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Steinar Kvale
Interviews
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"The, book will have- an immediate amlwery
wide audience. It is a marvelous statement,
very synthetic, very accessible, and so nicely
interpretive. ”
—Norman K. Denzin, University-of Illinois,
U rban a- Champaign
Interviewing is an essential tool in the
repertoire of the qualitative researcher, and
yet the intricate relationship between the
“hows” and the “whys” of the interview
process is not always easily understood.
Steinar Kvale’s Interviews provides both
theoretical underpinnings and practical
aspects of the interview process. After
examining the role of the interview in the
research process, Kvale considers some of
the key philosophical issues relating to
interviewing: the interview as conversation,
hermeneutics, phenomenology, concerns
about ethics as well as validity, and post
modernism. Having laid out the framework,
the author takes the reader through the
seven stages of the interviewing process,
from designing a study to writing it up.
Fundamental and essential, Interviews is
written for students and professionals in
qualitative and research methods,
psychology, education research, nursing,
social work, counseling, family studies,
gerontology, evaluation, sociology, and
anthropology.
ISBN 0-8039-5819-6 hardcover ISBN 0-8039-5820-X paperback
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I fSteinarKvale
InteiViews
Ail Introduction
to Qualitative
Research
Interviewing
/ Ä \ S A G E Publications
I j L I
International Educational and Professional PublisherC o p y rig h t © 1996 by Sage Publications, Inc.
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Library o f Congress C ataloging-in-Publication D a ta Kvale, Stcinar,
1938-InterViews: An in tro d u c tio n to q ualitative research inte rv ie w ing / a u tho r, Steinar Kvale.
p. cm.
“ O rig in ally published by Stu d en tlitte ratu r. © Steinar Kvale and S tudentlitteratur, L u nd , Sweden, 19 94”— Verso t.p.
Includes bib lio g rap hical references and index. ISBN 0-8039-5819-6 (cloth: acid-free paper). — ISBN 0-8039-5820-X (pbk.: acid-free papr).
1. Interview ing in sociology. 2. Interview ing. 3. So cio lo gy— Research— M e th od o lo g y . I. Title.
H M 4 8 .K 9 1996
3 0 1 '.0 1 — dc2 95-50205
T his b o o k is printed on acid-free paper.
01 10 9
Sage P ro d u ctio n Editor: A strid V ird in g Sage Typesetter: Janelle LeM aster
Contents
List of Boxes, Figures, and Tables x i
Acknowledgments x jjj
Preface xv
PART I: Introduction
\
1. Interviewing as Research 3
The Interviewer as a M iner or as a Traveler 3
Conversation as Research 5
Interview Research in the Social Sciences 8
Theoretical Issues ]()
M ethodological Issues
\2
Overview of the Book 13
I
PART II: Conceptualizing the Research Interview
172. The Interview as a Conversation 19
Socrates’ Philosophical Dialogue on Love 21
A Therapeutic Interview on I late 24
A Research Interview on Learning 27
The Mode of Understanding in llu: Qualitative
Research Interview 29
Interviews in Three Conversations 36
3. Postmodern Thought, Hermeneutics,
Phenomenology, and Dialectics 38
Postmodern Construction 41
Hermeneutical Interpretation 46
Phenomenological Description 52
Dialectical Situating 55
Philosophy and Interviews 57
4. Qualitative Research in Science and in Practice 59
The Scientific Status of the Interview 59
Positivism 61
Objectivity in Qualitative Research 64
Qualitative and Quantitative Research 66
Qualitative Market Research 70
Feminism and Qualitative Research 72
Psychoanalytical Knowledge Production 74
Psychoanalysis as a Research M ethod 74
Therapeutic Research Between Scylla and Charybdis 79
P A RT III: The Seven Stages of an Interview
Investigation 81
5. Thematizing and Designing an Interview Study 83
Openness and Emotions in Interview Studies 83
The Seven Stages of Interview Research 87
Interviews About Grades 89
Thematizing 94
Content 95
Purpose 97
Designing 98
The Temporal Dimension 99
Interview Forms 101
H ow Many Interview Subjects D o I Need? 101
Resources Available 103
W hen N ot to Interview 104
From M ethod to Craftsmanship 105
6 . Ethical Issues in Interview Inquiries 109
Ethical Issues at Seven Research Stages 110
Ethical Guidelines 110
Ethical Codes 110
Informed Consent 112
Confidentiality 114
Consequences 116
The Role of the Researcher 1 17
Ethical Issues at the Start of a Study 118
Ethical Theories 120
7. The Interview Situation 124
T he Interview Conversation 124
Framing the Interview 127
The Interview Guide 129
Interview Questions 131
An Interview About Grades 136
8. The Q uality of the Interview 144
Interview Q uality 144
The Interview Subject 146
Interviewer Qualifications 147
H am let’s Interview 151
The Ethics of Interviewing 153
Leading Questions 157
9. From Speech to Text 160
Transcription Reliability and Validity 163
Oral and W ritten Language I 166
Transcribing Interviews 168
Com puter Tools for Interview Analysis ! 173
10. The 1,000-Page Question 176
Dismiss or Interpret the 1,000-Page Question? 176
W hat Does the 1,000-Page Question M ean? 177
“ Have”— Too Late! 177
“ 1,000 Pages”— Too M uch! 178
“H o w ”— Ask “W h a t” and “W h y ” First 179
“M e thod” Versus Knowledge 180
“Transcripts”— Beware! 182
“Collected” Versus Coauthored 183
“Analyze” Versus Narrate 184
M ethod of Analysis 185
11. Methods of Analysis 187
Steps o f Analysis 187
Approaches to Interview Analysis 188
M eaning Condensation 193
M eaning Categorization l ^6
M eaning Structuring Through Narratives 199
M eaning Interpretation 201
Ad H oc M eaning Generation 203
Issues of Analysis 204
Control of Analysis 207
12. The Plurality of Interpretations 210
The Primacy of the Question 210
Questions Posed to an Interview Text 213
T h r e e Contexts of Interpretation 213
Three Com m unities of Validation 217
Interpretation of Content or of Person 218
L
Production of an Invalid Understanding 221
The Consequences of an Invalid Understanding 222
Questions Put to Texts 223
The Quest for “The Real M eaning” 225
13. The Social Construction of Validity 229
The Trinity of Generalizability, Reliability, and Validity 229
Generalizability 231
Reliability and Validity of Interviews 235
Validity in Modern and Postmodern Contexts 236
Validity as Quality of Craftsmanship 241
Com municative Validity 244
Pragmatic Validity 248
Validity of the Validity Question 251
14. Im proving Interview Reports 253
Boring Interview Reports 253
Investigating W ith the Final Report in M ind 256
W riting for the Readers 2.58
Ethics of Reporting 259
