Willig & Stainton-Rogers. Narrative Psychology.pdf

The SAGE Handbook ofQualitative Research in Psychology

Narrative Psychology

Contributors: Carla WilligWendy Stainton-RogersPrint Pub. Date: 2008Print ISBN: 9781412907804Online ISBN: 9781848607927DOI: 10.4135/9781848607927Print pages: 147-164This PDF was generated from SAGE Research Methods Online. Please note, thepagination does not follow the pagination of the print book.

SRMO Beta TesterCopyright 2010 Sage Publications, Inc.

Page 2 of 28 The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research inPsychology: Narrative Psychology

Sage Research Methods Online

Narrative Psychology

INTRODUCTIONIn terms of qualitative methods in psychology, narrative inquiry can be seen to be verymuch the new kid on the block. Narrative psychology, as a field of study with its ownidentity, has been around for little more than two decades. While narrative methods ofinquiry have enjoyed wide application in the other social and human sciences, and inliterary and cultural studies, they have only begun to be taken seriously very recently inpsychology.

In this chapter, we briefly outline how the field has developed, stressing the significancethat a narrative approach to psychology can offer. We will then set out a case not onlyfor a cross-fertilization with other disciplines, but also for developing an approach tonarrative research that is firmly rooted within a psychological perspective. We call thisnarrative oriented inquiry (NOI). We then set out a model of NOI, and demonstrate NOIin action by working through an example. We conclude by considering some of thecritical issues that NOI poses.

THE NARRATIVE TURN INPSYCHOLOGYWhile the narrative turn is very recent, an interest in story does have a relatively longhistory in psychology. For example, a long narrative tradition can be found in the studyof personality, life-span development, biography and case study. Stern (1910) stressedthe importance of dealing with personal biographies which he argued were crucial tounderstanding the unity of personality. Allport (1937) emphasized a narrative studyof the individual using personal documents as a source of information for the studyof personality, and Murray (1938) claimed that the narrative case study had crucialimportance for development of both medicine and psychology. Two other pioneers in




this area, Buhler (1933) and Dollard (1935), are noted for their use of life history as thepreferred method of psychological research.

In addition, the psychodynamic perspective recognized the crucial role played bynarrative. Sigmund Freud saw how the stories that clients brought to therapy couldreveal the hidden depths of personality. He stressed the subtle detection of what wasnot-narrated, as well as the connections with cultural stories or meta-stories. Anotherpioneer, Alfred Adler, discussed the importance of the life scenario and life-scripts, andC. G. Jung put his own emphasis upon narrative in the form of symbol and myth.

An explicit narrative perspective upon Freud's work has more recently been taken upby Spence (1982, 1986) and Schafer (1983, 1992). Spence argues for a psychoanalyticpractice that is less concerned with historical truth, and more with personal truth.Personal truth relies upon the construction of a narrative truth. Narratives do not onlyrecord facts and events but also offer the means for constructing meaning out of thechaos of lived experience. Spence (1982: 2) argues that it was Freud who made usaware of the persuasive power of a coherent narrative: there seems no doubt but that awell-constructed story possesses a kind of narrative truth that is real and immediate andcarries an important significance for the process of therapeutic change.

Schafer's concept of truth is close to Spence's conception. Schafer (1992: xiv-xv)expresses this as follows:

It is especially important to emphasize that narrative is not analternative to truth or reality, rather, it is the mode in which, inevitably,truth and reality are presented. We have only versions of the true andthe real. Narratively unmediated, definitive access to truth and realitycannot be demonstrated. In this respect, therefore, there can be noabsolute foundation on which observer or thinker stands; each mustchoose his or her narrative.

It is important to note that these issues raised by Spence and Schafer are not restrictedmerely to psychoanalytic theory and practice, but have radical implications for thediscipline of psychology in general. Indeed, we would argue that they seriously questionits very foundations.




Murmurings of what can now be seen as a paradigmatic breakthrough can be tracedthrough the work of White (1973), Mink (1978), Chatman (1978) and Ricoeur (1979,1983, 1984, 1985), leading to the landmarkpublication: On Narrative (Mitchell, 1981). However, if we are to put a date to what hasbeen called the narrative turn in psychology, then it is 1986. Following a symposium inthe summer of 1983, Theodore Sarbin put together an edited book with contributionsfrom leading researchers in the field, entitled: Narrative Psychology: The Storied Natureof Human Conduct (Sarbin, 1986).Sarbin possibly goes further than anyone else in establishing the foundations forthe new field of narrative psychology. Identifying what he saw as an epistemologicalcrisis in his own field of social psychology, Sarbin used Pepper's (1942) notion of rootmetaphor i.e. a commonsense analogy in order to offer a rethinking of psychology.Previous root metaphors adopted in psychology included: machines (mechanism),and whole/parts (organicism), but Sarbin argued that narrative, especially as a modelof contextualism, could serve as a radically new root metaphor for psychology. Ineffect, he was arguing that to have any success in understanding human action, acompletely new approach, closer to the way in which historical events are explained andunderstood, was needed.

In the same year, 1986, two other significant texts were published: Bruner's (1986)Actual Minds, Possible Worlds and Mishler's (1986a) Research Interviewing: Contextand Narrative. This was then quickly followed by the publication of Polkinghorne's(1988) Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences and Bruner's (1990) Acts ofMeaning. Bruner, Mishler and Polkinghorne, who had all contributed chapters toSarbin's original text, were adding their own seminal contributions to the field. Thenarrative turn was established.




THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NARRATIVEPERSPECTIVE IN PSYCHOLOGYIt is our view that this new area of psychology is not concerned simply with what mightbe seen as a sub-topic within social psychology, or an issue on the fringes of thediscipline, but represents a particularly significant development for the entire discipline.

