For more than thirty years, Steve Worrall’s professional identity was forged in the intensity of the fire service. His career progressed from trainee engineer at Rolls-Royce to Assistant Chief Fire Officer for Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service. Leadership in that environment was shaped by rigid hierarchy and a directive “Incident Commander” mindset, where the objective was always clear: rescue the casualty and bring them to safety.

When Steve later transitioned into a third career in psychotherapy, he discovered that the greatest challenge was not learning new techniques, but undergoing a profound psychological, moral and relational reorganisation. The shift required him to fundamentally rethink what it meant to lead, to help and to serve.

The Wall of “Big Boys Don’t Cry”

Steve describes the emergency services as operating within an unspoken but powerful cultural rule: “There’s still an underlying current and underlying culture within the emergency services… of big boys don’t cry and it’s a sign of weakness to put your hand up and say I’m suffering.” Whilst a structured ‘critical incident debrief’ process existed for fire crews as a form of collective group therapy post traumatic incidents, very few firefighters reached out for individual support. Emotional struggle, vulnerability or trauma were rarely acknowledged and were often viewed as weaknesses that could threaten operational credibility. Throughout his thirty-year career, Steve never cried once, even after attending hundreds of deeply distressing and horrific incidents.

The emotional wall finally cracked shortly before his retirement in 2013, while undertaking charity work in Romania. During a visit to a former prison that had become an old people’s home, he sat holding the hand of a dying woman living in appalling conditions. She asked him if he had rope on his fire engine, explaining that she wanted to hang herself. Steve says: “A tear rolled down her cheek and dropped on my hand and it was like molten metal… I came away and returned back to the United Kingdom and I cried non-stop for two weeks.”

On returning to the UK, when his senior officer witnessed him breaking down, the response was silence: the officer simply turned around and walked out. As Steve reflects, in their professional world, officers simply did not know how to respond to emotional exposure. Looking back on that period in his life, Steve is only now able to acknowledge that he unknowingly was suffering from ‘post-traumatic stress syndrome.’

From Rescuer to Empowerer

At the age of 60, Steve made the decision to “go back to school” and train as a psychotherapist. The most difficult adjustment was letting go of the rescuer role. In the fire service, Steve had been trained to take control, act decisively, and solve problems under pressure in a dynamic fast-moving environment. In therapy, his tutors repeatedly challenged him to step back, slow the pace and trust the client’s capacity for self-rescue. Empowerment, rather than intervention, became the goal.

“I wanted to be a rescuer… I wanted to dive in and rescue people and take them to a place of safety because I am an incident commander… but you have to empower people to rescue themselves.”

He also found himself wrestling with the fire service’s deeply ingrained value of perseverance. In operational settings, you never give up on a casualty. By contrast, the constraints of charitable counselling services (where clients may receive only six or eight sessions) felt ethically and emotionally uncomfortable. Accepting these boundaries required another fundamental shift in Steve’s mindset.

Redefining the Eight-Pointed Star

Currently, Steve researches how the values forged in high-risk environments are not abandoned during career transition, but transformed, which he titled Crossing the Threshold. Using the eight-pointed star – the traditional symbol of the fire service – he maps how core traits evolve within the therapeutic context.

• Observation shifts from hypervigilance to mindful presence.
• Sympathy matures into regulated empathy. 
• Tact moves from command-based authority to relational influence. 
• Gallantry is redefined as the courage to tolerate uncertainty, rather than the need for decisive action.

Steve says: “When consciously reworked, these values become resources for ethical awareness, relational depth, and sustainable therapeutic practice.” Through this lens, he reframes his professional history not as something to overcome, but as something to consciously adapt.

A New Chapter of Service

Entering the world of counselling, Steve explains, is often marked by disruption and disorientation, accompanied by a temporary loss of professional certainty. For former first responders, the transition can feel like standing on unfamiliar ground without the armour of rank or command.

Yet, through supervision, reflection, and supportive professional spaces, identity can be reconstructed rather than replaced. Instead of a loss of self, Steve sees this transition as a continuation of service in a different form.

His journey suggests that while “big boys” may once have been told not to cry, it is precisely the capacity to feel, reflect and stay present with uncertainty that enables deeper and more ethical therapeutic work.

If you would like to get in touch with Steve, please reach out to him via email.