked under the truck, I saw my own daughter and was shocked. (…) Of course, it was the mother’s baby. (…) It only had a few scrapes and was otherwise lucky. (…) I was very emotional. I was even asked if I was the father. (…) In Afghanistan, I also saw terrible things, but this mission has stuck with me more.

(R 23)

These excerpts show that the entanglement of one’s own biography and professional identity becomes apparent, as noted by Jarvis (2012). Additionally, they show the participant’s need to understand and integrate their emotions. Both participants reflect on how being emotional or being overwhelmed by emotions makes it impossible to carry out their work responsibilities. What has been described as dissociating emotions in the first quote is a phenomenon so widespread in the emergency industry that they found a term for it—Abstumpfen—which can be translated as emotional deadening or numbing (Eschenbacher, 2023). This ability to dissociate emotions and switch to work mode is considered to be key for working in the emergency industry in terms of being able to navigate life and death situations and to manage the continuous experience of traumatic situations. However, some participants experience a moment of disjuncture, realizing the absence of emotions while on duty and voicing a need to reintegrate emotions during rescue missions and afterward. For example:

What I remember most vividly is the moment a colleague asked what we would do if the attackers came to the station. I was shocked by my indifference to the situation and thought I should have been more scared. I even tried to look inward and search for that feeling, but at that moment, I found nothing.

(R 9)

Directly after the incident, I felt emotionless. I felt very far away from everything that had happened. I didn’t realize that what had happened had affected me. (…) I was simultaneously surprised at how emotionless I was. (…) During the debriefing, I became emotional.

(R 12)

The patient was lying lifeless in the room, with stab wounds as the cause of death. (…) Back at the station, I felt particularly emotionless, so when a colleague asked how I was doing, I said, ‘I find it crazy that this leaves me so cold despite my lack of experience’. Another colleague sharply pointed out that this was a stupid thing to say and that I should think about what I said. After my shift, I went straight to my partner’s workplace and told her what had happened. In that comparatively safe environment, the tears and emotions that had previously felt absent came to the surface.

(R 29)

The last quote points to the importance of safe enough environments to feel, show, and share emotions (Singer-Brodowski et al., 2022). This can be during a debrief, a conversation with loved ones or friends, or through reflective writing (Eschenbacher, 2023, Eschenbacher & Marsick, 2024). The data highlight the importance of the social dimension for learning from experience (Jarvis, 2012). However, the overall phenomenon of emotional deadening or numbing can impact relationships and one’s ability to feel and share emotions in one’s personal life as well (Eschenbacher, 2023), underlining as well the transformative dimension of these experiences. As one person noted:

My empathy for others has diminished in many situations, perhaps—or maybe even specifically—as a way to protect myself. My approach to work has become more professional with each mission, as I am less and less emotionally affected. (…) I find it harder to form deeper relationships with people. However, I don’t think this has made me incapable of relationships. I maintain the relationships I have more intensely, likely because I know they won’t last forever and could end too soon. So, I can also say that I live more consciously and fully now than I did before.

(R 1)

This might also include having to “relearn some emotions”. (R 53) (see also Eschenbacher, 2023). The data highlight the need to emphasize the emotional dimensions of learning not only to support learners in understanding but also to process and integrate traumatic and transformative experiences (Eschenbacher & Marsick, 2024). Reflective writing can facilitate learning processes that are inclusive, highlighting the role of emotions in learning.

4.3. Understanding Learning Processes Through Reflective Writing

The data suggest that emotions are crucial to one’s personal and professional development and to maintaining one’s mental well being when working in a high-risk profession. At the same time, the role of emotions is more often than not overlooked and left out. When participants were asked what else they wanted to express and what they considered relevant but had not been addressed in the reflection prompts, they shared their reflections during their writing process and what they had learned from completing the reflective writing. They shared how they have learned from their experiences through writing, a process that has been both challenging and helpful:

During the writing process, I noticed that I rarely think about myself and my mental health. I often reflect on various topics, but I tend to leave my emotions out of it. The reflective writing helped me work on this. I have also never written so openly and freely about my thoughts and feelings before. Thank you for giving me this platform.