It is important to realize that narrative is not simply a literary genre, or merely a form ofhuman discourse, but is a basic property of the human mind, rather aptly described byHardy (1977: 12) as a primary act of mind transferred to art from life . Events do notpresent themselves as stories, but it is the experience of an event that becomes a story.Ricoeur (1987: 429) stresses that a story is always preceded by a narrative intelligencethat issues from [a human] creative intelligence . And, Bruner (1990: 51) expressesthe same idea in terms of narrative having a dual landscape events and actions in aputative real world occur concurrently with mental events in the consciousness of theprotagonists.

Bruner (1990: 67) remarks that narrative thinking has clear advantages in the everydayworld, and must be regarded as one of the crowning achievements of humandevelopment. He proposes a distinction between narrative reasoning and rationalthinking, each a primary mode of thought, arguing for these to be seen as: two modesof cognitive functioning, two modes of thought, each providing distinctive ways ofordering experience, of constructing reality. The two (though complementary) areirreducible to one another (Bruner, 1986: 11).In similar vein, Polkinghorne (1988) defines narrative as a fundamental scheme forlinking individual human actions and events into a contextualized and integrated whole.Narrative is essential to the meaning-making process, such that events and actions canbe understood despite the fact that the reasons for them are not fully known. He pointsout that narratives have powerful properties:

facts only partly determine the particular scheme to be used in theirorganization, and more than one scheme can fit the same facts: several




narratives can organize the same facts into stories and thereby give thefacts different significance and meaning.

Polkinghorne(1988: 181)It is in this remark by Polkinghorne that the astonishing power of narrative thinking isrevealed: several narratives (perhaps an infinite number of narratives) can organize thesame facts into stories!

In summary, narrative plays a crucial role in almost every human activity. Narrativesdominate human discourse, and are foundational to the cultural processes that organizeand structure human action and experience. They offer a sense-making process thatis fundamental to understanding human reality. Narratives enable human experiencesto be seen as socially positioned and culturally grounded. Human experiences arerendered as part of a shared version of reality, which can easily reproduce itself.Moreover, narratives are not merely accounts of experience, they are performative,offering frames for human action. They offer pragmatic and persuasive responses todeal with life's events.

There are very many areas of psychology to which these ideas are finding application,and we can only sample a few of these here.

One of the claims that is repeatedly being made for the function of narrative is that ithas a primary role in the construction and maintenance of self-identity (Gergen andGergen, 1983; Ricoeur, 1987; Shotter and Gergen, 1989; Kerby, 1991; Rosenwald andOchberg, 1992; Schafer, 1992; Lee, 1993; Linde, 1993; McAdams, 1993; Crossley,2000; Ochs and Capps, 2001; Burr, 2003; Fireman, McVay and Flanagan, 2003;McAdams, Josselson and Lieblich, 2006). Using our narrative intelligence, we choosewhat matters to us, we participate in the construction of our own identities. Throughthe stories that we construct we establish our identity positions. It would seem then,that we are simply the assembled stories that we tell about ourselves, and the storiesthat are told about us by others. It follows that we have the power to renegotiate ouridentity by altering these stories. Moreover, narrative seems to be in a unique positionto promote human empowerment, and to challenge oppression, unnecessary suffering,and discrimination.




Narrative inquiry is making a major contribution to the study of human cognition (e.g.Mink, 1978; Bruner, 1986, 1987, 1990; Murray, 1995; Edwards, 1997). The underlyingclaim here is that the human ability to think narratively is crucial to our everydayunderstanding of reality. For example, Stern (2004) has proposed that the presentmoment is experienced as a lived story, and Hiles (2005) offers a distinction betweendiscursive and contingent narratives. Contingent narratives are stories that we generate,consciously or unconsciously, in order to organize our immediate perception of events.These are the building blocks of a narrative mode of thinking that is fundamental toour construction of reality. Such narratives facilitate our memory of events, forming thebasis for later shared discursive accounts. Indeed, the study of narrative memory is afield in its own right, drawing upon script theory and autobiographic memory, amongstothers (Schank and Abelson, 1977; Mandler, 1984; Wagenaar, 1986; Schank, 1990;Linde, 1993; Neisser and Fivush, 1994; Freeman, 1999).A further area of application is in health psychology (Kleinman, 1988; Radley, 1993,1999a, 1999b; Frank, 1995; Murray, 1997, 1999). There is a growing interest in takinga narrative approach to illness and medical practice (cf. Greenhalgh and Hurwitz, 1998;Mattingly and Garro, 2000). There is possibly no greater challenge to our sense-makingprocesses than how we are able to give meaning to illness, particularly life-threateningillness. For example, Mattingly and Garro stress how personal illness narratives aremore concerned with verisimilitude rather than verifiability the function of narrativestrategies is to convey believability, or plausibility, rather than a historical truth. Illnessnarratives need to be seen as resourceful improvizations, offering opportunities toreframe experience and construct revised identities.

As a final application, we will mention the field of psychotherapy and counselling,especially family therapy (White and Epston, 1990; Neimeyer and Mahoney, 1995; Eronand Lund, 1996; Freedman and Combs, 1996; McLeod, 1997; Monk, Winslade, Crocketand Epston, 1997; Payne, 2000; Angus and

McLeod, 2004). The perspective here is less on the interpretive skills of the therapistand more on the narrative resources of the client. The role of the therapist is seenas a facilitator of narrative thinking. Freedman and Combs (1996: 16) write that wediscovered that as people began to inhabit and live out these alternative stories.[they] could live out new self-images, new possibilities for relationship, and for the




future. And Neimeyer (1995: 3) sums up the basic idea of his narrative approach asfollows: psychotherapy can be viewed as a kind of collaboration in the constructionand reconstruction of meaning. that will continue long after therapy ends. Narrativetherapy is to be considered as an opportunity for reframing experience what mightbe described as an arena for re-biography and narrative reconstruction. Furthermore,therapy is seen as an opportunity for problem dissolving, and for personal explorationand experimentation.

