Methodological Approach

Extensive and persuasive empirical evidence demonstrates that children are adversely affected by CPT (van der Kolk & McFarlane, 2007) and that CPT plays a clear and directive role in generating criminal behaviours (Falshaw, 2005; Leschied, Chiodo, Nowicki & Rodger, 2008). Extensive research also reveals that trauma healing plays a critical role in desistance from criminal behaviours (Evans & Coccoma, 2014), and that

17 _{The primary question pertains to experiences of prisoners and former prisoners. These} experiences are understood by discussion with former prisoners about their experiences both as prisoners, and during the reintegration process. (see Section 3.3.1.)

trauma recovery is possible throughout the lifetime (Reisel, 2013). It is therefore imperative to identify factors that facilitate healing from CPT, and critical, qualitative research provides the best approach through which to understand this experience from the prisoners’ perspectives.

3.2.1. Critical, Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is an inductive, human-centered approach that provides an in-depth understanding of the social world of research participants. Focusing on

meanings that individuals attribute to their experiences and situations (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011), this approach generates understandings based on participants’

“uninterpreted descriptions” (Kvale, 1996, p. 32) of their experiences, providing rich, complex, nuanced data, and resulting in a holistic examination of a phenomenon (Thomas & Magilvy, 2011). A critical, or “emancipatory” (Scotland, 2012, p. 12) qualitative approach focuses specifically on experiences of oppressed and powerless groups to expose hegemony and injustice (Scotland, 2012), and to ultimately guide corrective action (Kirby, Greaves & Reid, 2006). By actively sharing their voices in the research process, prisoners, as marginalized individuals, become empowered and influential, yet their perspectives have typically been disregarded. By ignoring their voices and perceptions in the research process, prisoners’ voices are also excluded from processes of action justification, intervention and policy development. The critical, qualitative approach used in my study facilitates a unique production of knowledge, giving voice to the lived experiences and perceptions of prisoners who have experienced CPT. This approach allows the prisoners’ voices to maintain center-stage, making it particularly suitable for understanding the life worlds of the prisoners in my study. More specifically, the qualitative approach of interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) provides a solid, effective framework for my research.

3.2.2. Phenomenology

Phenomenology is “the study of human experience and of the ways things present themselves to us in and through such experience” (Sokolowski, 2000, p. 2). More specifically, phenomenology is the study of lived experiences, or “life-worlds” (Cohen, 1987, p. 31), the goal of which is to understand the meaning of those experiences for the persons who have had the experiences (Moustakas, 1994).

Phenomenology focuses on pre-reflective encounters in order to understand what Moustakas (1994) refers to as the “essence” (p. 13) of the life-worlds; phenomenological research is an attempt to understand “what the experience of being human is like” (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p 11, emphasis in original) by obtaining comprehensive descriptions of how individuals perceive, remember, and make sense of their

experiences (Marshall & Rossman, 2016). The experiential stories shared by former prisoners contain the essences of their life-worlds through which I gained a rich, deep understanding of the perceived impacts of their CPT, and the meanings that these held for them as prisoners.

Edmund Husserl and Martin Heiddeger, whose work laid the foundation for the development of phenomenology in the early 20th _{century (Laverty, 2003), provided two}

similar, yet distinct philosophical approaches that guide phenomenological research. These approaches include descriptive phenomenology and interpretive phenomenology. In this study I utilize the interpretive phenomenological approach.

Interpretive phenomenology

Descriptive and interpretive phenomenology both seek to understand the lived experience of human beings relative to a particular phenomenon as it is experienced by the individual (Sloan & Bowe, 2014). They differ, however, both in generation of findings and purpose. Three main aspects of interpretive phenomenology differentiate it from descriptive phenomenology.

