Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

There are a number of reasons to use interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) for this particular research. I agree with Smith’s (1996) argument that we need an approach to psychological research which would be able to capture the experiential and qualitative aspects of phenomena, but which could still

communicate with mainstream psychology. The central aim in establishing IPA was to stake a claim for a qualitative approach grounded in psychology rather than importing one from different disciplines. The intention was to revive a more pluralistic psychology as envisaged by the pioneering American psychologist William James (1842-1910). The IPA approach draws on concepts and ideas that have long histories and started in health psychology, but is now used in clinical and counselling psychology as well as social and educational branches of the discipline (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin, 2009).

IPA is primarily concerned with exploring how individuals make sense of important life experiences (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009). The method seeks

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to obtain insight through the use of semi-structured interviews and analysis aims to understand the meaning participants make of the phenomenon. At the same time, IPA’s underlying methodology takes the position that such experience is never directly accessible to the researcher. As a result, the phenomenological analysis is always an interpretation of the participant’s experience (Willig, 2008 p.57) and due to this, IPA acknowledges the researcher’s role and implication in the analysis. As such the researcher’s reflexivity and transparency is vital in reporting findings, and this is aided by grounding data in the participants’

accounts using quotations.

3.6.1 The theoretical underpinnings of IPA

3.6.2 Hermeneutics

A major theoretical underpinning of IPA comes from hermeneutics, which is the study of interpretation (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009). Originally hermeneutics was used as a method of interpreting biblical texts, then subsequently historical and literary work. Hermeneutics prompts researchers to consider whether it is possible to uncover the intention or original meaning of an author. Inquiry in IPA moves back and forth between parts of the transcripts and the whole, this is known as the hermeneutic circle and is concerned with the dynamic relationship between the part and the whole at a series of levels. To understand any given part you must examine the whole and to understand the whole you must examine its parts. This oscillation has been criticised from a logical perspective because of its inherent circularity – at what point does the researcher decide when to halt the interpretative process? IPA is an iterative process as the researcher moves back and forth through a range of different ways of thinking

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about the data rather than completing each step one after the other (Smith, Larkin and Flowers, 2009 p.29).

IPA involves what Smith and Osborn (2003) call a ‘double hermeneutic’ because the researcher is making sense of the participant who is making sense of the phenomenon. The researcher is like the participant in that he is a human drawing on everyday resources in order to make sense of the world. On the other hand, he is not the participant, merely an observer.

Hermeneutics may also be called a ‘dual’ process because it has two interpretative positions. According to Smith (2004) and Larkin, Watts and Clifton (2006) IPA is judged as appropriate as it long as it draws out the meaning of experience. ”The centre-ground position combines a hermeneutics of empathy with a hermeneutics of questioning” (Smith, Flowers and Larkin 2009:36). An IPA researcher seeks to adopt as close to an insider's perspective as possible (Conrad, 1987) and stand alongside the participant like a supportive but constructively critical friend. One could argue that this present research has a triple hermeneutic perspective as it is aiming to make sense of the psychoanalyst making sense of their patients attempting to make sense of their VC.

One of the issues to consider with IPA is the problem of the relativity of discourse. As Denzin (1989) writing generally about hermeneutics, points out, there is no end to interpretive process and the problem of escaping the

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‘hermeneutic circle’ (Denzin, 1989). Everything we know about the world is mediated by language and the existing meanings available through language do not represent the world neutrally. This shift towards emphasising meaning and their interpretations is variously known as the shift from world to word, the turn to language or the hermeneutic turn that is a move to emphasise meanings and their interpretation. The term discourse has been used to emphasise the way in which meanings are organised around an assumed central proposition, which gives them their value and significance (Hollway and Jefferson, 2000).

3.6.3 Philosophical underpinnings of IPA

Phenomenology and psychology share a number of links as both attend to interpreting human experiences (Smith, Flowers and Larkin 2009). Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), the founder of the phenomenological school of philosophy, aimed to find a method of arriving at what he termed the ultimate truth. He argued that it was necessary to examine the bedrock of everyday experience, from which our emotions, actions, perceptions of things, and relations would give an ultimately true understanding. Phenomenology strives to describe the essence of everyday experience, which places a demand on the inquirer to be involved in the process of collecting and analysing data (McLeod, 2007). The researcher needs to be immersed in the data, and strives to put aside one’s own assumptions, judgments and previous knowledge in order to allow the themes to emerge.

Martin Heidegger (1896-1976) set out the beginnings of the hermeneutics and existential emphasis in phenomenal philosophy. For Heidegger, Husserl’s work was too theoretical and abstract. Heidegger was interested in ‘everydayness’ or

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a ‘natural attitude’ while Husserl sought to transcend it (McCleod, 2001, p.59).

Husserl was primarily concerned with what can be broadly classified as individual psychological processes such as perception, awareness and consciousness. By contrast, Heidegger was more concerned with the ontological question of existence itself and with the practical activities and relationships in which human beings interacted, and through which the world is made meaningful. Heidegger is concerned with the conceptual basis of existence from a deliberately worldly perspective – or ‘everydayness’ (Drummond, 2007, p.17). Heidegger’s disciple, Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) tended to emphasise the importance of history and the effect of tradition on the interpretive process. Gadamer considered that understanding comes from combining historical knowledge from the perspective of how cultural constructs are embedded in language – ‘the fusion of horizons’ as cited in McLeod, (2007, p.23). The aim is to allow the new stimulus to speak in its own voice whilst acknowledging how one's preconceptions can hinder the process. One can hold a number of conceptions and these are compared, contrasted and modified as part of the sense making process. Therefore, we must interact with the material we bring to the text and what the text brings to us (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009). This aspect will be demonstrated in my analysis of the data.

Another contributor to phenomenology is Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) who emphasised the embodied nature of human relationships to the world and described how it led to the primacy of our individual situated perspective on the world. As humans, we consider ourselves as different from everything else in the world and we interact and communicate with the world in an embodied way.

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Therefore the other is always experienced as different, thus we might empathise with them but never truly understand them. As an IPA researcher and integrative body psychotherapist an understanding of how we communicate and understand the world through our bodies is, for me, an essential part of the research process. It is particularly relevant given that the research inquiry is examining VC.

Phenomenology has also been influenced by existentialism and for Jean-Paul Sartre, things that are absent are as important as those that are present in defining who we are and how we see the world (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009, p.20). We are better able to conceive of our experiences because of the presence and absence of others. Sartre also stresses the developmental aspect of being human. Existence comes before essence, which indicates that we are always becoming ourselves and that the self is not a pre-existing entity to be discovered but rather an on-going project to be unfurled. Sartre stresses the importance of the freedom to choose which would make us responsible for our actions (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009). At the same time, complex issues need to be seen within the contexts of people’s biographical lives and the social climate they exist within.