In summary, it is because narrative is fundamental to our understanding of the humanmind, and because narrative dominates human discourse, and because narrative isfoundational to the processes that organize and structure human experience and action,that the application of narrative methods of research has the potential for such verywide application.

NARRATIVE ORIENTED INQUIRY (NOI)When research participants are asked to talk about themselves, about theirexperiences, or to explore some aspect of their life, they invariably use a narrativemode of organization, i.e. participants will provide accounts that inevitably take on astory structure. Unstructured and semi-structured interviews particularly encouragea narrative mode of discourse. But narrative research is more than an extension ofdiscourse analysis: it is a field in its own right. Consequently, these narratives warrantstudy in their own right, and this has led to the recent emergence of the approach toresearch that we call narrative oriented inquiry (NOI).NOI stresses that narrative is not merely a distinct form of qualitative data or a particularapproach to data analysis, but that it is a methodological approach in its own right,which requires appreciation of the subtle paradigm assumptions involved, and a methodof data collection called a narrative interview (Mishler, 1986a, 1999). The position beingadopted is that interviews do not have to be seen as an interrogation, but can be seenas a mutual exchange of views (Kvale, 1996), and as a site for the coproduction ofnarratives (Silverman, 2001). Indeed, Mishler (1986a) argues that interviews should bestudied as speech events, and that narratives simply reflect one of the crucial means ofknowledge production that goes on in our everyday lives.




Invariably, it is the nature of the research question that will point to the particularapproach to interviewing that needs to be employed. For example, if the researchquestion draws upon a paradigm that sees narratives as a participative activity in whicha person can author (and re-author) their own meaning-making activities, their livedexperience, their understandings of reality, and their own place in that reality, then anarrative style of interviewing recommends

itself.

The narrative interview can take the form of a very open invitation Tell me about yourlife your up-bringing, or can involve a more topic-oriented style of open questioning How did you get into this type of work? Tell me about your recovery from illnessHow did you come to be diagnosed? The first of these could be called the biographicalinterview and the second the topic-focused interview, but there are many variations thatcan be used.

The growing interest in the narrative field has led to a very wide variety of approachesto the interpretation and examination of narrative data. Pioneers of narrative analysisinclude Labov and Waletzky (1967), Mishler (1986a), Gee (1991), Riessman (1993),Czarniawska (1998), leading to a proliferation which Mishler (1995: 88) describes as acurrent state of near-anarchy.

In his attempt to bring some order to the field, Mishler (1995: 8990) offers a provisionaltypology with a focus upon: (1) representation, particularly the tension between theactual temporal order of events/episodes and their order of presentation as re-told;(2) the linguistic and narrative strategies used by different genres to achieve structureand coherence; and (3) the cultural, social and psychological contexts and functions ofstories.

The model of NOI offers an approach to narrative research that is firmly rooted withina psychological perspective, reflecting Mishler's (1995: 117) concern that there isno singular or best way to define and study narrative, and that we need to open upthe exploration of what we may learn from other approaches as we pursue our ownparticular one.




The challenges for NOIThere are many challenges to developing a systematic approach to narrative inquiry inpsychology, and we see the following as the most pressing issues.

Firstly, there is the need to develop an approach to narrative inquiry that is distinctive,while honouring its roots. Narrative inquiry does have its roots in a social constructionistperspective, but it does also entail a paradigm shift towards a more inclusive viewthat incorporates both a rich description of the socio-cultural (discursive) environmentand the participatory and creative inner world of lived experience. In this respect,narrative data always carries a double signature, i.e. social constructionist andphenomenological. To this end, NOI sets out to combine a situated-occasioned actionperspective together with a view of the individual as actively and creatively engaged inprocesses of meaning-making, organization and agency.

Furthermore, the events that are narrated are placed in a double context. On the onehand, the re-told events are placed within their story context, i.e. within the contextof the whole story. While on the other hand, there is the discursive context of thesituated-occasion of this re-telling of the story. Narrative context must always be seenas articulated twice. An important part of the analysis of a story is then the descriptionand understanding of how this double-contextualizing process is operating. The problemhere is that we are only at the very beginning of understanding how context works,anyway.

A second challenge involves ensuring that the entire inquiry process is open to criticaland systematic reflexivity. Reflexivity is much more than an inspection of the potentialsources of bias in a study, and must begin with the conscious examination of theparadigm assumptions, selection of research strategies, selection of participants, anddecisions made in collecting the data, conducting the interviews, and in analysing thedata and interpreting the findings. Reflexivity highlights the fact that the researcher hasa participatory role in the inquiry, is part of the situation, the discursive context and thephenomenon under study. Hence, reflexivity can be a means for critically inspectingthe entire research process. The NOI model is designed to offer a framework for just




this. Reflexivity understood in this way, demands transparency, and we will return to thisissue at the end of the chapter.

A third challenge for NOI is that narrative inquiry is far from being confined to onlypsychology, and one of the pressing challenges is for psychology to integrate withnarrative research methods, insights and expertise in the sociological, educational,clinical, and biographical fields, generating a multidisciplinary perspective. A relatedchallenge is the recognition of narrative inquiry as having the potential to provide linkswithin our still all too fragmented discipline. Narrative provides a common theme thatcuts across psychodynamic, cognitive, social, humanistic, transpersonal and integralpsychology in terms of both research and practice. Indeed, in this respect, we mightbe so bold as to suggest that, following on from the discursive turn which has beencalled the second cognitive revolution, narrative psychology might represent a thirdcognitive revolution.