Im proving Standard Modes of Reporting 262
Standard Structure of a Report 262
M ethod 262
Results 262
W riting as Social Construction 268
Enriching Interview Reports 271
Journalistic Interviews 271
Dialogues 272
Therapeutic Case Histories 273
Narratives 274
Metaphors 274
Visualizing 275
P A RT IV : Conclusion 277
15. Conversations A bout Interviews 279
Reception of Interview Studies 279
Ten Standard Objections to Interview Research 28 1
Internal Critiques of Interview Research 291
Conversations About Conversations 295
References 299
Author Index 307
Subject Index 311
About the Author 326
List of Boxes,
Figures, and Tables
Boxes
Box 2.1. Aspects o f Qualitative Research Interviews 30
Box 3.1. Literature on Philosophies Pertaining to
Interview Research 39
Box 3.2. Hermeneutical Canons of Interpretation 48
Box 4.1. The Psychoanalytical Research Interview 75
Box 5.1. Emotional Dynamics o f an Interview Study 85
Box 5.2. Seven Stages o f an Interview Investigation 88
Box 5.3. Literature on Qualitative Research 90
Box 6.1. Ethical Issues of the Seven Research Stages 1 1 1
Box 6.2. Ethical Questions at the Start of an Interview Study 119
Box 7.1. Types of Interview Questions 133
Box 8.1. Q uality Criteria for an Interview 145
Box 8.2. Q ualification Criteria for the Interviewer 148
Box 11.1. Six Steps of Analysis 189
Box 13.1. Validation at Seven Stages 237
Box 14.1. Investigating W ith the Final Report in M in d 257
Box 14.2. Structuring an Interview Report 263
Box 14.3. Reader Questions About Methods 264
Box 14.4. Guidelines for Reporting Interview Quotes 266
Box 15.1. Sex, Violence, Religion, Feminism, and Interviews 282
Box 15.2. Ten Standard Reactions to Qualitative Interviews 284
xii In te r v ie w s
Box 15.3. 'Ten Internal Critiques of Interview Research 292
Figure 1.1.
Figures
The Research Interview Seen as Interviews 15
Figure 11.1. Five Approaches to Interview Analysis 191
Figure 11.2. Dimensions and Categories of the Grading
Perspective 197
Figure 11.3.. Influence of Grades on Pupil’s Relationship to
Teacher 198
Figure 15.1 . Knowledge Construction Through the
Interview and the Research Conversation 280
Table 5.1.
T ables
From Interview Statements to Questionnaire
Items 94
Table 7.1. Research Questions and Interview Questions 131
Table 9.1. Two Transcriptions of the Same Interview
Passage 164
Table 9.2. Two Transcriptions of Leona’s Story of
Her Puppy 165
Table 11.1. The Natural M eaning Units and Their Central
Thetnes 195
Table 11.2. Essential Description of Style o f 1 earning 196
Table 12.1. Contexts of Interpretation and Com m unities
of Validation 214
Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of parts of the present book have been published in the follow ing journals and books:
Kvale, S. (1983a). The qualitative research interview— A phenomenological and a hermeneutical mode o f understanding. Journal o f Phenomenological Psychology, 14, 171-196. [Reprinted from: Kvale, S. (1979). Dct kvalitative forskningsinter-
view— Ansatser til en f.-cnomcnologisk-hcrmeneutisk forstSelsesform. In T. Broch, K. Krarup, P. K. I.arsen, &: (). Rieper (lids.), Kvalitative metoder i dansk saw- fundsforskning (pp. 160-185). Kobenhavn: Nyt fra Samfundsvidenskaberne.I
Kvale, S. (1983b). The quantification of knowledge in education: O n resistance toward qualitative evaluation and research. In B. Bain (Ed.), The sociogenesis of language and human conduct (pp. 433-447). New York: Plenum.
Kvale, S. (1986). Psychoanalytic therapy as qualitative research. In P. Ashworth, A. G iorgi, & A. de Koning (Eds.), Qualitative research in psychology (pp. 155-
184). Pittsburgh: Duqucsne University Press.
Kvale, S. (1987). Interpretation of the qualitative research interview. In B. M ook, F. Wertz, & F. van Zuurcn (Kds.), Advances in qualitative psychology (pp. 25-40).
I.issc, The Netherlands: Swets 6c Zeitlinger.
X I V I ntervi ews
Kvale, S. (1 9 89 ). T he prim acy o f the interview . Methods, N o . 1, pp . 3-37.
Kvale, S. (19 89 ). T o validate is to question. In S. Kvale (Lid.), Issues of validity in qualitative research (p p. 73-92). L u n d , Sw eden: S tndentlitteratnr.
Kvale, S. (1 994). T en standard objections to qualitative research interviews. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology* 25, 147-173.
Kvale, S. (1 995). T he social construction of validity. Qualitative hnjitiry, /, 19-40.
The topics of these articles and chapters arc, with the exception of those from 1986 and 1995, treated more extensively in this book.
Preface
This hook has two purposes. First, it provides new interview re searchers with practical guidelines for “how to do” research inter views. Second, it suggests— for novice and experienced interview researchers alike— conceptual frames of reference for “how to think about” interview research.
l'lte book arose from my own use of interviews in a study on the educational effects o f grading in Denmark in 1978. The experiences with what was then a new form of research instigated reflection on methodical and theoretical issues. At that time, there was an awaken ing interest in qualitative research, which led to lectures and courses on qualitative methods, which led again to a Center o f Qualitative Research at the Institute o f Psychology in Aarhus— as well as courses elsewhere, in particular at the University o f Oslo and the Saybrook Institute in San Francisco.
There was little literature on interview research in the early 1 y80s, and a demand for writings on the topic resulted in several articles and book chapters (see the Acknowledgments). They originated as prepa rations for research qourses and were further developed in dialogues
xvi Intervi ews
with the participating students. The students’ insightful comments, and their often difficult questions, stimulated and contributed signifi cantly to the present work. These earlier articles and chapters have now been rewritten and extended as the present book.
I am indebted to Scandinavian co-teachers and organizers in the . qualitative research courses, such as Erie Bryn, Jette Fog, and Tove Arendt Rasmussen; colleagues in the Danish network of qualitative research Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Grethe Skylv, and Jan Helge Larsen, and Biorn Hasselgren at the N ordic courses. By teaching together with quantitative researchers such as Finn Tschudi, Bo Som m erlund, and Ole Steen Kristensen—-the first two arc mathematicians— I learned that quantitative research need not be understood in a positivist frame and to regard the qualitative versus quantitative controversy as a pseudo-issue.
