As international educational assessments become increasingly prominent, teachers are encountering heightened cognitive and emotional demands, leading to an escalation in the pressures they face. The dual nature of teaching engages both cognitive and emotional faculties, with emotional faculties influencing student outcomes and teacher–student relationships. Relevant research on teacher education has emphasized cognitive development, which can equip teachers with the skills for effective teaching. However, studies have often overlooked emotional management strategies essential for coping with occupational stress. This oversight has led to a prolonged period during which the emotional health and regulation strategies of teachers have been neglected. Jin (2004–2005) proposed the concept of psychological displacement as a narrative tool, alternating the use of personal pronouns—“I,” “you,” and “s/he”—to recount events. This approach fosters self-awareness, introspective thought, and emotional equilibrium, thereby enhancing psychological health. In addition, teacher growth thrives on community engagement, but research on psychological displacement has predominately relied on personal diaries, omitting interactive platform for sharing, reading, and responding to collective pedagogical narratives. To address these literature gaps, the present study used a knowledge forum (KF) as a collaborative online community, enabling participants to share, deliberate, and reflect upon one another’s teaching experiences. This study examined how reflective pronoun usage—specifically the cyclical usage of “I,” “you,” “s/he,” and “back-to-I”—serves as a reflective scaffold in online communities. The study investigated the pronoun usage patterns of teachers occupying different psychological perspectives and the effects of psychological displacement on their ability to manage emotions.

This study included 51 student teachers who were enrolled in a master’s degree program and 6 months to 12 years of teaching experience as study participants. Of the participants, 13.7% were men and 86.3% were women. The research spanned an 18-week course designed by the researcher, and the course entailed weekly learning sessions of 3 h each. This pedagogical design incorporated psychological displacement as a scaffold, encouraging participants to document critical teaching events using the pronouns I, you, s/he, and back-to-I during weeks 3, 8, 13, and 18, respectively. The aim was to promote selfunderstanding and healing among teachers through psychological displacement writing. The data consisted of 204 notes penned by the teachers on the KF, reflecting on psychological displacement. A mixed-methods approach was adopted for analysis. The analysis was executed using pronoun characteristics, grounded theory, and consensual qualitative research methods. The study quantified complete sentences as units of analysis, summed the frequency of characteristic pronoun use across different psychological perspectives, and then calculated the ratios of each characteristic to determine typical and atypical patterns.For emotional analysis, a content analysis approach was used. The study aggregated the occurrences of various emotional expressions for each psychological perspective and then computed the ratios of each emotion type in the corresponding perspective. Furthermore, z-tests were conducted to compare the emotional shifts of teachers across the different psychological perspectives. Finally, the study conducted a cross-examination of and discussion about both quantitative results and qualitative data.

The results are outlined as follows: (a) Regarding the characteristics associated with the usage of each pronoun, the study observed that the “I” pronoun was associated with the characteristics self-awareness, role identity formation, in-depth narratives, retrospective experiences, symbolic emotional expression, and self-centered perspectives. The “you” pronoun was associated with expressions of empathy toward oneself, acceptance, introspective self-questioning , encouragement and motivation, and self-suggestions and advice. Additionally, the “s/he” pronoun was associated with an external viewpoint, selfdiscovery, objective assessment, self-validation, hope, self-affirmation, and action-oriented rational analysis . The “back-to-I” pronoun was associated with self-transformation, action initiation, change awareness, self-understanding, community support reliance, cognitive scope enhancement, reality confrontation, personal recalibration, and positive internal drive cultivation. (b) Emotional responses during psychological displacement writing exhibited an initial surge, followed by a decline, and then stabilization, particularly in the “s/he” psychological perspective, which indicated a flourishing emotional state and mental wellbeing. (c) From the perspective of the “I” pronoun, the teachers clarified their roles and expectations, promoting selfawareness and identification. The “you” perspective encouraged self-support and a proactive outlook. In addition, the “s/he” perspective provided a framework for self-validation and optimism. Finally, from the perspective of the “back-to-I” pronoun, the teachers could derive comfort from companionship, which could enable them to offer emotional support in self-discovery. After experiencing these pronoun-specific characteristics, the teachers reported increased internal support and enhanced positive emotions. (d) During psychological displacement writing, the teachers demonstrated a gradual emotional detachment, observed themselves from an omniscient “s/he” perspective, and identified problems and directions. The “back-to-I” perspective enabled clarity and decision-making, which in turn alleviated the whirlpool of negative emotions without their complete disappearance, thereby indicating the coexistence of negative and positive emotions and transforming negative emotions into growth drivers through psychological displacement (e) The use of a community collaboration pla tform and the companionship and support from partners could provide the teachers with emotional comfort and enhance the effect of psychological displacement. (f) Psychological displacement could guide the teachers toward self-reflection and future actions, and this could subsequently diminish emotional responses toward students and reduce emotional reactivity in teacher–student interactions.

This study has some limitations. The categories of psychological characteristics from each pronoun perspective were based on grounded theory and on consensual qualitative research conducted on data collected from a corpus of 51 participants. However, because of the complexity of human psychology, these categories may not cover all possible psychological characteristics. Therefore, future studies should expand the understanding of psychological characteristics across different personalities.

In conclusion, this study demonstrated that teachers often discuss their relationships with students within the context of psychological displacement writing. As teachers navigate through the stages of psychological displacement, their emotional responses toward students can change. Thus, the dynamics between teachers and students are crucial in fostering introspection and regulating emotions among teachers. Future research can use psychological displacement as a scaffold to encourage teachers to engage more deeply with challenges such as trying experiences in student interactions. Furthermore, discourse within community collaboration platforms has been conducive for providing multiple viewpoints and emotional support. Future studies could integrate community collaboration platforms into psychological displacement writing initiatives to potentially strengthen the effects on the reflective practices and emotional growth of teachers.