NOI in actionThe focus that we want to take in this section is on the practical issues raised bynarrative inquiry. Our emphasis is upon research with personal narratives, especiallyconcerned with the collection and analysis of data from narrative interviews. However,in principle this can be adapted to other kinds of narratives as well, e.g. autobiography,diaries, conversational, therapeutic narratives, etc.

There is an expanding literature, in the wider social and human sciences, offering avariety of approaches to collecting and analysing narrative data, e.g. Riessman (1993),Clandinin and Connelly (2000), Wortham (2001), Czarniawska (2004), Elliott (2005),etc. Many of these have much to commend them, but the problem is that narrative dataanalysis can range from the more straightforward collection of stories to be categorizedand classified (into genres, etc.), through a more in-depth analysis of stories (e.g.breaking them down into their underlying themes, or in an attempt to reconstruct theoriginal event), to a more closely focused micro-analysis of the narrative sense-makingprocess and the psychosocial context within which this takes place.




What we have developed is a model of NOI that draws upon psychologically focusedapproaches to narrative inquiry, and crucially embraces both the data collection processas well as a range of data analysis approaches. We stress that NOI must begin witha narrative approach to data collection that is reflected in the research question,the research design and strategy for interviewing. The model of NOI is essentially adynamic framework for good practice. It is not intended to be exhaustive and definitive,but is explicitly inclusive and pluralistic. The version presented here offers the essentialcomponents for sound narrative research, but it needs to be noted that this is still work-in-progress.

The modelThe model that we will consider is illustrated in Figure 9.1. A key feature of the model isthe need to step back a little and take a broader point of view of NOI from start to finish.

NOI starts with a research question. With the research question in mind, a narrativeinterview guide (NIG) is then set up, and participants are selected.The narrative interview (Mishler, 1986a, 1986b) requires audio recording to generate anaudio text, which is then transcribed deleting personal identifiers as necessary. It is withthe raw transcript that data analysis begins. This transcript needs to be read throughseveral times (reading 1, 2, 3,). The purpose of the persistent engagement withthe written transcript is to build up a picture of the context, and the story as a whole.There may be a continuing need to return to the audio text to clarify details for the rawtranscript.

Narrative analysis proceeds by first breaking the text down into segments. Someapproaches advocate presenting the transcript simply as numbered lines. The problemwith this is that lines are arbitrary. Since narratives are basically a sequence ofepisodes, or events, we prefer setting out the transcript as a numbered sequence ofsegments, a segment being roughly a self-contained episode, or move, in the tellingof the story. In turn, the text can be broken down further into specific units of analysisdetermined by the particular analytic strategy being used. This is not foolproof, but isrelatively straightforward and transparent. The text is then arranged down the left-hand




of each page with a very wide margin to the right where notes and annotations can bemade. It is this that we call the working transcript.

Analysis then proceeds by adopting a number of interpretive perspectives. We willconsider just six here, but in principle others can be added. These six perspectivesemerge from the integration of three key sources. The first of these uses Herman andVervaeck's (2001) distinction between bounded and unbounded motifs in narrativediscourse.

Figure 9.1 Narrative oriented inquiry (NOI): a model

This perspective in effect distinguishes fabula from sjuzet (pronounced sootzay), adistinction made by the Russian Formalists, but can be dated back to Aristotle's Poetics.The fabula is the content of a story, i.e. the original events as they might actually haveoccurred. This is in contrast to the sjuzet which is the form of the narrative, i.e. thewindow onto the events offered in the re-telling of the story.




In literary theory, a further distinction can be made within the sjuzet between plot andmode of narration. But this need not concern us here, since in narrative inquiry theseare confounded within the participant being interviewed.

The second key source, which we regard as possibly the most comprehensiveapproach to narrative analysis available, is Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach and Zilber (1998).Their approach to narrative data analysis offers four interpretive perspectives, basedupon the recognition of two underlying dimensions: Holistic-Categorical (i.e. the unitof analysis is the whole story vs. the themes/categories that make up the story), andContent-Form (i.e. the story-account itself vs. how the story is re-told). Combining thesetwo dimensions, they derive four approaches to analysis: Holistic-Content, Holistic-Form, Categorical-Content and Categorical-Form. These constitute perspectives (ii) to(v) in our model. Each of these four approaches may be connected to different typesof research question, different modes of text, and different sample size. The point isthat these approaches can be used singularly, or in any combination, drawing upon theinitial analysis into sjuzet-fabula, and feeding into further interpretive approaches.The third key source is Emerson and Frosh (2004: 9), who offer the approach of criticalnarrative analysis which they stress is sensitive to subject meaning-making, socialprocesses and the interpretation of these in the construction of personal narrativesaround breaches between individuals and their social contexts. This then becomes thesixth interpretive perspective that we have incorporated into our model of NOI.

The final element of the model is the concept of transparency, but we will leave adiscussion of this to the final section of the chapter. What follows can only be anoutline of NOI in action, and it should be noted that a close reading of Herman andVervaeck (2001), Lieblich et al. (1998) and Emerson and Frosh (2004) is consideredindispensable.

To illustrate NOI in action we will, within the space available, discuss one example,Hanka's story (see Box 9.1), drawing upon each interpretive perspective in turn. Theextract is taken from a longer interview, which was part of a large scale project intowomen's experience of surviving breast cancer in the Czech Republic (Chrz, #ermkand Placha, 2006). The basic research question for the study was How are womenable to cope with breast cancer? The original interview was tape-recorded, transcribed




first into Czech, and then translated carefully into English for our present purposes.A working transcript was first produced by breaking the raw interview material downinto a sequence of segments, i.e. episodes/events/moments or movements/asides/emphasis. These are then numbered consecutively, and include all utterances of boththe interviewer and interviewee. It should be noted that no tidying-up of the narrative isemployed (something that is in complete contrast to many other approaches to narrativeanalysis that recommend tidying-up the narrative to leave only the core narrative tobe analysed). Of course, this working transcript is itself an interpretive process, andthis must not be overlooked in subsequent analytical work. Nevertheless, it is fairlystraightforward and transparent, and greatly facilitates all further analysis. Our focushere is only upon segments 12 to 26 in Hanka's story.

