Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis for the study of lesbian couples' experiences of parenthood

Hanna Van Parys

Faculty of Psycholgy and Educational Sciences, Ghent University

Dialogical Practices Conference, Leuven 2013

hanna.vanparys@ugent.be

CONTENT

Qualitative research in psychology

Studying couple experiences: individual versus couple data

Analysing joint interviews

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) with couples

Implementation of IPA with couples

Questions and feedback

Research

Start 2008:

PhD: Exploring parentification: Children’s experiences of growing up with a depressed parent (University of Leuven)

Supervisor: Peter Rober

Co-supervisor: Jonathan A. Smith

Now…

Research project about social and genetic parenthood (Ghent University)

Clinical practice

Trained as family therapist at Context, Center for marital, family and sextherapy, University Hospital Leuven

Family therapist at the Ghent University Hospital

Current research project

85 couple interviews

Parents and Children - Retrospective

Prospective parents

Own gametes Donor gametes

Lesbian Heterosexual Transsexual Hetero

Hetero and lesbian

HeteroOwn gametes IVF/ICSI/KIE

Oocyte donation Sperm donation

Wissel Known*

Interview parents 10 10 10 10 10 5 10 10 10

Interview children 10 10 10 10 5 5 - - -

[1]

Qualitative research in psychology

Content analysis

Thematic analysis

Narrative analysis

Conversation analysis

Discourse analysis

Microanalysis

Grounded theory analysis

Interpretative phenomenological analysis

Qualitative research in psychology

Qualitative research methods are expanding

Growing number of ‘modificications’ of established methods

Search for specific qualitative methods for the analysis of couples’ experiences

Studying couples: individual versus couple data

Eisikovits & Koren, 2012

Mode of data collection Examples

Separate interviews Reilly et al. (2010), Wane et al. (2009), Dancyger et al. (2010), Eisikovits & Koren (2012)

Separate interviews performed simultaneously by different interviewers

Joint interviews Morris (2001), Walker & Dickson (2004)

Both separate and joint interviews with same participants

Separate interviews with some participants and joint interviews with others

Analysing joint interviews

Joint interviews = common method for data collection

However, couple data often treated as individual dataE.g. Glover et al. (2009), Hargreaves (2006)

Some other examples show how a closer look at couple dynamics in joint interviews is worthwile:- Walker & Dickson (2004)- Morris (2001)- …

Analysing joint interviews

Walker & Dickson (2004): experience of coping with minor health problems in couples

Data-analysis: grounded theory analysis

Analysis of couple narratives is organised in five ‘couple types’(sympathetic couple, independent couple, mixed couple, nonreciprocal couple, rejecting couple)

Quotes illustrate couple dynamics such as negotiating of care

Research question congruent with data collection

Analysing joint interviews

Morris (2001): experiences of cancer patients and their carers

Data analysis: dialogic discourse analysis

Focus on co-construction, turntaking, power dynamics, etc.

Focus of analysis is on relationship between patient and carer

Analysing joint interviews

These studies can be used as examples for our own research project on lesbian couples' experiences of parenthood after medically assisted reproduction

Aim of this study is to get a closer understanding of both shared and unshared experiences of parenthood.

However: clear methodological guidelines are missing

Analysing joint interviews

Aim: to build a methodological framework connecting both phenomenological qualitative analysis and the analysis unit of couples and families

Starting point: interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009

Focus on lived experience

Idiographic commitment

Established method for research about family relationships

How to modify IPA to the analysis of couple interviews?

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009)

Case by case analysis:1. Read the transcript and make descriptive/linguistic/conceptual notes (paper and pencil)

2. Do a first coding (paper and pencil)

3. Transfer the first coding into a Word document

4. Cluster the themes into higher order themes

5. Make a table of themes holding information about key phrases and locations in the transcript

6. Write an accompanying short narrative about the case

Case by case analysis followed by comparison across cases

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples

Additional focus on:

- shared experience

- interactional processes

- reported differences between partners

Exploring other research methods compatible to IPA:

- Performative analysis

- Microanalysis

- Conversation analysis

…

Performative analysisRiessman (2008)

“dialogic/performance analysis … interrogates how talk among speakers is interactively (dialogically) produced and performed as narrative” (Riessman, 2008 p. 105)

- Focus on the manner of speaking together, the process of co-construction of the narrative

- Theoretical base: symbolic interactionism

- Utterences situated in I-thou relationship, this I-thou relationship is manifest in couple interviews

MicroanalysisBavelas et al. (2000, 2010)

Method applied to research in family therapy

Microanalysis of communication = “the detailed and reliable examination of observable communication sequences as they proceed, moment by moment, in the dialogue” (Bavelas et al., 2010, p. 18).

Focus on collaborative, reciprocal dialogue and moment-by-moment ‘micro’ influence

MicroanalysisBavelas et al. (2000, 2010)

Four questions guiding microanalysis:

- what actually happened?

- what preceded it?

