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Reflexive thematic analysis (TA), widely used in education, social work, and counselling research, offers an accessible method for exploring and interpreting a qualitative dataset, and telling a story about patterns of meaning. Doing reflexive TA well requires a thoughtful, situated researcher or research team. As the method puts researcher subjectivity at the core of the approach, reflexivity, or acknowledging the researcher’s role in knowledge generation, is vital for conceptualising and doing TA, and for quality. We briefly outline concepts and process for reflexive TA, including different analytic phases, and important considerations for quality—referencing key resources for readers to use to deepen their knowledge. Using Eileen’s PhD research in social work, we embed a reflexive account of the processes, decisions and challenges in doing TA reflexively alongside a more didactic account of what TA is, and how to do …