(i) Sjuzet-fabulaThe first interpretive perspective involves dividing the working transcript into sjuzet andfabula (i.e. by convention we underline the sjuzet in the working transcript). We areconcerned here with an issue that is fairly well known (but is not that well understood!).The point is that stories are made up of two inter-related and inter-penetrating parts:i.e. what is being re-told (the fabula), and how it is being re-told (the sjuzet). It is ourview that from a psychological perspective both of these need to be analysed veryclosely, but this is often overlooked in practice. The analysis hangs upon Herman andVervaeck's (2001: 46) crucial distinction between bounded and unbounded motifs innarrative data. The fabula consists of bounded motifs that are fixed by the story beingre-told, while the sjuzet consists of unbounded motifs, defined as not essential to thestory but determining how the story is being re-told. In practice, this interpretive analysisinvolves first identifying the

BOX 9.1 Narrative Text Example: Extractfrom Hanka's story(Working transcript of part of a longer interview, broken down into segments/episodes,with sjuzet underlined)




2. Tell me, please, about your experience with breast cancer.4. The tumour was terribly huge, but the doctor I came to just told me the

diagnosis and that it seemed I would have to have an operation done andthat I should be prepared for surgery, since this one was very big, and that hewould offer me a reducing chemotherapy.

6. And I just when he uttered the word chemotherapy, that it was so terrifyingfor me, and he was quite himself and he probably estimated me quite well,since he started quite rashly with me: [he said] Why are you going crazy,what? Chemotherapy? I went through it myself four years ago and I amhere. And it will be okay, just your hair will fall out. I say: The hair isn't at allimportant to me.

8. I was terrified by this, since in fact a year before the illness my friend died oflung cancer. She attended chemotherapy as well as the radiation and so itwas, cancer equals death. I didn't know anybody who has survived.

10. Well, so it was quite horrible, but somehow as I entered the treatment, Iwas lucky with people who were there, who were still in the process of theillness. So I suddenly saw, that they talk about it as about a flu [laughter],somehow, well. And I had the advantage, that I had people around me, whowanted to talk about it again and again, and me as well.

12. So I really talked out of it well, everything was going on successfully [sigh],and then also the chemotherapies were quite okay. It is true, that then withthe operation, after the four chemotherapies it was little bit more difficult, myhealth had got much worse, because the operation got me really down, thatthe strength there was not enough of it, really.

14. But on the other hand I just had a friend, who has a huge family andthey set off for the whole summer, so when I was at the end with all thosechemos, they took me for a vacation to their private cottage, with theirgranddaughters, I don't know with all the people [laughter]. I was with themprobably two weeks and was going without the wig, and then

16. however then another blow came [laughter], when I was to go for theradiation, so then somehow an oncologist told me in the hall, in a terribleway, that I have somehow the metastases in my lungs, and that I should notkeep much hope, well [bitter laughter].

18. She told you that in this manner?20. In the hall, well, it really made me mad, really horribly, since it was really

crazy for me.




22. Fortunately my oncologist, to whom she sent me later, that they had doneagain two other CTs, everything was getting confirmed, that I really havesome huge tumour in the lungs and that these are probably metastases,since it was on the other side than the breast and everything.

24. So I just said goodbye to life [sigh, crying], really, I just had it hard,26. and he promised me, that we would try to find somebody, if he could operate

on me. Because that the results from the blood, that it doesn't reallylook like, but that there really is something in the lungs, so they would trysomebody and that I should not push him forward, since it would take twoor three weeks.

28. Well, so that was the period when I just [huh] came to the conclusionsomehow, that nothing worse can happen to me, than that I could die, well.And that so many of my dearest ones had died, that-just, that I might meetthem somewhere, or whatever. So this was somehow quite good, that aperson can really reach the bottom and then it was only rising,

30. since finally I got to the operation, the doctor was so gorgeous [laughter],he just told me, that he described everything what he will do to me, thatit would not be so terrible, that the lung operation was really horrible, that[laughter] he even prepared me for the fact, that it would hurt.

32. But I was telling him over and over, that I really would stand anything, thatI did not feel like dying since I felt like nothing was wrong with me. That Iwas somehow breathing okay and so and that it makes no sense to me thatpeople who had sick lungs, that they could not talk or so [laughter].

sjuzet, i.e. single words, phrases and sometimes entire segments that are concernedwith emphasis, reflection, asides, interruptions, remarks, and various expressionsrepresenting the sequence/causality/significance of events being related in the story.The point is that stories are not simply related as events, but are re-told in a particularway, in a particular sequence, from a particular point of view. The participant (asnarrator) positions themselves with respect to these events, and this positioning iscoded not simply in the selection of the story (i.e. content), but in the sjuzet, in theparticular way in which it is being re-told.

So, the first stage of analysis is to underline these unbounded motifs. This always takesseveral readings, ending up with something like the text in Box 9.1. The result is a




transcript in which the sjuzet seems to bracket the fabula. Indeed, a good test of thisphase of analysis is to read through the non-underlined text, ignoring the sjuzet entirely.The fabula will then read as a simple coherent story, albeit rather flat in presentation.It is worth remembering that the key feature of narrative text is the tension betweensjuzet and fabula. Therefore, we do not recommend simply analysing these separately,but recommend using this basic division to help create the appropriate focus for furtheranalysis.