In the mid-1980s there was a marked increase in public investment in Ph.D. education in Denmark. This included the financing of courses on qualitative methods by the Danish Research Council for the Social Sciences, the Danish Research Academy, and N ordic Research Courses. The financial support made it possible to invite foreign scholars to promote and inspire qualitative research in Denmark, including the present work. These guests include H ubert Dreyfus, Stuart Dreyfus, Elliot Eisner, Regi Enerstvedt, K. Anders Ericson, Amedeo Giorgi, Ken Gcrgcn, M ary Gergen, David Goode, Hanne
Haavind, Patti Lather, Jean Lave, Lasse L0vlie, Ference M arton, Elliot
Mishler, M artin Packer, Bryan Pfaffenberger, Donald Polkinghorne, Marcia Salner, Renata Tcsch, Finn Tschudi, and John Van M aanen.
For critical readings of the manuscript I am indebted to lllln
B0wadt, H enrik Brogaard, Marsha Flam mond, M ary Ann M cG uire,
Klaus Nielsen, Tone Saugstad, and Carsten 0sterlund. Knud-Erik Sabroe has kindly provided the example o f the ethical com plaint re ported in Chapter 6. M itch Allen at Sage has encouraged the book project and given valuable comments, and Peter Labella has helpfully kept the manuscript on track during final editing. I am further in debted to David M organ, Lynn Schlesinger, and an anonym ous re viewer for their suggestions for im proving the manuscript.
I am grateful to Birgit W enzel, w ho assisted by com piling the literature used in the book; to Annie Dolmer Kristensen and Lone Hansen, who have patiently written and edited the many versions of
Preface xvi i
the journal articles and the book; and to Kristin Bergstad w ho has worked to transform my Norwegian-Danish English into readable English.
Interviews arc conversations where the outcome is a coproduction of the interviewer and the subject. This book is the result of the variety o f conversations about interview conversations with the persons men tioned above. They do not, however, share all of the views presented here. I am thankful for their significant contributions to the present book.
PART
Introducti on
If you want to know how people understand their world and their life, why not talk with them? In an interview conversation, the researcher listens to what people themselves tell about their lived world, hears them express their views and opinions in their own words, learns about their views on their work situation and family life, their dreams and hopes. The qualitative research interview attempts to understand the w orld from the subjects’ points o f view, to unfold the meaning of peoples’ experiences, toluncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations.
2 I n t e r v i e w s
*
The qualitative research interview is a construction site of know l
edge. An interview is literally an interview, an inter change o f views
between two persons conversing about a theme of mutual: interest. This book attempts to lay o u t the richness and the scope o f qualitative interviews in social science research. It tries to link methods of— and ideas about— interviews, continually drawing attention to the inter play of practical and theoretical issues of interview research.
Interviewing as Research
In this chapter I first present two alternative metaphors for the research interviewer’s role— as a miner or as a traveler. I then turn to the interview as a conversation and give a few examples before addressing the position o f qualitative interviews in social science research. Thereafter some theoretical and methodological issues raised by employing interviews as a research method are introduced.
The chapter concludes with a model of interviews as literally inter
views, followed by an overview of the book’s chapters.
T he Interview er as a M in e r or as a T raveler
T w o contrasting metaphors of the interviewer— as a miner or as a traveler— can illustrate the implications of different theoretical under standings of interview research.
In the miner metaphor, knowledge is understood as buried metal
and the interviewer is a miner who unearths the valuable metal. Some miners seek objective facts to be quantified, others seek nuggets of essential meaning. In both conceptions the knowledge is waiting in the subjects’ interior to be uncovered, uncontam inated by the miner. The interviewer digs nuggets of data or meanings out of a subject’s pure experiences, unpolluted by any leading questions. The interview researcher strips the surface of conscious experiences, the therapeutic interviewer mines the deeper unconscious layers. The precious facts and meanings are purified by transcribing them from the oral to the
4 I n t e r V i e w s
written mode. The knowledge nuggets remain constant through the transformations of appearances on the conveyor belt from the oral stage to the written storage. By analysis, the objective facts and the essential meanings are drawn out by various techniques and molded into their definitive form. Finally the value of the end product, its degree of purity, is determined by correlating it with an objective, external, real world or to a realm of subjective, inner, authentic experiences.
The alternative traveler metaphor understands the interviewer as a
traveler on a journey that leads to a tale to be told upon returning home. The interviewer-traveler wanders through the landscape and enters into conversations with the people encountered. The traveler explores the many domains of the country, as unknow n territory or w ith maps, roaming freely around the territory. The traveler may also
deliberately seek specific sites or topics by following a method, with
the original Greek meaning of “a route that leads to the goal.” The interviewer wanders along with the local inhabitants, asks questions that lead the subjects to tell their own stories of their lived world, and
converses with them in the original Latin meaning of conversation as
“wandering together w ith.”
W hat the traveling reporter hears and sees is described qualitatively and is reconstructed as stories to be told to the people of the inter viewer’s own country, and possibly also to those with w hom the interviewer wandered. The potentialities of meanings in the original stories are differentiated and unfolded through the traveler’s interpre tations; the tales are remolded into new narratives, which are convinc ing in their aesthetic form and are validated through their impact upon the listeners.
The journey may not only lead to new knowledge; the traveler might change as well. The journey might instigate a process of reflec tion that leads the interviewer to new ways of self-understanding, as well as uncovering previously taken-for-granted values and customs in the traveler’s home country. The transformative effects of traveling
are expressed in the German term Bildungsreise— a scholarly, form a
tive journey. Through conversations, the traveler can also lead others to new understanding and insight as they, through their own story telling, may come to reflect on previously natural-seeming matters of course in their culture. Rorty’s (19.92) picture of inspired criticism
Interviewing as Research 5
pertains to a transformative conversation that is “ the result of an encounter with an author, character, plot, stanza, line, or archaic torso which has made a difference to the critic’s conception of who she is, what she is good for, what she wants to do with herself; an encounter which has re-arranged her priorities and purposes” (p. 107).
The two metaphors— of the interviewer as a miner or as a traveler— represent different concepts of knowledge form ation. Each metaphor stands for alternative genres and has different rules of the game. In a broad sense, the miner metaphor pictures a com m on understanding in modern social sciences of knowledge as “given.” The traveler metaphor refers to a postmodern constructive understanding that involves a conversational approach to social research. The miner metaphor brings interviews into the vicinity of hum an engineering; the traveler metaphor into the vicinity of the humanities and art.
C o n v e rs a tio n as Research
Conversation is a basic mode of human interaction. H um an beings talk with each other— they interact, pose questions, and answer ques tions. Through conversations we get to know other people, get to learn about their experiences, feelings, and hopes and the w orld they live in.
