I feel like responding to the issues raised, in part because they relate to my own experiences interviewing, even though I did not stick to a strict BNIM approach.
What I found in interviewing people over three sessions, and using an opening question and then following up key themes in sub-sessions, was that indeed it opened up a lot of space for emotional content. The way I handled this was to help prepare the interviewee, and to check in with them both before and after each interview, and to see if any issues were raised. At one point, when a woman started crying in the first interview, I was able to "hold the space" and allow her to be with her feelings and not push things; I also checked to see if she was alright, and followed up the second session with this to make sure she was OK.
The issue regarding how the interviewer responds to the material is classic counter-transference issues, which arise in any interviewing and most saliently in this sort of narrative, in-depth approach. I have striven to incorporate awareness of counter-transference, both as a research aid (to help me understand what I'm sensing and feeling in relation to the material) and in terms of methodology. That is, if a topic is raised that I find painful, boring, sad, etc etc, I take great notice in this and incorporate it into my analysis. The fact the interviewer was unable to raise this painful topic, based on *her* own difficulties, indicates a lack of awareness of how to manage and handle counter-transferential experiences.
I have found some of the writings in Walkerdine et al, in Growing up Girl, to address how the researchers worked to sort through these various responses to the material raised - and in fact how this was seen as part of the methodology. This is one area which I feel BNIM can benefit greatly, particularly in relation to the panel and a potential lack of reflexivity in terms of what we bring to the analysis - in terms of OUR own lived experiences. Counter-transference is a very powerful tool to help us distance and get clarity on what is "ours" and what is "theirs". There are other resources to help cope with counter-transference in the interview process; for example Duncan Cartwright has a paper on the Psychoanalytic Research Interview which is very useful.
I appreciate Tom's practical advice and noticed that I did apply quite a lot of the suggestions in my own process last year. I also feel this is an intuitive process, but that doing in-depth psychosocial research requires having a supervisor or resources to draw on. Those with training in clinical work seem to be quite adept at navigating these issues.
I hope this is helpful.
Renee
--
Renee A. Lertzman
PhD Researcher
School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales UK
Mobile: +44 (0) 78 464 47168 | Landline: +44 (0) 29 2040 3174
http://www.reneelertzman.org
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>>> tom wengraf <[log in to unmask]> 23/10/08 11:35 AM >>>
I received the email below. We had a phone conversation, and Anneke asked me
to circulate this email to everybody on the BNIM list so that she could
benefit from other people's experiences and ideas. Please help!
_____
From: Anneke Sools [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 22 October 2008 17:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: dealing with emotions
Dear Tom,
This year I introduced bnim-interviewing in my master course on narrative
research for the third time. In former years we had contact about some
issues coming up during teaching. Again i would like your advice on
something.
Most of my students are very well trained in listening and interviewing
techniques over the years, because our university's main objective is to
train students to become existential counsellers. As you point out
especially for students trained in other interview traditions, learning bnim
interviewing can be particularly difficult. It takes a lot of unlearning.
Once they are able to give over control to their interviewees however, the
students generally are very enthousiastic about the results they get. they
are surprised by the very personal, moving and confidential stories people
tell them. I see this as a sign of the good rapport they are able to
establish.
However, the master course on narrative research is a research module, that
attracts also students from other institutions in the Netherlands with
various backgrounds. It is my experience that the bnim-interview method is
particularly prone to opening up deep emotional levels, which some (mainly
less trained for dealing with emotionally challenging conversations)
students are more prepared for than others. I am as much concerned about how
to provide them with appropriate support as I am concerned about the
well-being of the interviewees (they do one interview each that is
consequently used for a variety of non-bnim narrative analytic purposes).
Thus far they tend to keep within their own limits as to what they can
handle, which can be helpful for managing the situation in a way that is not
harmful for student or interviewee. But it also restrains what the
interviewee can share and thereby hinders taking full advantage of the
possibilities bnim interviewing offers or even goes against the very purpose
of this type of interview.
As a teacher i find myself in an ethical dilemma, how can I provide the
students with the proper support?
I hope your wide experience with students from all kind of backgrounds can
offer me some guidance.
Best wishes,
Anneke
Lecturer Research Methodology
University for Humanistics
Utrecht, The Netherlands
+31 (0)30 2390155
My reply:
Dear Anneke,
Here are a few post-phone thoughts on these issues.
You told me that your email arose because one trainee student had done an
interview with somebody in which the interviewee had raised a topic in
sub-session 1 which had - for reasons we did not explore - really upset the
interviewer. It was a sexual experience. The trainee BNIM interviewer had
been so upset by this (to her unexpected) topic that she had not raised this
topic with the interviewee in sub-session 2 or later. You had a sense that
this was a not-good practice. You compared it with another student who had
had a similar 'upsetting-to-her topic', had responded similarly in the
interview, but had had an intensive discussion with the interviewee AFTER
the interview. This you felt was much better.