It can be seen from Hanka's story that the sjuzet consists mostly of remarks andemphasis with words like: so, well, since, because, that, just, really, somehow,fortunately, with phrases starting with words like: but, however, and with extralinguisticexpressions: sighs, huh's, laughter, crying, etc. It should also be clear that two crucialsegments in the telling of the story (Segs 14 and 24), consist of reflections expressedmostly as sjuzet. This type of analysis is not without its difficulties, with some wordsand phrases seeming to fall into both sjuzet and fabula, but the overall result is usuallyquite convincing, and is transparent. It must be noted that this separation of sjuzetfrom fabula, is just a first step in separating form and content, and by no meansexhausts this distinction. For example, part of the form of a narrative is embedded in thecontent, i.e. in the sequencing of events as a plot structure, and in the complexity andcoherence employed. Nevertheless, this type of analysis is a necessary first step beforereintegration at a later stage of the analysis. The obvious techniques that can be usedto analyse the fabula are content and genre analysis, see (ii) and (iv) below. But theanalysis of sjuzet is possibly much more challenging. In Hanka's story, there is a strongimpression that Hanka's identity is crucially being positioned as a victim and survivor ofcancer in the unbounded features of the narrative space that she creates.

The point is that in narrative analysis we must focus on both the what and the how ofthe re-telling, upon both the story that is being told as well as the way in which it is beingretold. This does confront us with some of the more subtle points involved in narrativedata analysis, and serves to make the point that this area is in need of considerable,radical development. See (v) and (vi) below for two perspectives that begin to tacklethis.




(ii) The holistic-content perspectiveWe now turn to the first of the modes of narrative analysis outlined by Lieblich et al.(1998) which aims to create a holistic-content picture of Hanka's story, and involvesexploring and establishing links and associations within the entire story. The emphasishere is upon the fabula, although not at the expense of the sjuzet. Lieblich et al. offertwo versions of this approach, firstly by identifying a broad perspective of the generaltheme as in a case study, and secondly, by exploring how a specific segment of thetext can shed light on the story as a whole. The approach we will take to Hanka's storyis a variation on the second of these, identifying the turning points in her story, andformulating a core narrative.

The procedure for a holistic reading of the text set out by Lieblich et al. (1998: 623) isas follows:

2. read the material without any special attention until a pattern emerges;4. put the first impression from this kind of reading into a written form, note

contradictory episodes, unusual parts of the story, or any feature that isdisharmonic towards a coherent story, etc.;

6. choose a special focus of content or themes in the story as a whole, i.e.delineate a space for themes which occur in the text in a repetitive way that ismeaningful within the whole story;

8. mark the various themes, read them separately and repeatedly; and10. keep track of the result in several ways, e.g. themes appearing for the first

time, crossover between themes, context, the main theme, marginal themes,contradictory contents, etc.

In order to do justice to this type of analysis it is necessary to place this within thecontext of the full interview. Having been divorced, Hanka (age 51) feels lonely in ahuge apartment and in her life. Her children have grown up and left home. Hanka triesto be a person who is needed, she starts her own business and this adds to her stresslevels. The diagnosis of breast cancer brings about separation from her partner andrepresents the first turning point in the story.




Hanka fears death because, for her, chemotherapy is synonymous with a hopelessfight. The doctor confronts her with his own experience, and calms her down. Crisisdeepens by the discovery of the carcinoma in her lungs. Operation and treatmentweaken her stamina, she finds support in a self-help group, a friend, and the friend'sfamily. She receives inconsiderate information about the metastasis. She resolves tofight the cancer thanks to the empathic reaction of her oncologist. This is the secondturning point which enables Hanka to bounce back towards an active life. Mortality anddeath are accepted, balanced against the hope of encountering dead loved ones. Notonly in illness, but even in death there is acceptance of an opening of a new space ininterpersonal relationships. Cancer is understood as reconciliation with one's fate.

While several major themes can be found in Hanka's story (see the discussion ofCategorical-Content analysis below), the approach here seeks to identify the corenarrative, i.e. a theme that is vivid, permeating the entire text, and is meaningful. Whatemerge in Hanka's story are the notions of hardiness, stamina, of desire for life, bestsummed up in the core theme of finding inner life-strength in the face of death. Thismain theme is especially reflected in segments 14/15 and segments 24/25/26.

(iii) The holistic-form perspectiveThe focus of this perspective is on the form of the story rather than on its content. Withthe focus here on the fabula (i.e. on the plot rather than the fine detail of the sjuzet),consideration is given to the narrative typology, to narrative progression, and narrativecohesion

(Lieblich et al., 1998: 88).A classic typology of narrative is romance, comedy, tragedy and satire, i.e. narrativestructures affirming the social order, breaking/restoring the social order, loss of thesocial order, and cynical challenge to social order, respectively. Hanka's story isbasically a romance (note that romance is used here in its technical sense).Gergen and Gergen (1988) argue that every story is characterized by its plot. Storiescan progress towards the present moment in the teller's life, or can diverge from it. Plot




analysis in its simplest form identifies three basic life-course patterns progression,regression and steady, which in turn can be combined into more complex plots (#ermk,2004).In literary terms, a cohesive story is a well-constructed story in terms of continuity,coherence and universality, and this can be used also with respect to life story.Nevertheless, we need to try to avoid evaluation, and instead focus upon how the storyas a whole works in creating its meaning. Of course, both sjuzet and fabula each havetheir role in this.

