This book explains and demonstrates how creative writing can be used successfully in the context of professional education where traditionally a more distanced approach to reporting on professional experience has been favoured.It is based on many practical examples, drawn from several years' experience of running courses for social workers, nurses, teachers, managers and higher education staff, in which participants explore their professional practice through imaginative forms of writing. The participants experience of the work is presented through a discussion of interviews and evaluative documents. The book includes a set of distance-learning materials for those wishing to undertake such work for themselves or to establish similar courses, as well as a full analysis of the link between professional reflection and the artistic imagination.The book makes available a new and more broadly-based approach to the process of professional reflection, and the concept of the patchwork text has general relevance for debates about increasing access to higher education qualifications.

List of stories and patchwork texts, 1 Reflecting on experience and the imaginative construction of meaning: writing and sharing 'fictions' 2 The imagination of meaning: writing and interpreting stories in a professional context 3 The 'patchwork text': shaping meaning through the exploration of diversity 4 The reflective writing course: distance-learning materials 5 Participants' views: 'What was it like and what effect did it have?' 6 ' Breaking the mould', a case study: experiencing the reflective writing course 7 Artistry, fiction and reflection: the strange absence of the creative imagination in professional education, Epilogue: The professional worker and the artist-two myths of betrayal