A methodology of loving kindness: how interpersonal neurobiology, compassion and transference can inform researcher–participant encounters and storytelling

Abstract

This article concerns some central aspects of methodology in qualitative research: the participants’ and investigators’ storytelling, and the main instruments in many interview-based qualitative studies, the researchers themselves. We discuss several ethical and interpersonal aspects of qualitative research encounters between investigators and their interviewee participants. Interviewing research participants is a fundamentally exploitative process, and we make suggestions for how we can temper that exploitation by giving something of value back to our participants and to make sure the well-being of the participant is not compromised by our actions. Many research topics in qualitative studies concern experiences of stress, distress and trauma, and interviewees re-telling their stories may become retraumatised. Such retraumatisation constitutes abuse on the part of the researcher. To counter potential abuse and exploitation, we discuss how researchers, as the central instruments in interview-based investigations, can use knowledge of interpersonal neurobiology, psychodynamic theory and mindful practice to enable them to hold their participants (and their participants’ stories) in loving care and maybe even help in healing processes.

Keywords:

• ethical research
• interviewing
• mindful researcher
• presence
• storying

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

A substantial portion of this article was presented as an Invited Keynote Speech by the first author at the 4th International Conference on Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, Loughborough, England, 1–3 September 2014. Only an abstract was published in the conference proceedings. Brief biographical notes for each author are at the end of the article.