The configuration of Hanka's experience with cancer can be characterized in asimplified way. The overall progress of Hanka's story is U-shaped. The story descendsto the bottom, from which the happier turn upward starts, with movement fromloneliness and separation towards integration into the community. The happy resolutionis emphasized repeatedly in the narration. The confrontation with the proximity of death(Seg. 24 that nothing worse can happen to me, than that I could die) is the keymoment of this narrative configuration (Chrz et al., 2006).The U-shape is the striking configuration of Hanka's story, and this finding is in accordwith Frye (1957) who proposes that the basic structuring principles of the narrativeimagination is formed mainly by structures of desire. This U-shape demonstrates thisspecific phase of Hanka's life (the fight with cancer, and turning point in the course ofillness), representing the underlying dynamic of the story as a whole.

(iv) The categorical-content perspectiveThis approach to narrative analysis involves breaking the text down into relatively self-contained areas of content, and submitting each to thematic analysis. This is basicallyequivalent to content analysis (see Riessman, 1993). Lieblich et al. (1998: 11214)outline four stages involved in this approach:

2. formulation of a research question which enables the selection of a subtextthat becomes the focus of analysis;




4. definition of the subcategories/themes running through the text, thesemight either emerge from the text in a grounded-theory manner, or may bepredefined by theory;

6. the units of analysis, i.e. utterances, phrases, episodes can then be assignedto these categories; and

8. conclusions can then be drawn from the results.

Applying this to Hanka's narrative, the process involves concentrating onregularities in the text, and identifying meaning-bearing utterances pertinentto the original research question. Units of analysis are then assigned to thesesubcategories. A summary of this analysis is presented in Box 9.2.

In the research from which Hanka's narrative has been taken (Chrz et al.,2006), a major theme that was identified was the category, agency, to whichall of the subcategories contribute. In Hanka's case, two further major themeswere identified, these are spheres of influence (within which subcategories 1,3,

10. can be placed), and responsibility (within which subcategories 2, 4, 6, 7 canbe placed).

BOX 9.2 Hanka: Categorical-ContentAnalysisSubcategory (1): fear of death[Seg. 13] Unit of analysis: when he uttered the word chemotherapy, that it was soterrifying forme.

Subcategory (2): closeness to people with a similar story[Seg. 15] Unit of analysis: 7 was lucky with people who were there, who were still in theprocess of the illness.

Subcategory(3): loss of physical strength




[Seg. 16] Unit of analysis: the operation got me really down, that the strength therewas not enough of it, really. Subcategory (4): social support[Seg. 17] Unit of analysis: I just had a friend, who has a huge family and they set off forthe whole summer, so when I was at the end with all those chemos, they took me for avacation to their private cottage.

Subcategory (5): second blow of fate[Seg. 18] Unit of analysis: however then another blow came (laughter) that I havesomehow the metastases in my lungs.

Subcategory (6):acceptance of the illness[Seg. 24] Unit of analysis: that nothing worse can happen to me, than that I could die,well.

Subcategory (7): finding inner life strength[Seg. 26] Unit of analysis: I really would stand anything, that I did not feel like dyingsince I felt like nothing was wrong with me.

Hanka's agency is expressed in her storytelling by the way in which she tries tomake sense of what has happened to her. Her story represents the subtle aspects ofcontrol vs. contingency involved in this sense-making process. In her story, fortunatecircumstances and a change of her attitude (the turning point) bring the story to thehappy ending, which can be conceived as Hanka's coping strategy.

These themes fit well with Frank's (1995) proposal that a person's reaction to illnesscan fall into three basic configurations: restitution, chaos and quest narrative. Accordingto Frank, the chaos narrative and quest narrative are two possible ways of picturingcontingency in human life. In the chaos narrative the basic contingency involvesthe negation of any expectations and rules. It is not welcomed and is perceived assomething undesired. By contrast the quest narrative involves facing up to suffering,acceptance of the illness, and searching for the way to make use out of it. Hanka'sstory can be seen as a quest narrative; she opens herself to the crisis and accepts the




unpredictability and absence of control, including the ultimate contingency of humanmortality (Seg. 24 that nothing worse can happen to me, than that I could die), acontingency that prefigures the happy moment leading to the happy ending in herstory.

(v) The categorical-form perspectiveThis fourth approach outlined by Lieblich et al. (1998) focuses upon the formal aspectsof the narrative, specifically including the sjuzet. This begins by choosing a category orsubtext for analysis, and then carefully exploring the linguistic features and plot devicesthat offer emphasis and style in retelling the story. Such features might include: adverbs(e.g. suddenly), mental verbs (e.g. I thought), denotations of time and place, past/present/future forms of verbs, passive and active verbs, intensifiers (e.g. really, very),disruptions of chronological and causal progression, repetitions, etc. (see Lieblich et al.,1998: 156).We will focus upon just two of the features of Hanka's story-telling: her use of directspeech and the extra-linguistic components. These both serve to strengthen theemotional impact of the events recounted, giving immediacy and authenticity to the re-telling.

The use of direct speech occurs in Seg. 13, where the physician's words have theimpact of promoting a change in Hanka's agency, reflected in her directly reportedresponse. She draws up her inner strength , leading to gradual acceptance of herillness, and accepting responsibility for the active fight with it. It should be noted that inthe working transcript (Box 9.1) the start of this direct speech is marked by the imputednotation [he said], used merely as a cue for this type of analysis.While a more thorough analysis would be appropriate, briefly, extra-linguisticcomponents, such as laughter, a sigh, or crying, indicate features in the telling whichcould refer to difficult, still un-integrated, experience:

Seg. 22 So I just said goodbye to life [sigh, crying], really, I just had it hard,




or may reflect an attempt to cope with a difficult experience, or realization:

Seg. 26 That I was somehow breathing okay and so that it makes no sense to methat people who had sick lungs, that they could talk or so [laughter].