There are m ultiple forms of conversations— in everyday life, in literature, and in the professions. Everyday conversations may range from chat and small talk, through exchanges of news, disputes, or formal negotiations, to deep personal interchanges. W ithin litera ture, the varieties of conversation span drama to novels to short stories, which may contain longer or shorter passages o f conversa tions. Professional conversations include journalistic interviews, legal interrogations, academic oral examinations, religious confessions, therapeutic dialogues, and— to be discussed here— qualitative research interviews. Each of these conversational genres uses different rules and techniques.
The research interview is based on the conversations of daily life and is a professional conversation. One form of research interview— a semistructured life w orld interview— w ill be treated in this book. It is
defined as an interview whose purpose is to obtain descriptions of the
6 I n t e r v i e w s
life world of the interviewee with respect to interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena.
The use of the interview as a research method is nothing mysteri ous: An interview is a conversation that has a structure and a purpose. It goes beyond the spontaneous exchange of views as in everyday conversation, and becomes a careful questioning and listening ap proach w ith the purpose of obtaining thoroughly tested knowledge. The research interview is not a conversatidn between equal partners, because the researcher defines and controls the situation. The topic of the interview is introduced by the researcher, w ho also critically fol lows up on the subject’s answers to his or her questions.
Examples o f interviews will be given throughout this book (particu larly in Chapters 2 & 7). To illustrate this form o f inquiry, I will present interview passages taken from a study of the effects o f grading in Danish high schools (Kvale, 1980):
In te rv ie w e r: Y o u m e n t io n e d p re v io u s ly s o m e t h in g a b o u t g rad e s, w o u ld y o u please try a n d say m o r e a b o u t th a t?
Pupil: Grades are often unjust, because very often— very often— they are only a measure of how much you talk, and how much you agree with the teacher’s opinion. For instance, I may state an opinion on the basis of a tested ideology, and which is against the teacher’s ideology. The teacher will then, because it is his ideology, which he finds to be the best one, of course say that what he is saying is right and what I am saying is wrong. Interviewer: H ow should that influence the grade?
Pupil: W ell, because he w ould then think that I was an idiot— who comes up with the wrong answers.
Interviewer: Is this not only your postulate? Pupil: N o, there are lots of concrete examples.
In response to an open question from the interviewer, the pupil himself introduces a dimension of his experience of grades—-they arc- unfair— and he spontaneously gives his reasons for why they are unfair. The interviewer critically follows up the answers, asks for specifics, and tests the strength of the p u p il’s belief by doubting it.
Interviewing as Research 7
Interview inquiries may include multiple actors in a social scene. Two further views on the fairness of grades— from a fellow pupil and from a teacher— follow:
Pupil: I find that the teachers actually evaluate in a rather fair way. It is not possible to cheat them either, which many believe they can. If you sit there— and as soon as someone has raised his hand, and the teacher has asked him and then— (raises his hand). W ell, I do n ’t think it will work. I do n’t think they are that stupid.
* * * * *
Interviewer: D o you think that there arc some pupils who want to bluff by raising their hands?
Teacher: W ell, I do n’t think so, I don’t think they are particularly sly in that respect— in some way or another— to give the impression that they know more than they do. That is not my impression— at least not in my classes.
These later statements contradict the first pupil; the second pupil finds the grading fair and believes that teachers see through other pupils’ attempts to raise their grades by bluffing, and this view is confirmed by the teacher interviewed. W ith such contradictory inform ation obtained from these three actors in the classroom scene, one m ight be tempted to discard the qualitative interview as a research method— the knowledge obtained is not objective, but subjective in the sense that it depends too much on the subjects interviewed. T hroughout this book I will argue that, on the contrary, it is in fact a strength of the interview conversation to capture the multitude of subjects’ views of a theme and to picture a m anifold and controversial human world. A main issue will be how to obtain reliable and valid knowledge of the social world through the various views of the interacting subjects. In later chapters (Chapter 12, Questions Posed to an Interview Text, and Chapter 13, Validity as Quality of Craftsmanship) I will return to the interpretation and validation of the statements above and also discuss their representativity (Chapter 5, Interviews About Grades).
8 I n t e r V i e w s
Interview Research in the Social Sciences
If conversations did not exist, there would hardly he any shared knowledge about the social scene. As a thought experiment we might imagine that human conversation did not exist, and therefore that the knowledge acquired through conversations— as personal knowledge for the reader and as general knowledge for hum ankind— was nonex istent. Yet in the social sciences, conversation as a method of obtaining knowledge has— until recently— rarely been mentioned in method textbooks.
Conversation is an ancient form of obtaining knowledge. Thucydides interviewed participants from the Peloponnesian Wars to write the history of the wars, and Socrates used dialogue to obtain philosophical knowledge. W ithin the modern social sciences, which originated in the 19th century, systematic interview research is, however, a new phenomenon of the past decades. Conversations have belonged to the realm of the humanities and philosophy, whereas social science m eth odology has long been modeled on the natural sciences. The present emphasis on the interview as conversation and on the interpretation of its meanings brings interview research closer to the dom ain o f the humanities.
Interviews have, however, been previously employed in the social sciences. Anthropologists and sociologists have long used inform al interviews to obtain knowledge from their informants. Sociologists and psychologists have talked with their human subjects in order to obtain necessary background knowledge for conducting questionnaire studies and laboratory experiments. W hat is new in recent decades is that qualitative interviews are increasingly employed as a research method in their own right, with an expanding methodological litera ture on how to carry out interview research systematically.
Technical as well as theoretical reasons might be suggested for today’s growing research use of qualitative interviews. The develop ment in the 1950s of small portable tape recorders made the exact recording of interviews easy. In the 1980s, computer programs facili tated the qualitative analyses of transcribed interviews. Broad changes in current thought, reflected in philosophy, emphasize themes such as the everyday lived world and its common language, meaning, and interrelations. Narratives and conversations are today regarded as
Interviewing as Research 9
essential for obtaining knowledge of the social world, including scientific knowledge.
Until recently, the field of qualitative inquiry was fragmented into different disciplines with com m unication gaps across interpretative communities. W ith an absence of com m on literature, procedures, and criteria, interviewers have to a large extent had to rely on their individual creativity. One consequence is that isolated researchers have invented small qualitative wheels over and over again.
This state o f affairs is now changing with the increasing number of books, journals, and conferences in the field of qualitative research.
