Qualitative Research in Practice : Stories From the Field - Blogs Unpad

Qualitative research in practice
to cross over to a counselling role for which, in this context, I had
no mandate. Two themes in the women’s comments supported
this decision. First, several of the women commented that participation
in the study would have been difficult for them had they
not already had counselling in relation to their sexual abuse, and
second, even in this group of self-selected women, over two-thirds
reported some degree of emotional distress following the interview.
In relation to the timing of the interview, some of the women
identified a time when they would either not have made themselves
available to be interviewed about their experience of
sexual abuse or, if they had, would have found it emotionally
detrimental. Cynthia said it had only been since she had come to
believe that the sexual abuse was not her fault that she had been
able to talk about it; but prior to that, she would have felt too
ashamed to do an interview like this. Irene thought that, even six
months earlier, she would have coped poorly with the stress of
talking about such painful issues, saying, ‘It could have really
taken me down.’ Judith would not previously have been able to
participate in research on this topic as it had only been her
recent recall of her sexual abuse that made her experience accessible
even to herself.
Of the women who reported some degree of emotional
distress following the interview, some had had regular counselling
appointments or support group meetings following the
interview that had helped. Others said their distress had subsided
of its own accord. Nevertheless, all the women reported that they
were pleased they had done the interview. Some, like Judith,
found the process itself helpful:
I can’t believe it. I’ve actually talked nearly three hours . . . It’s like
I’ve never been able to do that before . . . but it’s like that I’ve been
allowed to say, to go on and on for nearly three hours and it’s just
been okay to do that. And what I was saying, maybe it was worth
putting on tape (Darlington, 1996, p. 130).
Comments
In this chapter, we have seen that in-depth interviewing involves
much more than what happens in the interview itself, crucial as this
is. We have considered the selection of participants, the initial
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