(vi) Critical narrative analysisEach of the five previous types of analysis brings a subtly different perspective tounderstanding narrative research, and it should also be evident that there are manyinterpretive overlaps as well. This should not be seen as a problem, but rather as astrength in our approach. And yet, there is still something missing from this framework.This could be characterized as the functionality of Hanka's story. What sort of accountof her life is Hanka offering? How does Hanka position herself with respect to herillness, and the series of events that unfold?

To this end, we include a sixth perspective, best exemplified in the work of Emersonand Frosh (2004) (see Chapter 7). They call their approach critical narrative analysis,which they characterize as psychosocial, embracing: the critical gains of discourseanalysis___but combining it with a focus on the active constructing processes throughwhich individual subjects attempt to account for their lives (Emerson and Frosh, 2004:7).The approach involves a microanalysis of both sjuzet and fabula (but with considerableemphasis on the sjuzet), and is probably best used only after the previous interpretiveperspectives have been used. Using this approach, we find that three critical themes inHanka's story seem to stand out. Hanka positions herself with respect to:

2. experience of the things that are happening to me, e.g. Seg. 18 anotherblow,, Seg. 24 that nothing worse can happen to me, than that I could die;

4. resources I can draw upon medical intervention, people around me, familyof a friend, insight and reflection, my own inner strength, e.g. Seg. 12 he would offer me a reducing chemotherapy, Seg. 15 And I had theadvantage, that I had people around me, Seg. 17 I don't know with all thepeople, Seg. 26 I really would stand anything;




6. my relations with medical staff, e.g. Seg. 13 he probably estimated mequite well, Seg. 13-he started quite rashly with me, Seg. 18 an oncologisttold me in the hall, Seg. 21 fortunately my oncologist, Seg. 25 doctorwas so gorgeous.

Invited to tell her story, Hanka describes vividly the ups and downs (or, more accurately,the downs and ups) of her experience of illness. She positions herself with respectto her own body and the difficult procedures she must endure. But ultimately, andremarkably, she positions herself as in control of her own fate, whatever happens.

She positively positions herself with respect to the support and resources she is offered,which not only includes the medical attention she receives, but being especially luckywith people who want to talk and talk and who give her space to talk as well, and withher friends and their families who can accept her without a wig. She positions herselfpositively towards the emerging inner strength that she is discovering.

She positions herself ambivalently towards the medical staff who treat her, who bringher good and bad news, but who also can be rash and harsh, supportive and attentive,unkind and unthoughtful, who can make and keep their promises, and who can lookgorgeous while listening to her telling something over and over again.

The agency and responsibility that Hanka achieves in her fight with cancer, the way shefinds inner strength in the face of death, are acted out and made sense of through therespective identity positions that she adopts in her story.

CRITICAL ISSUES FOR NOIJust three critical issues will be discussed here. There is the need, firstly, to do justice tothe full range of narrative phenomena that might be studied; secondly, to acknowledgethe complexities and challenges of interpretive analysis; and thirdly, to achievetransparency in the methods used.

A major issue for NOI is in attempting to do justice to the full breadth of narrativephenomena. The types of narrative available to study are disturbingly wide: oral vs.




written, fictional vs. historical/personal accounts, life-story vs. isolated events, craftedvs. spontaneous, public vs. private, mediated vs. intersubjective, etc. Narrativescan arise within the context of interview, conversation, family, organization, clinicalencounter, and always within the context of the signifying practices of a wider culture.Moreover, for each type of narrative and each context, the range of possible researchquestions will rise exponentially. In these respects, NOI sets out a framework withinwhich to deal with this wide diversity of data, but there are very many details still to fleshout.

There are also critical issues concerned with the collection and analysis of narrativedata. The narrative research interview has variously been described as involvingthe joint construction of meaning (Mishler, 1986a), or a shared participation in amatrix of signification (Josselson and Lieblich, 2001). A reasonable claim is that datafrom a narrative interview has obvious face validity, but there may be concerns withestablishing its authenticity. NOI is deeply rooted within the hermeneutic tradition, andjust as an interview involves the joint construction of meaning, so the same applies tothe interpretative process that is involved in data analysis. Whatever interpretations theresearch findings offer, they necessarily must be a joint product of both the participant,as data supplier, and the researcher, as data analyser. This is inescapable, and is asimple fact of life for any qualitative researcher. There is a serious obstacle here formany researchers brought up in the positivist tradition, an obstacle that for many willbe insurmountable. However, it is worth noting that this matter is no different to oureveryday meaning-making, e.g. interpreting each others behaviour. So, if we do get byin our everyday encounters, then why cannot we find suitable criteria for getting by inour research? This is not an attempt to trivialize the issue. In fact, we cannot dismissthis problem, nor are we in a position to set out these criteria once and for all. Butwe do need to take this problem very seriously. Indeed, it is our belief that with somepatience, and with a rigorous commitment to staying close to the data, a confidence inour procedures will emerge.

Finally, we would like to stress the critical importance of the notion of transparency.This is the need to be clear and open about the methods used, and the assumptionsbeing made which we argue should be recognized as the basic requirement of allqualitative research. Our point is that transparency is the overriding concern in layingthe groundwork for the critical evaluation needed in writing up research. Methods




of inquiry, data collection and analysis, if they are to be clear enough for others toreplicate, must be transparent. Note that the emphasis here is on the procedures beingreplicable, and not the findings as such this is quite intentional and is an importantdifference between qualitative and quantitative inquiry. The rigour of NOI relies onestablishing transparency. This means that not only must we be clear to others aboutwhat we have done and what we have found, but we must also be clear to ourselves, atevery step, and at every stage, about what it is that we are doing. The critical issue forNOI is to make its procedures transparent.

REFERENCES

Documents

Willig & Stainton-Rogers. Narrative Psychology.pdf