Cross-disciplinary works have been published, such as Handbook of
Qualitative Research edited by Denzin and Lincoln (1994) and Hand-
buch Qualitative Sozialforschung edited by Flick, Kardoff, Keupp,
Rosenstiel, and W o lff (199 1). Several journals dedicated to qualitative
research have appeared in the past decades: Qualitative Sociology
(first published in 1978), Qualitative Studies in Education (first pub
lished in 1988), Qualitative Health Research (first published in 1991),
and the cross-disciplinary Qualitative Inquiry (first published in
1995). W ith the new literature, a com m on knowledge base is available for methodological and theoretical development of qualitative re search.
Sophistication in qualitative research is today rather unevenly distributed in the social sciences. Although much of what is said here may be old news within anthropology and sociology, it can be rela tively new, and perhaps shockingly unscientific, within some depart ments of psychology. O ne might have assumed that the production of knowledge through the hum an interaction o f the interview might be a central concern in psychology. In the psychological profession, the interview is an essential too!— for example, in personnel selection, in counseling, and in therapy. A scientific psychology leaning heavily on natural sciences has, however, generally neglected the hum an aspects of knowledge production, including the knowledge potentials of the hum an conversation. T hroughout this book I will draw on insights from the use of interviews in psychological practice, in particular the psychoanalytic interview (Chapter 4, Psychoanalytical Knowledge Production).
T hat there has been little systematic reflection on the practical and conceptual issues o f us^ng interviews as a research m ethod may also
1 0 I n t e r v i e w s
be due to the closeness o f the research interview to the conversations of daily life. This may have im plied that it was superfluous to reflect on the interview methodologically. To contemplate the nearness of the research interview to everyday conversations may also have been threatening to the scientific legitimacy o f the “young” social sciences. A further reason for the lack o f conceptualization and of com m on frames for understanding qualitative research may be that its proxim ity to the hum an sciences has been at odds with dom inating concep tions of social science as a natural science. The somewhat controversial position of interview research in the social sciences w ill be taken up again in Chapter 4.
T h e o re tic a l Issues
Developing the interview as a research m ethod involves a challenge to renew, broaden, and enrich the conceptions of knowledge and research in the social sciences. The research interview is not merely a new m ethod, yielding qualitative texts rather than quantitative data, but reflects alternative conceptions of the subject matter of the social sciences. M any apparently methodological problems do not stem from the relative newness of the interview method or from insufficiently developed techniques, but are the consequences of unclarified theo retical assumptions.
Some authors have pointed out a neglect of theory in current qualitative research. Strauss (1995) thus criticizes the absence of theoretical discussions in the large majority of the chapters in Denzin
and Lincoln’s Handbook of Qualitative Research (1994), mentioned
above. Giorgi (1994) concludes a review of recent literature on qualitative methods in this way: “Thus, greater theoretical clarity and consistency as well as deeper reflection or better utilization of im agi native possibilities still seem to be called for in order to bring better theoretical conceptualization and more consistent practices to quali tative research” (p. 190).
Addressing the methodological questions of conducting an inter view leads to theoretical issues— conceptions of the specific themes investigated, as well as of the nature of the social world. Qualitative methods are not merely some new, soft technology added to the
Interviewing as Research
1 1
existing hard-core quantitative arsenal o f the social sciences. Rather, the mode o f understanding implied by qualitative research involves . alternative conceptions o f social knowledge, o f meaning, reality, and [ truth in social science research. The basic subject matter is no longer objective data to be quantified, but meaningful relations to be inter preted. The transition from the miner metaphor of interviewing as digging up nuggets of meaningful data to the traveler metaphor of interviewing as the construction of stories was discussed in this chapter’s introduction.
There is a move away from obtaining knowledge primarily through external observation and experimental m anipulation o f hum an sub jects, toward an understanding by means o f conversations with the hum an beings to be understood. The subjects not only answer ques tions prepared by an expert, but themselves formulate in a dialogue their ow n conceptions o f their lived world. The sensitivity of the interview and its closeness to the subjects’ lived world can lead to knowledge that can be used to enhance the hum an condition. The interview as such is, however, neither a progressive nor an oppressive m ethod. As will be discussed later, the knowledge produced can be used cither to enhance the investigated subjects’ condition or to m anipulate their behavior more efficiently (sec Chapter 4).
W ith in philosophy in the past half century the positivist philoso phy o f science has declined. Positivism conceived o f the social sciences as natural sciences, to be based on objective quantifiable data, with the prediction and control o f the behavior o f others as a goal. Today there is a shift toward philosophical lines of thought closer to the humanities. These include a postmodern social construction of reality, hermeneutical interpretations of the meanings o f texts, phenom eno logical descriptions of consciousness, and the dialectical situating of hum an activity in social and historical contexts. That the qualitative interview is being focused on today, may in part be due to the correspondence o f themes central to current philosophy and to the qualitative interview, such as experience, meaning, life world, conver
sation, dialogue, narrative, and language (sec Chapters 2 Sc 3). Thus
a postmodern approach w ill, in line witl? the traveler metaphor of the interviewer, emphasize the constructive nature of the knowledge created through the interaction of the partners in the interview conversation.
12 I n t c r V i e w s
Throughout this book I will attempt to spell out the implications of these philosophical analyses for the understanding of interview research. 1 am not offering a comprehensive theory of the research interview. Rather, different philosophical conceptions of conversation and its use as a research method w ill be presented. They will provide theoretical contexts for conceptualizing the methodological and theo retical issues that arise when using interview conversations as a research method and they will be addressed in Part II o f this book, Conceptualizing the Research Interview.
M e th o d o lo g ic a l Issues
Research using interviews involves a deceptive simplicity; it is easy to start interviewing w ithout any advance preparation or reflection. The novice researcher may have a good idea, grab a tape recorder, go out and find some subjects, and start questioning them. The recorded interviews are transcribed and then— during analysis of the many pages of transcripts— questions about the purpose and content of the study start to come up. This kind of theoretical naïveté and m ethodo logical spontaneity may in part be counterreactions to the abstract theories and formalized methodology taught in some social science departments.
A novice researcher w ho is more methodologically oriented may have a host of questions about the methodological and practical issues in an interview project. For example: H ow do I begin an interview project? H ow many subjects will I need? Could the interviews harm the subjects? H ow can Fiavoid influencing the subjects with leading questions? Can I be sure that 1 get to know what the subjects really mean? Is transcription of the interviews necessary? H ow do I analyze the interviews? W ill the interpretations be subjective? H ow do I report my extensive interviews?
If corresponding questions were raised about, for example, ques tionnaire surveys, they would be fairly easy to answer. Standard techniques exist for conducting surveys, and there are a m ultitude of textbooks that provide generally accepted rules and guidelines for necessary sample sizes, formulation of questions and o f response alternatives, coding of answers, statistical methods of analysis with
Interviewing as Research 13
levels of significance for acceptable evidence, and so forth. Standard forms of tables and figures are also available for presenting the quantitative data.
