Conducting psychotherapeutic research with Free Association Narrative Interview

Abstract

Deciding on methodology and method can be a complex and anxiety provoking task for new researchers and doctoral students. This is a reflexive, first person account of a doctoral journey addressing some key junctions and critical decision-making processes during a doctoral project. The article captures personal and professional considerations throughout a qualitative study into female therapists’ experiences of working with male clients who were sexually attracted to them. The study employed Hollway and Jefferson’s (2008) hybrid method Free Association Narrative Interview (FANI) which involved multiple unstructured interviews with five female participants. FANI offers a framework within which researchers underlying motivations about the research can be explored. This paper aimed to show how FANI method offers a frame for bridging a practitioner-researcher divide (Archard, 2018) by providing an opportunity for practitioners to use their full range of skills and competencies from their clinical work and apply it for the purposes of research.