In the Guide, I do talk about this sort of thing, I think in the Appendix on
Ethics and/or elsewhere. I stress that importance of the (trainee) BNIM
interviewer for taking ethical and technical responsibility for inviting the
interviewee to talk about whatever the interviewee chooses to talk about;
that the interviewer is quite liable to be mildly nonplussed or even deeply
upset by something (not-so-shocking to the interviewee who puts it on the
agenda) that the interviewee might raise (raping or being raped, torturing
or being tortured, an act of emotional violence, etc.) and has to put their
own feelings aside in order to discharge their ethical responsibility to the
interviewee (as well as letting the BNIM interview happen).
This is not easy and apprentice and trainee interviewers should not do BNIM
interviewing unless they are aware that they might hear something
shocking-to-them and have to handle it in a professional and
ethically-responsible way. They/we need to be prepared and do preparation
for this.
Things that we thought that you as a trainer of BNIM interviewers (and other
teacher/trainers, including me) might think of doing:
1) In the training, stress this possibility of 'hearing something shocking'
by finding or constructing a 'shocking' example (examples above), so that
trainee interviewers pre-experience in your training the kind of shock they
might experience themselves when they practice BNIM interviewing.
2) Provide a slightly more complex structure of the 2-session trainee BNIM
interview
2.1. The trainee should inform their interviewee that this is something
they're learning and may well make mistakes. They apologise in advance and
ask the interviewee to raise any thoughts and feelings about the
interviewing experience after the interview is over.
2.2. After subsession 2 is concluded, there should be an 'interviewing
practice review session'. The trainee should thank the interviewee formally
for the interview which is now concluded, and say that part of the training
is to get feedback from the interviewee as to how the interview went (lived
experience of being interviewed) and to hear about what they did well and
what they could hav e don e differently. They then listen to the feedback
monologue from the interviewee (rather BNIM subsession 1 style, if possible)
and then respond in whatever way seems appropriate, perhaps doing a
mini-subsession 2 to get points clear they didn't understand or just giving
the trainee's own experience of any incidents that were either raised by the
interviewee or are thought important b y the interviewer, whether the
trainee raised them or not. Ideally, this 'feedback and review/reflection
session' should be taped. It is part of training the reflective practitioner
(Donald Schon).
3) Whether the interviewee raises an issue or not, but certainly if they do,
you need to insist that - whether they think that they as trainee handled it
well or badly -- the trainee interviewer should ring you on the day of the
interview (or at least early in the morning after) to signal that there
might have been an 'emotional issue' in the interview, so you can talk it
over. After talking it over, you then have to consider whether you and/or
the trainee should contact the interviewee again to handle any such
'problematic issue' that may have arisen and to do whatever needs to be done
to put matters right. The trainee has an ethical-professional obligation to
ensure as far as possible they don't do damage and try to remedy any damage;
as a teacher-trainer of trainees, you have a similar ethical-professional
obligation to try to make sure this happens and if necessary to intervene
directly to compensate for any lack of skill/efficacity on the part of your
trainees.
We reckoned that this issue had arisen for one trainees out of the
twenty-five that you had taught. A 4% rate of occurrence. I think that if
you implemented some or all of the suggestion s above, the rate would drop.
Even if the trainee bungles the 'interviewing practice review session'
suggested above, the procedure of 'ringing you to notify and discuss' (point
3 above) should enable you to ensure that you can detect and act on any
'emotional stress' that your trainee has inadvertently caused. And it may be
the case - I've never heard of anything like this being necessary with BNIM,
but this doesn't mean it hasn't happened with BNIM or other types of
interviewing - that the university might be asked to provide 'patch
counselling' if an interviewee was so upset that you felt that you couldn't
provide sufficient remedy. But we are getting here into worst case
scenarios..
A final point. You write: "But it also restrains what the interviewee can
share and thereby hinders taking full advantage of the possibilities bnim
interviewing offers or even goes against the very purpose of this type of
interview". I agree that it is the 'unreadiness of the interviewer' which
limits (or distorts) what the interviewee feels safe to say and thus limits
the realisation of the full potential of the BNIM methodology. This is true
of all of us, trainees and post-trainees. All we can do at any given moment
is to become more aware - by 'interviewing practice review sessions' and
then by trainer re-reviewing of the practice of the trainee - is to let
ourselves be helped by others to become more aware of our current
blind-spots and hot-spots so as to be less 'blindly programmed' by them in
the future...
SO: If anybody else on the list has experience to offer, reflections to
make, or suggestions for good practice to suggest, Anneke and I (and other
'lurkers') would be very grateful for this!! I'm personally very grateful to
Anneke for raising this matter and obliging me to think harder about these
issues and to think of practical things to do.
Tom
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