Choices and Process
3.2 A general picture of the methods used
Quantitative and qualitative methodologies
Before deciding on the research method for a study of the application of
FOT to couple therapy, I had become aware of the increasing emphasis over the
past twenty-five years on greater methodological diversity and the development of
a greater variety of methods that can be employed in psychotherapy research
(Locke et al., 2001; Heppner et al., 1992; Brown & Lent, 2000). This has meant
that counsellors and therapists are faced with a great challenge in the field of
counselling research, as qualitative methods demand imagination, flexibility,
creativity, and a good deal of personal skill in observation, interviewing, evaluating,
and self-examination. However, these are some of the same skills that are required
in effective counselling, so that counsellors engaged in research do have some
experience of what is required.
A general trend in counselling research in recent years involves the
integration of quantitative and qualitative methods (Hoshmand, 1989; Maione &
Chenail, 1999). Cooper (2008, p. 8) points out that ‘methodological pluralism’
yields the richest data in counselling research. A quantitative study is defined as
one in which data analysis relies on statistics, whereas a qualitative study is one in
which the descriptive textual narrative analysis is central. The way Creswell and
colleagues (2003, p.211) describe the nature and the content of mixed quantitative
and qualitative methodology appeals to me. Both types of data are gathered and
analysed in a single study wherein the data are collected either at the same time or
in sequence. By using both kinds of data, results from a sample to a population can
be generalised at once, and a deeper understanding of the point of interest can be
in the results obtained with only one kind of method (Brewer & Hunter, 1989;
Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). The qualitative aspect elaborates on the hard factual
evidence in context and gives examples to back up the numbers.
Unlike quantitative researchers, who tend to remain detached from
participants, qualitative researchers make a conscious effort to develop
relationships in the field. In this way, they begin to see things in the way the
research participants see them, and appreciate why they think, act, and feel the way
they do (Mathie & Camozzi, 2005). While quantitative researchers also go into the
field, this is typically to solicit information, or to take specific measurements,
rather than to experience the lives or working practices of the research participants.
In qualitative research, research quality is heavily dependent on the individual
skills of the researcher as interviewer, observer, facilitator, communicator, and
interpreter of data. In other words, all data is filtered through the researcher. In
quantitative research, instruments such as the questionnaire survey and other data
collection tools are not so researcher-dependent.
This difference means that qualitative researchers are obliged to be
conscious of the biases they bring to the research. Mindful of the differences
between the Eastern and Western ways of thinking, it is important for me to
recognise that there might be something lacking in the keen natural understanding
of what I observe, hear, and perceive. Any of my unskilled individual skills
(interviewer, facilitator, observer, interpreter, recorder...) as a researcher would be
likely to have a negative influence on my interpretation of the data. My own
cultural background, experiences, understanding, and use of the language in a
Western environment could bring biases to the research. Therefore, I needed to
offset such biases by ensuring that evidence for the analytical findings exists in the
Quantitative methodology
This was used in Part One of the research which includes the quantitative
surveys of the work of couple therapists (see Chapter 4), and of focusing-oriented
therapists (see Chapter 7). It involved the use of questionnaires and descriptive
statistics drawn from the questionnaire returns. Details of how the method was
used are given in section 3.4.
Qualitative methodology: Phenomenology and IPA
In Part Three (the analysis of interviews with therapists in Chapters 5 and 8, I draw especially on Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Details of
the interview procedures are given in Section 3.6. In this section I will discuss the
general principles of the qualitative method that I used.
My philosophy and approach to understanding people and their
behaviour (and my integrative experiential counselling approach), are
phenomenological. In psychotherapy research, phenomenological approaches are
those which seek understanding through inquiry into the subjective and perceptual
life of the subject and which trust such inwardness to speak for itself.
Phenomenology is directly opposed to behaviourism (Skinner 1971; Hull 1943;
Dollard & Miller 1950) and is distinct from analytic approaches (e.g. Freud, Jung,
Berne) which seek to understand by imposing their own versions upon the client’s subjectivity.
Phenomenologists tend to give special attention to what the experience of
being human is like and how we might be able to understand what our experiences
of the world are (Smith et al., 2009, p. 11). As priest and counsellor, I hear many
stories from couples and couple therapists, as well as from my clients and focusing
partners, about their experiences. Despite my already having experience of couple
these two counselling approaches and have encouraged me to search for how the
felt sense can be used in working with couples and in understanding how to work
with couples in couple therapy.
However, I have attempted to step outside my everyday experience in
order to effectively examine the data that I collected from the research participants.
It seems to me that the participants’ relationships to their work are necessarily
interpretative, and also that in reflecting on what the participants say I am also
engaged in interpretation. As Lyons and Coyle (2007, p.36) put it:
[A] two-stage interpretation process, or a double hermeneutic, is involved. The participant is trying to make sense of his/her world and the researcher is trying to make sense of how the participant is trying to make sense of his/her world.