The first differentiating aspect is the concept of consciousness. Descriptive phenomenology considers intentionality to be an essential feature of consciousness and is based on the belief that human beings can only understand something through

directedness (Moustakas, 1994). From this perspective, all consciousness is

consciousness “of” something (Sokolowski, 2000, p. 9); that is, to see, remember, or judge is to see, remember, or judge something (Smith et al., 2009, p. 13). Descriptive phenomenologists describe the “experiential content of consciousness” (p. 12), and once an individual’s experience is described “just as it is” (Laverty, 2003) in the individual’s consciousness, the work of descriptive phenomenology is complete (Sloan & Bowe, 2014). Interpretive phenomenology considers this concept incomplete and incorporates the concept of “Dasien” (Laverty, 2003, p. 24). “Dasien” or the study of “Being” (Crotty, 1998, p. 10) refers to “the situated meaning of a human in the world” (Laverty, 2003, p.

24). Rather than describing individual consciousness, interpretive phenomenologists strive to understand what it means to be a person (Leonard, 1994) and what the nature of reality is. They believe that multiple realities exist, each of which is specifically constructed and can be altered by the individual (Laverty, 2003). From an IPA perspective, the experiences people have and the meaning of those experiences for them can only be understood through interpretation, rather than description (Larkin & Thompson, 2012; Lopez & Willis, 2004).

The second critical aspect of interpretive phenomenology involves cultural and historical context (Larkin & Thompson, 2012). The descriptive approach considers human beings to be independent of culture and history, and therefore their described experience to be “objective.” In contrast, the interpretive approach embraces the concept of “situated freedom” (Lopez & Willis, 2004, p. 719), which refers to the “indissoluable relationship” (Laverty, 2003, p. 24) between the individual and their cultural, social, and historical contexts. Because humans and their experiences are co-constituted and temporal (Sloan & Bowe, 2014), “hermeneutic interpretation” (Kvale, 1996, p. 46) is critical in understanding human behaviours. The goal of interpretive phenomenology is not to describe experiences, but to obtain a deep understanding of being human by interpreting manifest and latent aspects of presented human experiences, revealing “hidden social forces and structures” (Scotland, 2012) to determine what they mean to the individual (Smith et al., 2009). Radnitsky (1970) explained:

Hermeneutic human sciences study the objectivations of human cultural activity as texts with a view to interpreting them to find out the intended or expressed meaning, in order to establish a co-understanding, or possibly even a consent; and in general to mediate traditions so that the historical dialogue of mankind may be continued and deepened (p. 22 in Kvale, 1996, p. 47).

A third critical aspect of phenomenology is the co-creation of understandings. Striving to obtain a “pure, unadulterated” (Cohen, 1987, p. 32) essence of an individual’s lifeworld, descriptive phenomenologists “bracket” (Giorgi, 1997, p. 240) or suspend their past judgments, preconceptions, personal knowledge, biases and world views (Smith et al., 2009). In doing so, the descriptive phenomenologist prevents these biases from impeding on an unsullied description of experience. Interpretive phenomenologists believe that setting aside a researcher’s pre-conceptions is impossible, and they believe that a researcher’s prior experiences, knowledge, and assumptions are an inseparable,

valuable, and vital guide to inquiry and interpretation (Lopez & Willis, 2004; Sokolowski, 2000). Rather than attempt to neutralize their pre-conceptions, IPA researchers

recognize and make their own experiences and assumptions explicit in the research. Rather than understanding experiences as they are received from participants, interpretive phenomenologists actively engage in an experiential process of

interpretation (Scotland, 2012; Smith, 2011), referred to as a “fusion of horizons” (Lopez & Willis, 2004, p. 730), co-producing understandings that remain grounded in the

participants’ views and experiences.

With its focus on understanding the meaning of experiences for particular people in a particular context, and its potential to contribute to changes to legislation, reduction of recidivism, and enhancement to rehabilitation18 _{(see Miner-Romanoff, 2012),}

interpretive phenomenology has proved particularly useful in the field of criminology.19 _In

my study, IPA’s focus on “personal meaning-making” (see King, Brown, Petch & Wright, 2014, p. 9) allowed for an in-depth exploration of the impacts of CPT and the experience of healing from the participants’ perspectives. IPA’s interpretive focus emphasized the importance of what the impact of CPT and healing mean to the participants. Therefore, I utilized IPA grounded in a critical, qualitative research methodology.