Rachel Griffiths is a neurodivergent doctoral researcher in the School of Education, working on a participatory, arts-based study on neurodivergent ways of belonging in higher education. She is a former BACP-Accredited Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and also works at University of Exeter as a Senior Educational Developer specialising in Inclusive Education Practice.
Doctoral research can be emotionally challenging. Whether you’re exploring sensitive topics, engaging with marginalised communities, or reflecting on your own identity and experiences, the emotional impact of research can be profound.
In this blogpost, I write about tools I have used in my previous work as a mental health practitioner to think about how reflective journalling can support the emotional process of research. It is based on a recent workshop that I led for the recent South-West Doctoral Training Partnership’s Annual Student Conference.
What is reflective journalling?
At its core, keeping a reflective journal is a process of slowing down to think about, write and make sense of complex experiences. It’s a space to untangle thoughts and emotions, ask uncomfortable questions, and find a way through difficult decisions. So, if we think about the traditional research journal as more than a tool to record the day-to-day research ‘stuff’, I think it can also be used to develop a more rigorous, emotionally grounded, and ethically engaged research stance.
Why Journal?
Reflective journalling can be an emotional lifeline. It helps prevent emotional spillover — that creeping impact of unresolved feelings from difficult research encounters on our personal relationships, everyday decisions, or our self-worth. Writing things down helps to process difficult moments, like a challenging interview or an unsettling piece of literature. It also helps you step back and ask: “Why did that moment hit me so hard?”
Journalling also gives space to work through ethical dilemmas, allowing for thinking with honesty and kindness about why something in the research didn’t go to plan, why something important was overlooked, and what you might do differently next time. And while journals are personal, they can also provide starting points for meaningful conversations with supervisors or peers about finding ways through the feeling-stuck-ness.
What Should I Write About?
There’s no single right way to journal, but here are some prompts that might get you started:
- Emotion-focused: What emotions did I experience during today’s research? Was there a moment in my research this week that was particularly disturbing? How do I navigate these emotions while maintaining academic rigour?
- Identity and values: Where does my research conflict with or affirm my identity as a researcher? What tensions am I holding between being ‘professional’ and being ‘a person’?
- Ethical reflection: Did I face ethical discomfort or grey areas in this past week? How did I respond (or wish I had)? How do these emotions shape the way I feel about power, responsibility and justice in my field?
- Coping and support: How am I managing the emotional demands of my research? What would help? What might make it easier to seek that help?
- Growth and learning: What have emotionally difficult moments in this research taught me about myself, my field, and my participants? Is there something there that resonates with the research data?
- Researcher positionality: How do my background, experiences and beliefs shape the way I interpret emotionally intense moments in my research? What assumptions might I be bringing in that shape my emotional reactions?
Making It a Habit
Reflective journalling works best when it becomes routine. I try to set aside 15 minutes each week, but I also scribble things down immediately after emotionally significant events. You might prefer structured prompts or just free-writing — either is fine. The key is to remove judgment. This isn’t writing for perfection or publication. It’s about writing with curiosity for insight.
Bringing Reflection into the Thesis
Your reflective journal is valuable to your research writing, and not just in positionality statements. Many doctoral researchers include extracts in their theses to demonstrate transparency of process, ethical reflexivity, and methodological rigour. Journalling can help you articulate how your emotions shaped your interpretations, influenced your data analysis, or shifted your ethical stance over time. For some, embedding a form of autoethnographic reflection may be woven throughout.
Ultimately, a reflective journal is more than a fieldnote. It can be a powerful tool for navigating the emotional complexities of research. It supports rigour, self-awareness, and ethical engagement. It reminds us that being a researcher means being fully human.