More reflexivity

As a trainee counselling psychologist, I have been taught not to assume only one way of experiencing, feeling, valuing and knowing. Indeed, this lesson had an important impact on my role as a researcher. Additionally, the use of a reflexive diary enabled me to describe my own thoughts and develop an awareness of my own position in the research process, which allowed me to remain as open-minded and unbiased as possible. As very little was known about my research area, it somewhat helped me towards starting the process from a blank canvas system whereby I could explore and develop. As important, I tried to avoid being influenced by existing literature in order to maintain authenticity and originality. Nonetheless, what I did keep firmly in mind is something Grief (1995) mentioned around the risk of maintaining the ‘expectation of a straw man’ by approaching participants with the assumption that they will be struggling. I was also aware of the importance of being careful of how I approached the interview process. I had to take into account what the word ‘interview’ might evoke in some participants (Willig, 2001). I, therefore, found myself using the words ‘discussion’ and ‘conversation’ as a way to reduce any possible anxieties and aimed to remain open to any questions they may have around the interview process and concerns about confidentiality. For instance, the interview schedule was forwarded to P6 as he disclosed that the interview process created some anxiety in him.

Further, I often reflected on how being a woman and a mother raising my daughter in a two- parent household may influence the participants’ reactions and perhaps what they believe they should say. Consequently, personal reflexivity encouraged me to think about the interviewer and interviewee relationship. Mathieson (1999) suggests a ‘narrator-listener’ role

- 52 - may be more helpful in strengthening rapport as opposed to an ‘interviewer-participant’ role that may increase barriers and hinder participant reactions to the interview process. I tried to nurture the relationship through being informal in the way I greeted the participants and placed emphasis on the fact that the participants were the experts whereas my role was to listen to and understand their experiences. Prior to the interview process, I had developed a research relationship with the participants through email exchanges with regards to arranging a suitable time to conduct the interview. Throughout these informal exchanges, I maintained honesty and transparency about being a married female with a daughter and about my intentions of studying lone fathers after divorce or separation. The participants seemed to like my openness and generally felt appreciative that they were being given a voice. Indeed, some of the participants shared feeling happy to give the benefit of their experience to anyone who is interested in this subject and also disclosed that more research is needed. In parallel with this, factors such as my training in Counselling Psychology, work as a CBT therapist, familiarising myself with the research process and with the creative elements of constructivist GT, all helped toward minimising my impact as a female interviewer on how the participants presented their accounts, but also on how I reacted to and interacted with them. These factors also helped me maintain awareness of the possibility that my own analysis might perpetuate gender stereotypes, especially in a study exploring men as lone fathers.

Given my context as a female, I was initially concerned about the pragmatic issue of gender. I worried that participants might hold back from discussing experiences of differences; thus, running the risk of social desirability bias. Thankfully, participants appeared to want to share their stories precisely because they are seldom asked about their opinions and their experience. In fact, they did not require much prompting and articulated their experiences with a lot of transparency as well as comfortably shared sensitive and emotive elements with me. Despite my initial worries, I did not feel that my gender was a significant issue and disclosing that I was a mental health professional contributed towards building a research relationship in which participants believed me to be trustworthy and accountable. For example, participants readily expressed feelings of anger, injustice, disappointment, loneliness and isolation, all of which were linked to their context as a man and a (lone) father. Their accounts, therefore, suggest that they wanted to be heard, understood, included and supported in ways helpful to them and their context. Moreover, their strong desire to defend all lone fathers and to challenge stereotypical attitudes and assumptions around gender roles and expectations further contributed to their ability to be open and transparent about their lone fatherhood experience. To them, it was not about disrespecting and de-

- 53 - valuing the roles of women or mothers. Rather, it was about highlighting the need to move with the reality of changing family forms and granting recognition to the caring role of fathers that is independent of mothers and independent of the provider or breadwinning role. From my perspective, as a woman and a mother, I did not experience any negative feelings towards them. Instead, I experienced feeling richer in both knowledge and mind set. I saw this endeavour as an opportunity whilst also feeling a strong sense of responsibility to do their accounts justice (see more reflexivity in Chapter 6).

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Chapter 5

Results

This chapter presents a constructivist grounded theory developed from the analysis of interviews. The aim of this research study was to explore how men raising children alone after divorce or separation and in a UK context understand their experience of becoming lone fathers. The intention was to generate new knowledge of this process in the form of theory, which is directly grounded in the data. The presentation of the findings are organised around the key categories (and sub-categories) identified.