Cover Page -- PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE & THE INVESTIGATIVE IMAGINATION -- Cover Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- List of stories and patchwork texts -- 1 Reflecting on experience and the imaginative construction of meaning: writing and sharing 'fictions' -- Prologue -- Sharing stories -- Constructing a 'patchwork text' -- Writing fictions as a contribution to 'methods' for reflection -- Conclusion -- 2 The imagination of meaning: writing and interpreting stories in a professional context -- Introduction -- Stories -- The story-writing workshops -- Example 1: a story as a statement: repetition and reversal -- Example 2: a story as a projection of sympathy/empathy -- Example 3: empathy/stereotyping/identification -- Example 4: contrasts (I): theory and practice -- Example 5: contrasts (II): professional and client -- Example 6: contrasts (III): theatre and society -- Example 7: a ghost story -- Example 8: a story as a metaphor for practice (I): an exotic myth -- Example 9: a story as a metaphor for practice (II): a mundane allegory -- Example 10: what is a story? (I): 'reflexivity': a story about writing a story -- Example 11: what is a story? (II): voices for a 'documentary' -- Example 12: what is a story? (III): a patchwork of quotations -- 3 The 'patchwork text': shaping meaning through the the exploration of diversity -- Introduction -- The patchwork text -- The 'reflective writing' course -- Example 1: Opening up the ending of 'a story' -- Example 2: Variations on a theme -- Example 3: Exploring a role -- Example 4: 'Professional' meanings in 'personal' experience -- Example 5: Exploring personal 'origins' for professional 'skills' -- Example 6: Exploring a role (II) -- 4 The reflective writing course: distance-learning materials -- Introduction.

Session 1: reflective writing, ground rules, sharing, getting started -- Session 2: beginnings, endings, continuations -- Session 3: writing fiction -- Session 4: writing as an exploration, moving from detail to generalisation -- Session 5: ways of 'structuring' a text, irony -- Session 6: metaphor, the variety of writing 'formats' -- Session 7: constructing a 'patchwork text' -- Session 8: putting together the final draft -- Two notes for course tutors -- 5 Participants' views: 'What was it like and what effect did it have?' -- Participants' experience of the reflective writing course -- The impact of the course on participants' practice -- Responses to the story-writing workshops -- 6 ' Breaking the mould', a case study: experiencing the reflective writing course -- 7 Artistry, fiction and reflection: the strange absence of the creativ imagination in professional education -- Introduction -- The reflective paradigm (I): a summary -- The reflective paradigm (II): theoretical and political context -- Reflection and 'the shaping spirit of imagination' -- From 'literature' to 'storying experience' -- The multi-voiced text: collage, montage, patchwork -- Writing and sharing fiction: an emancipatory social practice for the storying imagination -- Conclusion: writing and sharing fiction as an artistic practice for the reflective citizen -- Epilogue: The professional worker and the artist-two myths of betrayal -- Bibliography -- Index.