Teaching about gender-based violence involves dealing with a form of difficult knowledge and as such calls for substantial emotional, political and pedagogical labour on the part of educators. In this paper, we discuss how we have drawn on theoretical perspectives offered by Judith Butler, along with the Deleuzian notion of affective assemblages to inform the design of professional learning for teachers. We trace the ways in which a combination of naturalistic and non-naturalistic role-play activities was used to structure embodied encounters with difficult knowledge and to evoke the possibility of being and doing differently. We discuss methods used to de-individualise experiences of violence, evoke compassion for others, and foster the capacity to translate caring into action. In doing so we add to knowledge about the use of collective, embodied, critical and creative methods to explore the affects and discourses that inform professional norms and practices.