Objective Physiotherapists managing private practice clinics face emotional demands arising from patient care, collegial collaboration, and management responsibilities. This study explores how physiotherapists managing private clinics use emotion regulation to navigate such demands, and the significance of emotion regulation for their mental well-being. Design An exploratory qualitative design anchored in an interpretivist paradigm. Methods Data were collected from 14 physiotherapists managing private practice clinics in Norway using semi-structured interviews. The transcribed interviews were analyzed based on Braun and Clarke‘s reflexive thematic analysis. Results Five main themes were produced: (1) Positive emotions and community dynamics as a catalyst for healthy emotion regulation, (2) Influencing and shaping mindset through reinterpretation and deep emotional adjustment, (3) Social awareness and professional ethics as drivers of emotional adjustment in patient encounters, (4) Emotional masking: hiding emotions in practice, (5) Authentic emotional expression in the workplace: opportunities for natural emotional displays among colleagues. Conclusion This study suggests that physiotherapists use emotion regulation in ways that are experienced as both supportive and challenging to their mental well-being. Within private physiotherapy practice, where clinical work, managerial responsibilities, and emotional demands are closely intertwined, flexible emotion regulation was described as an adaptive resource through which physiotherapists navigate everyday practice.
Abrahamsen et al. (2026) studied this question.