(R 4)

Primarily, I must say that answering these questions in writing was emotionally very exhausting but also very helpful. Of course, one confronts difficult incidents alone, but I fear that one avoids asking oneself triggering questions as a form of self-protection. Writing things down, however, helps to visualize certain events more clearly, allowing one to find closure. (…) Personally, I found it challenging to describe my emotional world.

(R 49)

Answering the questions made me reassess how I deal with stressful situations. Up until now, I rarely thought about how I process them; it just worked. Now, I have engaged more deeply with the topic and feel better prepared for even more extreme events than I did a few months ago.

(R 31)

The learning processes being described involve two different dimensions that are equally important: understanding how they manage difficult situations during the rescue mission (reflection-in-action) and coming to terms with it afterwards as a result of processing these emotions and integrating them through reflective writing (reflection-on-action). One of the learning outcomes is greater awareness and an unconscious processing of experiences. For example:

I am grateful for this type of assignment, as it allowed me to unconsciously process a traumatic experience. Over the past few days, despite being actively infected with COVID-19, I have found it increasingly easier to deal with private stressors in a lighthearted manner that I had been missing for a long time. This also represents personal growth for me.

(R 28)

Many of the things I’ve written here describe situations where people were seriously injured or even lost their lives. I do not want to glorify or downplay these events in any way. Many situations are burdensome for patients and their families and have far-reaching consequences. My sympathies, of course, lie with all the affected individuals in such cases. The experiences described here reflect my perceptions, personal growth, and my way of coping with these situations and my personal life afterwards. Even though these experiences are tied to the suffering of others, they are life lessons for me personally. My favorite guiding principle for my work in emergency medical services is that experiences are valuable, and growing from them is too, but everything you don’t see, you don’t have to process.

(R 35)

Regarding myself, I can summarize that I was never aware of the influence this event had on my professional life and private life until I delved into the research questions listed above. (…) I did not expect to remember so many details, especially such small ones. I was also surprised by how strong and vivid the emotions still are today. While writing the answers to the questions, I felt the same intensity of grief and empathy as I did back then, except for the feeling of helplessness. All of this shows how formative this event was.

(R 44)

This includes learning how working in the emergency industry can be and often is transformative. Understanding the fundamental and deep changes working in this profession can have is crucial to mitigating/navigating its impact. It is another conversation with a situation (Schön, 1983/2016) that facilitates reflective practice:

While reflecting on writing, I realized how rarely I think about how I handle stressful situations. In particular, I had not considered how the personality changes I have noticed in myself might be connected to my professional work and the psychological traumas I have experienced.

(R 12)

Reflective writings can facilitate deep learning processes, elucidate personal and professional development, support learners to integrate traumatic and transformative experiences and transform experiences into knowledge that informs their reflective practice.

5. Discussion

The findings reveal that working in high-stress emergency environments can catalyze profound learning processes through transformative experiences. These critical incidents, consistent with Paul’s (2016) framework of epistemic and personal transformation, serve as pivotal moments in professional and personal development. The data demonstrate how these experiences fundamentally restructure emergency workers’ understanding of and being in the world.

5.1. Transformative Experience & Reflective Practice

The research illuminates how Schön’s (1983/2016) reflective practice framework—particularly the interplay between reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action—operates within emergency contexts. The participants’ narratives reveal a dynamic process; they experience reflection-in-action during critical incidents (“switching to work mode” or “dissociating emotions”), followed by deeper reflection-on-action that facilitates meaning making afterward. This dual process seems essential for psychological resilience in environments that challenge mental health, such as the emergency industry.