The situation is quite the contrary for qualitative research in two senses: First, there are few standard rules or com m on methodological conventions in qualitative research communities; and second, hardly any general texts have existed in which questions of m ethod, such as those raised above, were discussed. This second problem is being quickly resolved, and the task today is rather to find one’s way in the expanding literature on qualitative research. An overview of literature pertaining to interviewing is given later, in Box 5.3 in Chapter 5.
The first issue— standard rules for qualitative interviewing— is more complex. There is no com m on procedure for interview research. Interview research is a craft that, if well carried out, can become an art. The varieties of research interviews approach the spectrum of human conversations. The forms of interview analysis can differ as widely as there are ways of reading a text. The qualitative interview
is sometimes called an unstructured or a nonstandardized interview.
Because there are few prestructured or standardized procedures for conducting these forms of interview, many analyses of the methodical decisions have to be made on the spot, during the interview. This requires a high level of skill in the interviewer, w ho needs to be knowledgeable about the interview topic and to be familiar w ith the methodological options available, as well as having a grasp o f the conceptual issues of producing knowledge through conversation.
In this book I w ill attempt to steer between the free spontaneity of a no-method approach and the rigid structures of an all-method approach by focusing on the expertise, skills, and craftsmanship of the interview researcher. Some of the decisions that will have to be made on the way through the stages o f an interview inquiry, and the methodological options available, are outlined in Part III: The Seven Stages of an Interview Investigation.
O v e rv ie w o f the B o o k
M y aim in this book is to provide an overview and some guidelines for doing interview research, and to present philosophical
perspec-14 ! n t (I t V i c w s
fives that w ill be helpful for thinking about interviews. O n a horizontal
methodological level, the chapters in Part III take the reader through
the methodological stages of an investigation with an emphasis on interviewing as a craft and on the techniques that that involves, providing practical guidelines for conducting research interviews. An interview investigation will be outlined in seven method stages, from the original idea to the final report: (1) thematizing, with a conceptu alization of the research topic and form ulation o f the research ques tions; through (2) designing the study so it addresses the research questions, treating both knowledge construction and moral im plica tions; to (3) the interview ing itself; (4) transcribing; (5) analyzing; (6) verification; and (7) reporting. The chapters take issue w ith the apparently mystical skills of interviewing, breaking them down in discrete steps, giving examples, and pointing out the practical and conceptual complexities involved.
O n a vertical epistemological level, the chapters in Part II suggest
theoretical frames of reference for conceptual clarification o f the methodological issues, providing contexts for how to think about
interview research. Epistemology here refers to theories of knowledge.
O ne of the book’s main themes is the interconnectedness of the practical issues o f the interview m ethod and the theoretical issues of the nature of interview knowledge.
Because the use of qualitative interviews as a systematic research method is not only relatively new but controversial as well, I first treat the epistemological themes in Part II, Conceptualizing the Research Interview, and then turn to the methodological issues in Part III, The Seven Stages of an Interview Investigation. Novice readers w ho are primarily interested in the practice of interviewing can turn directly to Chapter 7, The Interview Situation, to get “a sense o f the trade” and then continue through the concrete methodological steps in an interview investigation. They can then return to the conceptual dis cussions in Part II and the overall m ethod design in the first two chapters o f Part III.
The qualitative research interview is a construction site for know l
edge. An interview is literally an inter view, an inter-change of views
between two persons conversing about a theme o f m utual interest. The interdependence of human interaction and knowledge production is a main theme throughout this book.
Interviewing as Research 15
Figure 1.1. The Research Interview Seen as Interviews
The ambiguous drawing in Figure 1.1 was introduced by the Danish psychologist Rubin as an example of the figure/ground phenomenon in visual Gestalt perception— it can be seen alternatively as two faces or as a vase, but not as both at the same time. I use the figure to
illustrate the present perspective on the interview conversation as inter
views. W e can focus on the two faces of the ambiguous figure, see
them as the interviewer and the interviewee, and conceive of the interview as the interaction between the two persons. O r we can focus on the vase between the two faces, see it as containing the knowledge
constructed inter the views of the interviewer and the interviewee.
There is an alternation between the knowers and the known, between the constructors of knowledge and the knowledge constructed. This dual aspect of the interview— the personal interrelation and the
16 Interviews
inter-view knowledge that it leads to— will run through the chapters of this book, which alternate between focusing on the personal inter action and on the knowledge constructed through the interaction.
I emphasize the human inter action of the inter view as producing
scientific knowledge. The interrelation of the interviewer and his or her subjects is treated in Chapter 2, The Interview as Conversation, and the moral implications o f this human interaction are taken up in Chapter 6, on ethics. The situational interaction of interviewer and interviewee is the main emphasis of Chapters 7 and 8, on the interview- situation. The conversation between the reader and the texts produced from the interviews goes through the chapters on analysis (Chapters 10, 11, ÔC 12). In the last three chapters (Chapters 13, 14, & 15), the focus on the inter views of researcher and subject is extended to encompass the inter views of the interview researcher and his or her audience. This extension of the interviews is illustrated in Figure 15.1, which extends Figure 1.1. Chapter 15, the final chapter, addresses different conversations about the value and validity of the knowledge produced by research interviews, concluding with their potentials for increasing our understanding of the human conversation.
The nature of the knowledge constructed inter the views of subject
and researcher is discussed in relation to conversations in Chapter 2 and to philosophical conceptions of knowledge in Chapter 3, and followed up in Chapter 4 with different views on science and research. Chapter 13, on validation, focuses on the truth value of the knowledge produced and the constitution of true knowledge in a dialogue, and Chapter 15 pictures the conversation as a privileged access to a hum an world understood as a conversational reality.
PART
II
C o n c e p tu a liz in g
the Research In te rv iew
The m eaning of the three key terms o f the subtitle—interviewing, re
search, and qualitative— are addressed in this epistemological second
part of the book. The mode of understanding in a qualitative research interview is outlined, discussed in relevant philosophical contexts, and related to conceptions o f scientific research in the social sciences. The conceptual understanding o f the interview that is developed will serve as a frampwork for clarifying the methodological and theoretical issues arising during the stagei of an interview investigation.
•
1 8 I n t e r v i e w s
In Chapter 2, the qualitative research interview is regarded as a one
form of conversation and related to other forms of conversation, such as a philosophical discourse or a therapeutic interview. The chapter concludes w ith an outline of the mode of understanding of the qualitative research interview and a discussion of the interview in relation to different conversational contexts.