There are phenomenological research methods which place less emphasis
on interpretation, preferring instead to emphasise either ‘experience’ or ‘theoretical
construction’. One such method is descriptive phenomenology (Giorgi, 1997),
which tries to remain as close as possible to Husserl’s original phenomenological approach (Smith et al. 2009, p. 200). It is primarily concerned with developing an
account of commonality in experience, or a general structure in the phenomena.
The result tends to take the form of a third person narrative with a summary
statement presenting a general framework for the particular phenomenon under
discussion (Smith et al., 2009, p. 200).
It has seemed to me that the participants’ relationships to their work are
necessarily interpretative, and I have tried to focus upon their attempts to get
meanings out of their activities and the things that were happening to them. For this
reason I chose interpretative phenomenology rather than descriptive
phenomenology as the methodological approach to my interviews with the
therapists. Descriptive phenomenology (Giorgi, 1997) is primarily concerned with
probably take the form of a third person narrative and a summary statement
presenting the general framework for the particular phenomenon under discussion
(Smith et al., 2009, p. 200).
Another method, grounded theory, has some similarity to Giorgi’s
method of descriptive phenomenology, although there are divergent views of what
grounded theory involves (Payne, 2007). Grounded theory researchers aim to
develop a theoretical-level account of a phenomenon, in which the data collected
are used to illustrate a theoretical point. (Smith et al., p. 202)
Neither of these two approaches emphasise the importance of
interpretation, as contrasted with phenomenal experience or with theoretical
understanding, and for this reason I chose a method that fitted with my concern to
understand my data in its own terms, the method of Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).
IPA is a framework which was developed and described by Jonathan
Smith in the 1990s (Smith, 1996; Smith et al., 1999). It is a qualitative research
method that is informed by phenomenological philosophy and rooted in a
hermeneutic approach (Langdridge, 2007); it has been used in social, health and
clinical psychology (Smith, 1996; Smith et al., 1999; Reid et al., 2005). The aim of
IPA is to explore an individual’s personal perception, or account, of the events or states that are under investigation (Smith et al., 1999, p.218). Breakwell et al.
(2006, p.324) write that:
At the heart of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is the notion of people as ‘self-interpreting beings’. By this we mean that individuals are actively engaged in interpreting the events, objects, and people in their lives, and this interpretative activity is captured by the phrase ‘sense-making’. Thus the central concern for IPA is the analysis of how individuals make sense of their lived experiences. It aims to provide a detailed exploration of these personal lived experiences as well as a close examination of how participants make sense of them.
It is a methodology concerned with the process by which people define their world,
recognises life as dynamic and interactive, and is concerned with persons and
individuals rather than actuarial statistics and variables (Smith et al., 1995). While
highlighting the dynamic process that research is, and the active role it affords the
researcher in IPA process, Breakwell et al. (2006, p. 324) go on to say that the
researcher tries to adopt the participant’s view to get as close an experience as possible of wearing the participant’s shoes, which in fact is not one hundred percent possible. The process of the categorisation of themes should not be so
impacted with the slant of the researcher that becomes disjointed, though. The
prompts used at the interviewing time can govern the initial themes. When the
researcher is transcribing, he or she is led by the richness of the data to discover the
themes and categorisation that are coming through.
The need to make sense of what is being said or written involves close
interpretative engagement. The hermeneutic approach reflects the dynamic
relationship between the part and the whole in consecutive levels, just as
illuminating the meaning of a word requires the context of the whole sentence,
while the meaning of the sentence depends upon the additive meanings of the
individual words (Smith et al., 2009, p. 28). Smith et al. (2009, p. 6) put this view
of the dynamic relationship within a model of the hermeneutic circle of the
research process:
Having concluded the conversation, I continue the journey round the circle, back to where I started. So I return home to analyze the material I collected from the perspective I started from, influenced by my prior conceptions and experience. However, I am also irretrievably changed because of the encounter with the new, my participant and her/his account. Then I engine in movement round a virtual mini-circle where, in my home location, I mentally take on again a conversation with my participant, as I rehear his/her story, ask questions of it, try to make sense of it. Indeed the various actions inherent in the hermeneutic circle between part and whole... take place in this cognitive space at home base.
attracted to IPA, an approach that seemed flexible rather than prescriptive (Smith &
Eatough, 2007, p. 45). IPA enables participants’ stories to be explored, but also
depends upon the researcher interpreting the data. As Smith et al. (2009, p. 33)
state, IPA is primarily concerned with experience that is especially meaningful to
the person in question. As a counsellor, I focused on the uniqueness of the
therapists’ thoughts and perceptions of a particular phenomenon in the research process to allow me to study how people make sense of what happens and to see
what the meaning of that happening is. IPA helped me to understand that my
experiencing of the participants working with couples requires a lived process to
make sense of that other person’s unique experience, situation and relationship to
the world. I am thinking mainly of my own interpretations since as a researcher I
am trying to step into the therapists’ shoes to identify with their unique experience, situation, and relationship to the world. At the same time, I am using my individual
skills as interviewer, facilitator, researcher, observer, and interpreter. So I need to
have a growing awareness of the negative influences that could taint the data and