{ "abstract": "Background: Helping professionals face elevated risks of compassion fatigue and burnout, yet the daily processes through which emotional transformation occurs during therapeutic interventions remain poorly understood. This study examined how participants’ daily reflections shifted across the Emotion-Focused Training for Helping Professions (EFT-HP), analyzed through three complementary theoretical frameworks: Emotion-Focused Therapy's inner dialogue model (self-criticism, self-compassion, self-protection), Compassion-Focused Therapy's three-systems framework (threat, drive, soothing), and Ekman's basic emotion theory (primary emotions). Method: Two hundred twenty-five helping professionals (88.0% female; M age = 38.7 years) from healthcare, social work, psychology, and education began the 14-day online EFT-HP intervention. Primary analyses focused on the 146 participants who completed at least 9 of the 14 days (completers), whose daily written reflections yielded 7,307 coded reflection units. Reflections were analyzed with directed content analysis and frequency quantification, applying non-exclusive, AI-assisted coding within three theoretical frameworks—EFT inner-dialogue categories, CFT emotion-regulation systems, and Ekman's discrete emotions—with a verbatim textual evidence excerpt retained for every assigned code. Results: Across the intervention, participants’ reflections shifted from threat- and self-criticism-related content toward soothing and self-compassion. Within the EFT inner-dialogue framework, Self-Compassion was the most frequent category (17.9% of units) and was sustained throughout (Day-13 peak 30.8%), while Self-Criticism fell from 14.3% on Day 1 to 3.9% on Day 14 (73% relative decrease) and Self-Protection peaked on Day 6 (11.3%). Within the CFT emotion-regulation framework, the soothing system was the most frequently coded system overall (31.8% of units), followed by drive (20.4%); over the 14 days the threat system declined from 35.4% on Day 1 to 7.0% on Day 14 (80% relative decrease). Within Ekman's discrete-emotion framework, specific emotions were named less frequently: Fear declined from 2.7% to 0.8%, Anger peaked on Day 6 (15.0%), Joy rose to a Day-13 peak (14.8%), and Love was comparatively prominent (11.9% overall, Day-5 peak). Conclusions: Across the 14-day intervention, participants’ daily reflections showed substantial shifts in emotional content, characterized by marked self-criticism and threat reduction alongside sustained self-compassion and soothing activation. Triangulated findings across three analytical frameworks: EFT inner dialogue, CFT emotion systems, and Ekman's primary emotions, are consistent with the emotional-transformation processes proposed by EFT-HP and with findings from previous controlled trials. Because the three frameworks were applied to the same reflection data, their convergence reflects analytic (theoretical) triangulation rather than independent confirmation.", "abstract_shown": true, "affiliations": [ "Institute of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia." ], "article_type": "Research Article", "arxiv": null, "author_total": 4, "authors": [ { "affs": [ 0 ], "name": "Silvia Aziriová" }, { "affs": [ 0 ], "name": "Júlia Halamová", "orcid": "0000-0002-2655-2327" }, { "affs": [ 0 ], "name": "Timotea Vráblová" }, { "affs": [ 0 ], "name": "Katarína Greškovičová", "orcid": "0000-0002-2070-5660" } ], "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8cbh1hfctnpf4.bib", "cited_by": 0, "doi": "10.1371/journal.pone.0354851", "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13718924", "id": "8cbh1hfctnpf4", "issns": [ "1932-6203" ], "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354851", "language": "eng", "licence": "CC-BY", "licence_label": "CC BY", "licence_source": "article", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "metadata_licence": null, "native_subjects": [ [ "heading", "Biology and Life Sciences" ], [ "heading", "Classical Mechanics" ], [ "heading", "Clinical Medicine" ], [ "heading", "Clinical Trials" ], [ "heading", "Drug Research and Development" ], [ "heading", "Emotions" ], [ "heading", "Fatigue" ], [ "heading", "Fear" ], [ "heading", "Medicine and Health Sciences" ], [ "heading", "Mental Health and Psychiatry" ], [ "heading", "People and Places" ], [ "heading", "Pharmacology" ], [ "heading", "Physical Sciences" ], [ "heading", "Physics" ], [ "heading", "Population Groupings" ], [ "heading", "Professions" ], [ "heading", "Psychological Stress" ], [ "heading", "Psychology" ], [ "heading", "Qualitative Studies" ], [ "heading", "Randomized Controlled Trials" ], [ "heading", "Reflection" ], [ "heading", "Research Article" ], [ "heading", "Research Design" ], [ "heading", "Research and Analysis Methods" ], [ "heading", "Signs and Symptoms" ], [ "heading", "Social Sciences" ], [ "plos", "/Biology and life sciences/Psychology/Emotions" ], [ "plos", "/Biology and life sciences/Psychology/Emotions/Fear" ], [ "plos", "/Biology and life sciences/Psychology/Psychological stress" ], [ "plos", "/Medicine and health sciences/Clinical medicine/Clinical trials/Randomized controlled trials" ], [ "plos", "/Medicine and health sciences/Clinical medicine/Signs and symptoms/Fatigue" ], [ "plos", "/Medicine and health sciences/Mental health and psychiatry/Psychological stress" ], [ "plos", "/Medicine and health sciences/Pharmacology/Drug research and development/Clinical trials/Randomized controlled trials" ], [ "plos", "/People and places/Population groupings/Professions" ], [ "plos", "/Physical sciences/Physics/Classical mechanics/Reflection" ], [ "plos", "/Research and analysis methods/Clinical trials/Randomized controlled trials" ], [ "plos", "/Research and analysis methods/Research design/Qualitative studies" ], [ "plos", "/Social sciences/Psychology/Emotions" ], [ "plos", "/Social sciences/Psychology/Emotions/Fear" ], [ "plos", "/Social sciences/Psychology/Psychological stress" ] ], "openalex": null, "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13718924?pdf=render", "pmcid": "PMC13718924", "pmid": "42956015", "published": "2026-10-29", "publisher": "Public Library of Science", "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8cbh1hfctnpf4.ris", "sources": [ { "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:17Z", "native_id": "10.1371/journal.pone.0354851", "source": "plos", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354851" }, { "first_seen": "2026-11-01T00:20:36Z", "native_id": "MED:42956015", "source": "europepmc", "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42956015" }, { "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:22:51Z", "native_id": "PMC13718924", "source": "pmc", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354851" } ], "subjects": [ { "field": "biology", "origin": "heading:Biology and Life Sciences", "subfield": "general" }, { "field": "medicine", "origin": "plos:clinical trials", "subfield": "clinical-trials" }, { "field": "medicine", "origin": "heading:Pharmacology", "subfield": "pharmacology-toxicology" }, { "field": "medicine", "origin": "heading:Mental Health and Psychiatry", "subfield": "psychiatry" }, { "field": "physics", "origin": "heading:Physics", "subfield": "general" } ], "title": "Standing up heals: A qualitative analysis of participants' daily reflections from Emotion-Focused Training for Helping Professions (EFT-HP)", "title_text": "Standing up heals: A qualitative analysis of participants' daily reflections from Emotion-Focused Training for Helping Professions (EFT-HP)", "type": "peer-reviewed", "updated_at": "2026-11-02T12:22:51Z", "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8cbh1hfctnpf4", "venue": "PLOS One", "versions": [] }