Epistemological Standpoint

IPA permits a relatively wide range of epistemological standpoints to be taken while conducting a research study. This was termed by Larkin, Watts and Clifton (2006, p.114) as ‘epistemological openness’. I would like to describe here the epistemological standpoint which I took within this research study, which is grounded in the research undertaken by some IPA theorists.

The focus of this study is on experience, and the ways in which the participants make meaning of their experience of self and the world. This means that no direct proposition is made about whether what they are reporting is ‘true’ in the ‘outside world’. This means that this study assumes a relativist ontological position (Willig, 2001).

At the same time, the social context is acknowledged as an imperative within human experience. I adopt Coyle’s conceptualisation of context as ‘the social systems

and feedback loops in which an individual is embedded and through which they make sense of, construct and are constructed by their worlds’ (Coyle, 2007, p.17). Thus, in accordance with social constructionism, I believe that sociocultural and historical processes are central to our ways of experiencing our world, and are intertwined with the way we interpret and understand these experiences (Eatough & Smith, 2008). Social constructionism in this form sees the self and identity as constructed within social situations. However, through ongoing reflexivity, the person constructs meanings and reviews their patterns of thought and feelings, creating new meanings and personal transformations. Thus individuality and the self are not lost within the social context (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009).

In line with Virginia Eatough’s standpoint on IPA, I believe language is an integral part of the way individuals experience the social world. As suggested by Eatough & Smith ‘reality is both contingent upon and constrained by the language of one’s culture’ (2008, p. 184). This implies that when looking at the participants’ accounts I paid careful attention to the way they chose to express their experiences and their reflections on those experiences (see page 47 for choice of IPA over DA).

This approach has been described as lightly social constructionist, since it does not assume that reality is completely constructed through conversations and social interactions. Rather, while assuming a ‘real world out there’, each constructs their version of it in the process of perception and communication (Eatough & Smith, 2008). This can be termed a critical realist position (Willig, 2001). This position also gives a vital role to the particular context within which the individual is attempting to understand their experience. This is still within the phenomenological stance, as the phenomena are viewed as happening in a certain place and time, and in a certain cultural personal context (Larkin, Watts & Clifton, 2006).

I aligned myself within this approach since I believe that each phenomenon will evoke specific meanings in different times and places. This approach is followed by many IPA researchers (see e.g. Eathough & Smith, 2006) since it places great importance on the contextual setting of their participants, yet at the same time attempts to explore the deeper sense-making process they engage in with regards to their lived-experience.

Taking a symbolic-interactionist perspective within social constructionism (Blumer, 1969), I support the notion that human beings are seen as “creative agents who through their intersubjective interpretative activity construct their social world….creatively involved in the development of a sense of self…” (Eathough & Smith, 2008, p.184).

While it is obviously a struggle to identify where description ends and interpretation begins, various IPA researchers have tended to be more or less interpretative in their approach to the participant’s accounts (e.g. see Bramley & Eatough, 2005; Shinebourne & Smith, 2009). In accordance with Larkin, Watts & Clifton, (2006) who advocate the interpretative possibilities within IPA, I believe IPA goes beyond description because it aims not only to describe what it is like to be experiencing a certain phenomenon (‘the insider’s perspective’), but also what it means for the participants to experience it. This interpretative position has been termed by Paul Ricoeur ‘hermeneutics of meaning-recollection’ (1981), since it draws out or discloses the meaning of the experience for the participant and for the researcher.

Langdridge (2007) also claims that this is in fact more faithful to the initial aims of IPA, which has ‘sought explicitly to be more interpretative’, and attempts to ‘work more interpretatively with the data’ (p.158). Within this research I aim to align

myself with this interpretative position while at the same time staying as close as possible to the participants’ accounts (please see epistemological reflexivity section).

In addition, I believe that the interpretative position is one that can be particularly useful in the context of counselling psychology, since this is one of the implicit activities conducted by counselling psychologists all the time, and it therefore should be acknowledged and reflected in research. In this sense, I would agree with Lopez & Willis (2004) who claim that ‘the interpretive approach is useful in examining contextual features of experiences that might have direct relevance to practice.’(p. 734)

2.1.3 Reflexivity

In order to establish integrity and trustworthiness in qualitative inquiry, the process of research should coincide with a process of self-awareness on the part of the researcher. This entails a constant examination of personal and professional influences on the research process – both in terms of collection of data and analysis (Finlay, 2002).

IPA acknowledges that research is a dynamic process, and the participants’ experiences are seen through the interpreting eyes of the researcher (Smith et al. 1999). Constant reflexivity, attentiveness and sensitivity to the influence of my particular point of view were engaged with throughout the course of my own research. Using Willig’s (2001) distinction between two types of reflexivity, I will address both personal reflexivity and epistemological reflexivity within this section.