- what followed it?

- how did it function?

Conversation analysis

Detailed analysis of conversation in context.

Importance of high level of detail in the transcripts

Focus on “seen but unnoticed dialogical practices”

Question: how do dialogical features contribute to theconstruction of “realities”?

Conducted in ‘natural dialogues’, e.g. telephone conversation

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples

How can the experiential starting point of IPA and a dialogic/performative focus be integrated?

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples: implementation

Six steps of IPA

Two additional phases:- Four instead of three types of ‘notes’: process/couple notes

including interpretation of interaction between partners (e.g. elaborating on each others story, nuancing, illustrating) and the ways partners take each other into account when talking (e.g. biological mother validating parental role of parnter)

- Colour coding of these ‘co-constructions’ of partners in MAXQDA (software for qualitative data-analysis)

experiential analysis integrating dialogic aspects

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples: implementation

Research question: how do lesbian parents experience family communication about the donor conception?

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples: implementation

Screenshot of Word document

Screenshot of MAXqda

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples: implementation

Excerpt from interview 1: 00:17:00

Hanna: How is it for you to talk about it (the donor conception) when Tim doesn’t ask any questions about it?

Sara: look, then we don’t talk about it huh. They just told us: the only thing you have to make sure is not to say anything more than what your children are asking for. So the moment he has a question, we’ll answer it. So the moment there is a question, we’ll answer him.

Hanna: yes yes

Sara: but just give the information they (children) are asking for.

Lisa: not elaborating on it

Sara: “do I have a dad?”, we’ll answer: “no you don’t have a dad”. We won’ t say: “do you know how come” or “no you don’t have a dad because…”

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples: implementation

(exerpt continued)

Sara: If they want to know they will ask.

Lisa: And then we will, then we will answer them of course.

Sara: With Tim that’s very easy: the question has never been raised (laughs)

Lisa: but maybe it’ll come in the future (laughs)

Sara: Lien sometimes asks “don’t I have a dad?” “no you don’t have a dad”. “who’s belly did I grow in?”, she already asked. Yes, things like that.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples: implementation

Excercise: can you make some process/couple notes for this experpt?

-descriptive notes

-linguistic notes

-conceptual notes

-couple/process notes

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with couples: implementation

Overview of (preliminary) themes for interview 1:Only answering when child asks questions

Talking about donor conception spontaneously

Meaning of parents’ ‘names’

Fearful expectations towards the future

Worried about the child not talking to peers

Couple communication

Communication with wider social context

Questions and feedback

Conclusion

- Growing number of qualitative studies focusing on couple experiences

- Difficulty to find analysis method that preserves the richness of couple data and allows for systematic analysis of co-constructed meanings

- Need to specify data-analysis and to apply it consequently - Recent developments in experiential qualitative research

with couples can also inspire research about therapeutic processes

The goal?

Adding to the development

of qualitative research in

the field of couple and

family studies

Doing meaningful

qualitative research

using these methods

References

• Bavelas, J. B., Healing, S., Tomori, C., & Gerwing, J. (2010). Microanalysis workshop manual (unpublished manuscript). University of Victoria, Victoria BC, Canada.

• Bavelas, J. B., McGee, D., Philips, B., & Routledge, R. (2000). Microanalysis of communication in psychotherapy. Human Systems: The Journal of Systemic Consultations & Management, 11(1), 3-22.

• Dancyger, C., Smith, J.A., Jacobs, C., Wallace, M., Michie, S. (2010), Comparing family members’ motivations and attitudes towards genetic testing for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer: a qualitative analysis. European Journal of Human Genetics, 18, 1289-1295,

• Eiskovits, Z., & Koren, C. (2012). Approaches to and outcomes of dyadic interview analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 1642-1655.

• Glover, L., McLellan, A., & Weaver, S. M. (2009). What does having a fertility problem mean to couples? Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 27(4), 401-418,

• Hargreaves, K. (2006). Constructing families and kinship through donor insemination. Sociology of Health & Illness, 28(3), 261-283,

References

• Morris, S. M., (2001). Joint and individual interviewing in the context of cancer. Qualitative Health Research, 11(4), 553-567,

• Reilly, D., Huws, J., Hastings, R., & Vaughan, F. (2010). Life and death of a child with down syndrome and a congenital heart condition: experiences of six couples. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 48(6), 403-416,

• Riessman, C. K. (2008), Narrative methods for the human sciences. London: Sage.• Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis : theory,

method and research. London : Sage.• Walker, K. L. & Dickson, F. C. (2004). An exploration of illness-related narratives in marriage: The

identification of illness-identy sripts. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 21 (4), 527-544,• Wane, J., Larkin, M., Earl-Gray, M., & Smith, H. (2009). Understanding the impact of an Assertive

Outreach Team on couples caring for adult children with psychosis. Journal of Family Therapy, 31, 284-309,

THANK YOU

hanna.vanparys@ugent.be