An earlier version of this paper was read at the Journal of Child Psychotherapy Symposium on Ethical Publishing, 2022. The question under discussion was: how can we write about our patients in a safe and respectful way, while making a contribution to the development of our field. The author describes her experience of sharing a draft paper with a young person towards the end of the treatment, with a view to submitting the paper for publication. Some thought is given to the clinical and ethical complexity of this process, and the questions that arose through the process are explored. The paper proposes that it might sometimes be possible to aim for a collaborative form of writing that involves children, young people and families in writing up their stories.