Pilot Interviews

Prior to the pilot interviews, during the first year of the doctoral programme, 1 undertook a course in philosophical counselling techniques, run by the Society of Consultant Philosophers. Since my previous professional experience had involved interviewing users in a psychiatric practice, this was intended to ensure that neither the philosophical aspect of the interview process was lost from view, nor that the interviews themselves should slip into something more closely resembling a therapeutic intervention than sociological fieldwork'.

The pilot study mentioned in the previous paragraph was considered necessary in order to test the interviewing technique in advance of the fieldwork itself. This would identify possible problems for respondent and researcher, a novice to sociological fieldwork. Two pilot interviews with users, one male and one female, were undertaken. It was neither difficult to recruit, nor interview these. The first pilot respondent, a middle-aged, working-class man with a long history of depression and suicidal attempts, was introduced by a patient advocate. The second, a middle-aged, middle-class woman, was diagnosed as suffering from depression. Her mother had committed suicide after many years in psychiatric

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treatment. A professional acquaintance, she participated at her own request as a result of a long-standing personal interest in ethics.

In addition to testing and improving interview techniques, the pilot interviews were intended to gather basic information about the field, before selecting the exact methods to be used. The nature of topics to be raised at later interviews and how to approach these was also determined as a result of the successes, failures and faux pas ( ‘You’re not supposed to put the answers in my mouth’) of the pilot interviews.

The "questioning”, in both ‘pilot’ cases, was open-ended and although much information was obtained, the respondents also took the opportunity to address their personal interests and grievances, rather than yielding information relevant to answering the research questions. As a result, the interview was made more structured and an orientativc protocol drawn up, in order to prevent the interview degenerating into little more than a “soapbox”, from which the respondent denounced his/her problems with the mental health services. Whilst spontaneity was important if the atmosphere was to be relaxed enough to promote the uninhibited talk necessary to obtaining the sensitive information central to the study, the relevance of the material was of the essence.

The first pilot respondent, for example, illustrates this. He gleefully recounted an anecdote which revealed that he apparently considered it acceptable for him to publicly breach confidentiality in relation to other users, but that it was totally 2

2 Somewhat paradoxically, philosophical counsellors studiously avoid counselling, hut instead encourage analytical thinking and the employment o f philosophical t<x>ls in resolving dilemmas

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unacceptable for practitioners to do so in professional settings. Whether the subject of his anecdote would have been happy in the knowledge that this respondent was telling people in their home town that she had been ‘on the funny farm ’ with him is an interesting question, as is if and how this kind of situation could be avoided. The respondent, subsequently readmitted to hospital, was apparently gratifyingly "empowered” as a result of his interview, informing his care workers that they “better be careful what you do to me” due to the fact that he was “helping people at Warwick University with their research”.

The second respondent described the ease with which some mental healthcare practitioners assume that a family history of depression predisposes one to this condition, without considering a differential diagnosis - and in spite of the user’s protests. This particular user was initially misdiagnosed, another doctor subsequently recognising her condition as hepatitis upon observing her ‘yellow eyes’. The first doctor, who had given her depressed mother ‘repeat prescriptions of “Valium” for over twenty years’, failed to apologise for his diagnostic error, something interesting from an ethical point of view, since a later respondent comments that it is gratifying to note that mental health care workers ‘are beginning to admit that they do not have all the an sw e rs'\ Such relevant issues would have been unlikely to emerge had a more structured interview technique been employed.

An important factor in later listening to the interview tapes, prior to transcribing them, was ensuring that, in spite of a conscious effort to create a ‘natural’

situation, (mis)leading questions had not been asked and/or expected responses 1

1 See Chapter 5, p. for an example of a doctor doing exactly this.

elicited, albeit unconsciously, by means of either “loaded” questions or subtle hints or innuendo. The ‘vulnerable can easily be led to answers in questionnaire and interview’ (Shipman, p87) - particularly at the hands of an inexperienced fieldworker.

Following discussion of the pilot interviews and subsequent reflection, the interview technique was modified. It was decided that these should continue to be generally non-structured, but that lists of questions which related specifically to the subject o f the research should be prepared (see Appendices 1 for the user questions and 2 for those employed with practitioners). These would be employed if the interview appeared to be deviating (as the pilot interviews had) excessively from the research questions. A previous list of topics had been prepared, but experienced researchers4 considered this to be couched in excessively philosophical terms, not immediately accessible to the layman. Consequently expressions which might lead to confusion were changed, “flourishing” (the standard English translation of the Greek word eudemonia), for example, was replaced by “well-being” (a lesser used, but more prosaic translation). The final list of questions was successfully employed in subsequent interviews which were, as a result, richer in reflections upon ethical matters.