Philosophical traditions congenial to the nature of qualitative re search interviewing are presented in Chapt.er 3. They involve post modern linguistic constructions of reality, hermeneutical interpreta tions of the meaning of texts, phenomenological descriptions of consciousness, and dialectical development through contradictions.
The meaning of research is discussed in Chapter 4 with regard to
conceptions of science, including a positivist conception of science hardly compatible with qualitative interviewing. The meaning of
qualitative is treated in relation to a com m on quantitative versus
qualitative controversy. The issue of objectivity and subjectivity in qualitative interviews is also addressed and, finally, examples of qualitative research in practice are included: market research, feminist research, and psychoanalysis.
Readers w ho are unfamiliar with social science methodology and philosophy may, as suggested in the first chapter, go directly to the depiction of the interview situation in Chapter 7 and subsequent chapters on the interview stages and then return to the follow ing conceptual discussions.
2
The Interview as a Conversation
I he research interview is a specific form of conversation. In order to clarify the nature of the research interview I w ill comparc it to other forms of conversation. Excerpts from three different conversations are presented here: first, Socrates teaching Agathon the conceptual nature o f love; then, a patient learning about her own feelings of hate in a therapeutic session as presented by Rogers; and finally, a research interview on the experience of learning about interior architecture as reported by Giorgi. These different interviews invoke different forms of interaction that produce different kinds of knowledge. The chapter concludes with an outline of the mode of understanding of the qualitative research interview, followed by a discussion of the inter view in relation to different conversational contexts.
K n o w le d g e as C o n v e rsa tio n
In Chapter 1 a traveler metaphor of interview research was intro duced, emphasizing conversation. I will distinguish among the use of conversation as part of everyday interactions, as a professional inter change, and as a philosophical dialogue. These three uses may be seen as specific forms of a common language understanding of conversation as an “oral exchange of sentiments, observations, ideas, opinions”
(Webster’s, 1967); they involve different forms of interaction and
levels of reflection on the form and the content of the conversation.
2 0 I n t e r v i e w s
In the spontaneous conversations of daily life attention w ill tend to
be on the conversation topic, whereas the purpose and the structure of the conversation remain unproblematized. If, however, some kind of break occurs, there may be a change from a spontaneous level to a meta-level where the aim and form o f the talk is reflected. This may be the case if, for example, one of the participants asks, “W hy are you asking me about this?”
Professional interviews take a variety of forms, such as a legal
interrogation, a job interview, a therapeutic interview, or a research interview. They each have their different purposes and structures, with less or more systematic questioning techniques, as well as a reflection upon the aim and mode of questioning. In relation to conversations in everyday life, the research interview is characterized by a m ethodo logical awareness of question forms, a focus on the dynamics of interaction between interviewer and interviewee, and a critical atten tion to what is said. In professional interviews there is usually an asymmetry of power: The professional is in charge of the questioning of a more or less voluntary and naive subject. In contrast to the reciprocal interchanges of everyday and philosophical conversations, there tends to be a one-sided questioning of the subject by the professional.
In a philosophical discourse the partners arc on an equal level and
there is a reciprocal questioning of the logic of the participants’ questions and answers, as well as of the true nature of the knowledge being debated. The discourse rests on a joint com mitm ent o f the participants to seek truth— it is an attempt to get beyond mere opinion to true knowledge. It is guided by a questioning of the conversation’s subject matter, with the partners in the dialogue follow ing mutually binding rules for argumentation (see Bernstein, 1983).
The hermeneutical philosopher Gadamer (1975) describes a genu ine conversation on the basis of Plato’s dialogues:
A conversation is a process o f two people understanding each other. Thus it is characteristic o f every true conversation that each opens himself to the other person, truly accepts his point of view as w orthy of consideration and gets inside the other to such an extent that he understands not a particular individual, but w hat he says. The thing that has to be grasped is the objective rightness or otherwise o f his o p in io n , so that they can agree w ith each other on the subject, (p. 347)
The Interview as a Conversation 2 1
The intentions o f the conversing partners give way to what Gadamer calls “the law o f the subject matter.” W hen one enters into a dialogue with another person and is then carried further by the dialogue, it is no longer the will o f the individual person that is determinative. Rather, the law of the subject matter is at issue, and it elicits statement and counterstatement and in the end plays these into each other.
This ideal description of a conversation pertains to a philosophical discourse, and may in some cases also apply to the interactions of daily life. In professional conversations, however, there is usually an asym metry of power with specific, and sometimes contradictory, underly ing purposes.
1 now give an example of a philosophical conversation and exam
ples of two professional conversations, a therapeutic interview and a research interview. The philosophical conversation seeks truth through an argumentative discourse; the therapeutic interview aims to instigate changes in the patient’s personality and self-understanding through interpretations in an emotional interaction; and the research interview seeks through questioning to obtain knowledge of the subject’s world. The nature of the knowledge constituted through the interactions o f the three conversations differs: logical conceptual knowledge, em otional personal knowledge, and empirical knowledge of the everyday world.
S ocrates’ P h ilo s o p h ic a l D ia lo g u e o n Love
Plato’s “Symposion” is a philosophical dialogue in a dramatic form. A party has been cast in honor o f the poet Agathon, w ho in the year 416 B.C. had received a prize for one of his plays. The guests, each in their turn, give speeches in honor of Eros, the god of love. I'heir talks are accom panied by plenty o f wine: Aristophanes has to miss his turn because o f severe hiccups, but does give his speech; a drunken Alcibiadcs crashes into the party w ith a speech o f love to Socrates, w ho— as dawn arrives— is the only one still seated at the table.
The “Symposion” consists of monologues and dialogues, alternat ing am ong rhetorical speeches, rigorous argumentation, and hum or. Plato’s form of com munication is indirect: Socrates’ assumed igno rance and his ironical styje neither confirm nor disconfirm the many
2 2 l i i t crVi cws
knowledge claims put forth. His uncovering of contradictions in his opponent’s arguments offers indications to those w ho will listen.
In his own speech, Socratcs dcpicts Eros as desire for beaiity, good, and truth. He starts by questioning the preceding speaker, Agathon, w ho has given a rather pompous talk in the rhetorical tradition o f the Sophists. The introduction and the conclusion o f this passage of the dialogue follow:
“ I must say, my dear A gathon, you gave your speech an excellent introd u ction , by stating that your duty was first to display the character o f Love, and then to treat of his acts. Those opening words I thoroughly adm ire. So com e now , complete your beautiful and m agnificent descrip tio n o f Love, and tell me this: Are we so to view his character as to take Love to be love o f some object, or o f none? M y question is not whether he is love o f a m other or a father— how absurd it w o u ld be to ask whether Love is love o f mother or father-— but as though I were asking about our n o tio n o f “ father,” whether one’s father is a father o f somebody or not. Surely you w o u ld say, if you wished to give the proper answer, that the father is father o f son or o f daughter, w o u ld you no t?”
