Gorgons, cars and the frightful fiend: Representations of fear in social work and counselling

Two main themes can be traced throughout this paper. One concerns the way in which material can emerge from research data and come to shape a study in a way that was not anticipated at the outset. The other is that experiences of distress and fear can be considered and understood only indirectly and this process is aided by encouraging participants' free-associations to material rather than by asking direct questions. The paper begins with an explanation of how interest in researching the impact of fear on social workers and counsellors emerged from research into social workers' experiences of distress. A surprising finding of the research into fear was the number of times cars and driving featured in participants' responses. These mentions seemed a way of drawing attention to deeper resonances and meanings of integral significance. Substantive quotations from data are provided and analysed to illustrate ways in which cars might have been used to express fears of the fracturing of basic trust, the violation of the secure base and the uncanny. The paper concludes with the contention that an approach allowing the importance of participants' free associations to material is likely to be helpful when researching sensitive subjects.