What emerges distinctly from the data is that, while transformative experiences (Paul, 2016) may be somewhat consciously registered during incidents, their full impact and integration often remain unconscious until deliberately examined through reflective processes. Reflective writing provides a structured opportunity to bring these transformative experiences into conscious awareness, enabling participants to “reassess how [they] deal with stressful situations” and recognize “how the personality changes…might be connected to [their] professional work”.

5.2. The Emotional Dimension of Whole-Person Learning

The findings strongly support Jarvis’s (2012) emphasis on the emotional dimensions of whole-person learning. Particularly significant is how the data reveal both the presence and absence of emotions as critical elements in emergency workers’ learning processes. The phenomenon of “emotional deadening” or “numbing” (Abstumpfen) that participants described (Eschenbacher, 2023) demonstrates how managing one’s emotions can become central to professional identity formation in this specific workplace.

The data reveal three interconnected processes:

• The professional necessity of emotional regulation during incidents (reflection-in-action);
• The psychological need to process these regulated emotions afterward (reflection-on-action);
• The importance of “safe enough environments” or spaces (see also Singer-Brodowski et al., 2022) for emotional reintegration.

This emotional dialectic creates what one participant described as “moments of disjuncture” (Jarvis, 2012) when they recognize the absence of expected emotions, prompting deeper reflection on their changed emotional landscape. The finding that some participants need to “relearn some emotions” highlights the profound personal transformation that occurs through continuous exposure to traumatic experiences.

5.3. Reflective Writing as a Bridge Between Experience and Integration

The research demonstrates how reflective writing serves as a critical bridge between Schön’s (1983/2016) concept of “conversation with the situation” and the integration of transformative experiences (Paul, 2016). Through structured reflection, tacit knowledge about navigating life-and-death situations transforms into explicit knowledge construction, creating a coherent personal narrative of skill development and coping strategies.

Participants’ reflections reveal that this process develops metacognitive awareness regarding their learning processes—they become aware of “how rarely [they] think about how [they] handle stressful situations” and discover “how strong and vivid the emotions still are”. This metacognitive dimension transforms passive knowledge into active knowledge construction, which is essential for ongoing professional development.

5.4. Practical Implications and Considerations

The data highlight several practical implications for educational practice with emergency professionals. Reflective writing offers significant advantages for processing transformative experiences, including increased self-awareness, integration of challenging experiences, improved practice, and learning through feedback loops between reflection and action. One major benefit of reflective writing is that learners can engage and then respond to the questions and prompts for reflection that resonate with them the most. Their learning journey becomes truly their own, as they decide what aspects of their (professional) identity they want to engage with and nourish, how they make sense of their experiences and as a result own or at least co-create their subjective (professional) future.

However, the research also reveals important considerations regarding the implementation of reflective practice with emergency professionals:

• The process requires appropriate psychological containment, as engaging with traumatic experiences carries the risk of re-traumatization.
• Individual trauma responses vary, necessitating respect for personal boundaries.
• The distinction between educational and therapeutic contexts must be maintained.

The findings suggest that educators working with emergency professionals need trauma-informed approaches, clear reflective frameworks, and voluntary participation structures. While the current study involved participants in an educational context who engaged with their profession in a structured academic environment, further research with participants outside university settings would provide valuable insights into the broader applicability of these approaches.

In sum, this research demonstrates how emergency workers’ continuous “conversation with the situation” (Schön, 1983/2016) through post-reflection on critical incidents creates opportunities for transformative learning (Eschenbacher, 2023, Eschenbacher & Marsick, 2024). The data reveal that reflective writing facilitates this process by creating space for critical self-examination, meaning making through deep reflection, and the reconstruction of transformative experiences.

Ultimately, the findings suggest that educational approaches incorporating reflective practice can help emergency professionals develop the psychological resilience needed for sustained work in high-stress environments. By bringing conscious awareness to how they navigate life-and-death situations, process emotions, and integrate transformative experiences, emergency workers can develop both professional competence and contribute to their personal well being.