Alternative Methods of Inquiry Considered in the Research Process

Counselling psychology pluralistic stance recognises that different methods could be appropriate for examining research questions (McAteer, 2010). Therefore, this researcher remained open to exploring other available methodologies namely, FDA and grounded

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theory. FDA was considered as an alternative method since like the present study it shares an interest in human subjectivity. Specifically, this approach pays particular attention to what participants say and the relationship between the way they talk and the way they think and feel (Willig, 2008). Further, FDA assumes that there are various versions of reality, each of which are created via language (Arribas-Ayllon & Walkerdine, 2008) and thus subscribes to a relativist outlook which chimes with the researcher’s ontological stance.

Equally, FDA postulates that discourse facilitates power dynamics that privilege knowledge which is socially constituted. Hence, it seeks to investigate the manner in which knowledge is employed to influence peoples’ behaviour through the use of available language (Burman & Parker, 1993; Langdridge & Hagger-Johnson, 2009) which chimes with the researcher’s criticalist epistemological position. Moreover, FDA seeks to analyse how participants’ immediate and wider social and political contexts are implicated in their experience of the investigated phenomenon (Smith et al., 2009). This is consistent with the present research question in its pursuit to identify whether the context of hospital discharge planning makes any difference to IDC experience of caregiving. Nevertheless, FDA was deemed unsuitable for the present study since its chief concern is the role that dialect plays in the creation of peoples societal and psychological experiences. As such, it aims to recount and analyse the discursive contexts individuals occupy to gain insight into how they construct their internal processes (Gavey, 1989; Willig, 2013) whilst the present study seeks to make sense of how individuals’ personal experiences shape the way they think and feel.

Grounded theory was also considered as a potential method of inquiry for the present investigation despite its preoccupation with unravelling social processes. This is due to the increasing attention it pays to the study of lived experience. Specifically, the approach has shown interest in the structure of participants’ inner processes such as their cognitions and emotions. Equally, it allows such data to be analysed for the purpose of representing participants’ experience of an investigated phenomenon (Dey, 2012; Willig, 2013). Whilst this resembles the phenomenological orientation of the present research question, grounded theory researchers adopt a realistand a positivist epistemological approach to knowledge production. Specifically, they aim to harvest insights that reflect a precise picture of what is actually happening in reality by positioning themselves and participants in the role of a witness, by viewing transcripts as factual accounts, and by taking care not

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to import their own suppositions into their interpretations (Pidgeon & Henwood, 1997; Willing, 2013).

This outlook contrasts with the researcher’s constructivist position namely, that there is no one single objective truth. It also contrasts with the epistemological stance that underpins the present research methodology which places participants in the expert role with regards to their experiences and views their transcript as expressions of their subjective inner processes. Moreover, grounded theory does not match with counselling psychology stance on reflexive practice (Kasket, 2012) because it overlooks the researcher’s influence on the research process and the construction of knowledge. Indeed, grounded theory was criticised for not addressing issues pertaining to reflexivity adequately (Stanley & Wise, 1983).

Nevertheless, a constructivist version of this method also exists which was submitted by Charmaz (2003). A primary goal of CGT, which chimes with counselling psychology humanistic desire to empower, is to give participants a voice by producing an interpretive description of their internal experiences (Charmaz, 2000; Kasket, 2012). The CGT approach diverges from other grounded theory traditions (e.g. Glaser 1978; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) by espousing an epistemological stance that contests the idea that there is only one unbiassed outward reality that lies dormant within research data, waiting to be measured. Rather, it postulates that there are many and various idiosyncratic realities that are influenced by context thereby espousing a relativist position. This is because CGT believes that reality is created in peoples’ minds through their contact with the world (Appleton & King 2002; Crotty 1998) which is congruent with the researcher’s ontological stance.

Further, CGT is critical of classic grounded theory for the detached and commanding role that their researchers adopt in their relationship with participants and for precluding researchers’ perceptions from the analysis, by requiring them to adopt an impartial outlook to their study. This is because CGT believes that researchers cannot maintain an objective view since they are part of the world they are investigating. Accordingly, knowledge develops through the collaborative interpretation of meaning that takes place in the researcher-participant encounter and via the investigator’s engagement with data (Charmaz, 1990; Charmaz, 2000; Charmaz, 2006). Similar views have also been postulated by counselling psychology namely, that any research output is inexorably

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influenced by the researcher’s subjectivity and intersubjectivity (Kasket, 2012; Orlans & Van Scoyoc, 2008).

Equally, the profession’s orientation towards facilitating democratic relationships between researchers and participants is consistent with Mills, Bonner and Francis (2006) call within the CGT framework to reduce power imbalance in this context. To facilitate such endeavours, Mills et al. (2006) argue that CGT investigators need to adopt a reflexive attitude, an important characteristic of the counselling psychology discipline (Orlans & Van Scoyoc, 2008). This is to help researchers identify situations within the research process that might disempower participants and to bring both parties to a more equal plane of power. For example, by enabling participants to assume greater control over the direction of their interviews. Moreover, CGT researchers use memos as an instrument to record and think deeply about the impact of their biases on the joint creation of knowledge. This, in turn, provides readers with the opportunity to examine the sway of the researcher’s subjectivity on the rendering of data (Mills et al., 2006).

Despite the matches between CGT, counselling psychology philosophy, and the researcher’s beliefs, this method was deemed less suitable for the present study than IPA. This is because CGT seeks to understand participants’ experiences in order to investigate interactions between individuals and subsequently harvest a theory that would explain social processes within a particular context (Charmaz 2006). Alternatively, the present thesis is purely concerned with IDC personal experiences in the milieu of the HDPP rather than the co-construction of a model that would explicate an under-theorised field in human phenomenon.