Gliding across the liminal space between counsellor and counselling researcher: Using collective biography practices in the teaching of counselling research methodologies

Abstract

Aims: Drawing on their engagement in a specific collective biography research project, the co-authors aim to demonstrate how the weaving together of creative story-telling and the theory underlining collective biography practices resulted in an understanding of rhizomatic research methodologies from within the process. This paper aims to demonstrate one way in which research methodologies training can become more firmly embedded within counsellor training courses. Method: A collective of counselling students and a session tutor colleague used collective biography practices to research their memories of traversing the liminal space between ‘counsellor’ and ‘counselling researcher’. Alongside the resulting collective stories, a collaborative review of the research process examined our chosen ways of working within the project. Outcomes: Engaging in collective biography practices resulted in an experiential shift from ‘learning to do counselling research’ to ‘becoming counselling researchers’. Weaving together research processes and researcher reflexivity generated personal and professional learning. Ways in which these research methodologies complement core components of counselling training, within and beyond the teaching of research, were identified. Conclusions: Collective biography practices offer a way of introducing non-arboreal creative research methodologies into counsellor training. Careful consideration of potential challenges surrounding the introduction of these practices is required.

Keywords:

• Collective biography practices
• creative research methodologies
• rhizomatic research
• story-telling
• teaching counselling research

Acknowledgements

The co-authors would like to acknowledge the many valuable contributions made to this research by Donna Basavaraja, before her death in August 2009.

Notes

1. Rhizomatic research, in contrast to arboreal research, is nonlinear, non-hierarchical and decentred.

2. We describe ourselves as a ‘collective’ in order to portray our resistance to the traditionally prescribed ways in which a ‘group’ is described and supposedly functions (see, for example, Tuckman & Jensen, 1977). We embodied the multiple entry and exit points within our chosen ways of researching, by embracing a shifting membership, with Donna Basavaraja and Jennifer Heathcote-Osborne sharing our experiences along the way.

3. In recognition of cultural agency and linguistic diversity within the collective, the final poem is told in both English and Greek.

4. Although we are female researchers, working within a research methodology created by women, we do not argue that collective biography practices are exclusively ‘for women’ (see, for example, Pease, 2000; Speedy, 2005).