This piece reflects on an innovative introductory workshop for an international professional doctorate development project based on Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’. In the session academic supervisors from four participating countries shared stor- ies about their own experiences of doing a doctorate using a bag of everyday objects which reminded them of their time as students. The exercise gave the group an opportunity to begin to get to know each other and to appreciate the complexity and challenge that completing a doctorate whilst working and balancing other perso- nal and family responsibilities entails. Drawing on humanist peda- gogical approaches which value the inner world of the learner and taking inspiration from previous arts based approaches to identity work for education students and practitioners the piece argues for the importance of making space for story-telling about the self from the outset of professional doctorate programmes.