“ Yes, o f course,” said Agathon.
* * * * *
“N o w the n,” said Socrates, “let us agree to w hat we have so far concluded. First, is not Love directed to certain things; o f w hich, in the second place, he has a w ant?”
“Yes,” he said.
“T hen, granting this, recollect w hat things you nam ed in our discussion as the objects o f Love: if you like, I w ill rem ind you. W h a t you said, I believe, was to the effect that the gods contrived the w orld from a love o f beautiful things, for o f ugly there was no love. D id you no t say som ething o f the sort?”
“Yes, I d id ,” said Agathon.
“A nd quite properly, my friend,” said Socrates; “then, such being the case, must not Love be only love o f beauty, and no t o f ugliness?” He assented.
“W ell then, we have agreed that he loves w hat he lacks and has n o t?” “Yes,” he replied.
“A nd w hat Love lacks and has no t is beauty?” “T hat needs must be,” he said.
“W ell now , w ill you say that w hat lacks beauty, and in no wise possesses it, is beautiful?”
“Surely no t.”
The interview as a Conversation 23
“So can you still allow Love to be beautiful, if this is the case?” W hereupon Agathon said, “I greatly fear, Socrates, I know nothing o f w hat I was talking about.” (Plato, 1953, pp. 167-173)
In this passage, Socrates takes Agathon’s speech on love as his point of departure. He repeats it in a condensed form and interprets what Agathon has said and then asks for his opponent’s confirmations or disconfirmations of the interpretations. Socrates starts out by appear ing naive and innocent, he praises Agathon’s views on Eros, then follows up by uncovering one contradiction after another in Agathon’s position. Several of the arguments end with a question leading to a given answer, which Agathon then accepts. In the end Agathon is led to retract his views completely and to agree with Socrates’ position.
This dialogue on the nature of love is open to several readings. In one interpretation, the dialogue is a genuine conversation in Gadam er’s (1975) sense, here as an open philosophical inquiry seeking true knowledge about the nature o f love through a discursive argumenta tion. It is not the understanding of a particular individual, but of the objective rightness of what he says, so that the two of them can agree on the subject matter. In another reading, Socratcs already has a true knowledge of the nature of love, and the purpose of the conversation is educational, through a critical questioning of Agathon to lead him and the other participants in the symposium toward an insight into the nature of love that Socratcs already possesses. At the basis o f his questioning there is a fundamental belief that Agathon already pos sesses true knowledge of the nature of love but needs help to uncover this truth, and Socrates takes the role of midwife, delivering the truth. His questioning is not open, nor is it neutral on the content of the dispute, but presupposes a specific theory of knowledge— the belief in man as an immortal and reborn soul, where learning is recognition of what the soul has already known.
The philosophical discourse is a harsh form of interaction— Socrates likens himself to a legal interrogator— that aims at gaining theoretical knowledge through the unrelenting rigor of a discursive argumentation. Research interviews generally have a milder form; the interviewee is an informant, not a philosophical opponent. The inter viewer asks questions of the interview subject in order to obtain knowledge about his or her life situation, and rarely enters into
2 4 I n t e r v i e w s
tenacious arguments with the subject about the logic and truth of his or her statements. It is beyond the scope of the research interview for the interviewer to argue the strength of his or her own conception of the topic investigated or to try to change the subject’s convictions. In contrast, the therapeutic interview aims at changes— through personal interaction rather than through logical argumentation— and the changes sought are not primarily conceptual, but em otional and personal.
A T h e ra p e u tic Inte rv iew on H ate
Since Freud’s invention of psychoanalysis at the turn of the century, a large body of experience has been gathered about the use of therapeutic interviews. The presentation below of a passage from a therapeutic interview has a twofold purpose: to indicate the possibili ties for research interviewers to learn from the techniques developed w ithin the therapeutic profession, and to demonstrate some of the differences between therapeutic and research interviews.
Rogers was a pioneer in developing an open, client-centered inter
view form, originally termed non-directive and later changed to client-
centered, with the insight that all interviewing implies a sense of
direction. Rogers also pioneered the use of tape recorders and the transcription of entire therapy sessions, making the therapeutic in teraction and questioning techniques available for public scrutiny. Rogers’s writings on therapeutic interviews have been a source of inspiration for the development of qualitative interviews for research purposes.
The following sequence is taken from Client-Centered Therapy
(Rogers, 1965). It was conducted by a counselor applying Rogers’s approach, and in this case it is reproduced from notes the therapist took during the interview.
S (Subject): (Silent for two minutes. Then begins to talk in a hard flat
voice, quite unlike her usual tone. Does not look at counselor. There was much repetition, but the following excerpts give the
major thoughts.) You feel I want to come, but I don’t! I’m not
The Interview as a Conversation 25
com ing any more. It doesn’t do any good. I don’t like you. I hate you! I wish you never were born.
C (Counselor): You just hate me very bitterly.
S: I think I’ll throw you in the lake. I’ll cut you up! You think people like you, but they don’t. . . . You think you can attract women,
but you can't.. . . I wish you were dead.
C: You detest me and you’d really like to get rid o f me.
S: You think my father did bad things with me, but he d id n ’t! You
think he wasn’t a good man, but he was. You think I want
intercourse, but I don’t.
C: You feel I absolutely misrepresent all your thoughts.
S: . . You think you can get people to come in and tell you everything,
and they’ll think they’re being helped, but they’re not! You just
like to make ’em suffer. You think you can hypnotize them, but you can’t! You think you’re good, but you ain’t. I hate you, I
hate you, I hate you!
C: You feel 1 really like to make ’em suffer, but that 1 don’t help them.
S: You think I haven’t been straight, but I have. I hate you. All I’ve
had is pain, pain, pain. You think I can’t dircct my own life, but I can. You think I can’t get well, but I can. You think I had
hallucinations, but I didn ’t. I hate you. (Long pause. Leans on
desk in strained, exhausted pose.) You think I’m crazy, but I’m
not.
C: Y o u ’re sure 1 think you’re crazy.
S: (Pause.) I’m tied, and I just can’t get loose! (Despairing tone of
voice, and tears. Pause.) I had a hallucination and Vvcgot to get
it out!
* * * * *
S: I knew at the office I had to get rid of this somewhere. I felt I could come dow n and tell you. I knew you’d understand. I couldn’t say I hated myself. That’s true but I couldn’t say it. So I just thought o f all the ugly things I could say to you instead. C: The things you felt about yourself you couldn’t say, but you could
say them about me.
