The researcher as instrument - how our capacity for empathy supports qualitative analysis of transcripts

ABSTRACT

In this article we draw on literature from philosophy, history, and psychology to argue that empathy supports qualitative analysis of transcripts in several ways. We discuss examples of these processes both with data that we have co-created with our participants and data where we have not interacted with participants during data collection. What we suggest is not a new approach to analysis. Rather, we argue that the deliberate use of empathy bears potential to strengthen analysis across various analytical approaches. We explore five examples of how to access and harness our capacity for empathy as a resource in qualitative analysis: 1) Make time and room for prolonged engagement with data; 2) Use details and context actively when developing your understanding; 3) Practice decentering by actively seeking the perspective of the participants; 4) Attend to your own visceral experiences and body sensations; and 5) Utilize your capacity for imagination and creativity.

KEYWORDS:

• Data analysis
• empathy
• qualitative analysis
• researcher-as-instrument
• transcripts

Introduction

In this theoretical article we will use empathy as a lens to articulate some of the more implicit processes involved in qualitative analysis and suggest ways to employ the capacity for empathy more deliberately during analysis. Our starting point was observations and reflections on how the practice of research sometimes may limit the repertoire of human capacities that trainees and researchers feel they can draw on – either by the conceptualization of the researcher role, or by a lack of awareness of these processes because they have received less attention in the literature (see also Finlay 2006, 2014; Watts 2014).

For example, sometimes we have observed that our students have done everything ‘right’, but that something still is missing in their work. They might have read and understood the methods they were using well, coded all relevant material, and followed the available descriptions of the phases and processes of the approach applied – but still something is not quite right. Often it is as if the meaning from the participant’s perspective has been missed in some way. Students may for example seem surprised by the emphasis a participant puts on something they themselves find trivial but fail to use this discrepancy to challenge their understanding and coding of the material. Or they may intuitively find an utterance interesting, and then fail to pursue the issue for further details and potential inconsistencies. What has been puzzling to us is that these are students that given a different setting (i.e., providing therapy) probably would have used their capacity for empathy actively to try to understand the perspective of the other. Somehow, within the context of research, the deliberate use of their capacity for empathy is not part of their repertoire. What we present, then, is not a new approach to analysis. Rather, we seek to highlight the significance of empathy to qualitative analysis and provide examples that can help us as researchers to notice and articulate some of the ways we can draw on our human capacity for empathy during qualitative analysis.

‘Empathy’ is a complex construct that has been and continues to be understood in several ways, as we detail below. Common to all definitions of empathy is attention to a perspective that differs from our own – an orientation toward the other’s perspective. However, definitions and understanding of empathy differ in several ways. Is the other’s perspective perceived as accessible to us directly or are we talking about a process of approximation? Is empathy restricted to people we encounter face-to-face or does it include people we only encounter indirectly? Is empathy primarily based in cognitive capacities or does it also draw on our embodied and emotional experiences? Can we understand people whose life situation differ substantially from our own or are we bound by our own experiential background and culture?

We will briefly come back to these different ways of understanding empathy below. But in this article, we understand ‘empathy’ to 1) be a human capacity that allows us to actively seek and approximate the perspective of the other – whether we encounter them directly or indirectly; 2) always be grounded in self-other differentiation and including an ability to decenter from our own position; 3) involve both cognitive and emotional/embodied components; 4) involve an open, non-judgmental attitude where we try to grasp the emotional significance of what is expressed for the other, not only its surface meaning; 5) be tentative in nature, acknowledging that we never have direct access to the perspective of the other and therefore could be wrong; 6) be a capacity that allows us to approximate positions that are very different from our own (Kohut 1971, 1977; Ratcliffe 2012; Rogers 1975; Stein and Stein 1917/1964; Watson 2002).

We are, of course, not alone in recognizing the relevance of empathy in qualitative research. As we shall see below, empathy, or Einfühlung, has a long and complex history and tradition as a source of knowledge. There is, therefore, a substantial literature on what empathy is, and how the experience of empathy differs from other, similar experiences, like emotional contagion or sympathy. Particularly within the phenomenological tradition, also contemporary researchers have articulated the importance of paying attention to empathy and our own emotional and embodied experiences during the research process (e.g. Finlay 2005, 2006, 2014; Wharne 2021). Empathy as a resource for data collection has also been articulated, for example in ‘empathic interviewing’ (Fontana and Frey 2005), or empathy as an observation strategy (Stiles 1993). The importance of empathy in the communication of findings has also been highlighted, such as conveying the emotional meaning of findings (Binder et al. 2016) or impacting the reader (Gair 2012; Stiles 1993). The use of empathy in analysis is, perhaps, less intuitive, and is scarcely described explicitly in the literature, with the notable exception of Ricoeur’s distinction between the hermeneutics of empathy and suspicion as two different paths to knowledge (Ricoeur 1976; Willig 2017).

There is, therefore, a need to build and expand on the existing literature to provide more detailed articulations of how we can draw on empathy as a resource in qualitative research (the doing of empathy), particularly during data analysis. This is where the current article will contribute to the field, with a focus upon the analysis of transcripts. To do this, we will draw on literature from philosophy, history, psychology, and music therapy, as well as our experiences as researchers, supervisors, reviewers, and editors. In addition to extensive experience relating to qualitative research we also have extensive experience with interpersonal work, as four of us are clinical psychologists and one is a music therapist.

The field of psychotherapy has a long tradition of articulating the doing and deliberate use of empathy (e.g. Kohut 1971, 1977; Rogers 1965, 1975; Watson 2002) and we argue that it will be helpful to draw on these insights in articulating more implicit processes in qualitative analysis. Although the activities, goals, and roles in research and therapy differ in substantial ways, we believe that our capacity for empathy employed in these two settings is the same. We therefore argue that it is relevant for qualitative researchers to tap into literature of a field that has focused extensively on how we can observe empathy at play in interaction and how we can work deliberately to strengthen and tap into our own capacity for empathy. In part 2 we will first briefly give an overview of historical uses of the term ‘empathy’ before we detail how empathy in human interaction is understood today, looking to literature from psychology, philosophy, and psychotherapy. In part 3 we will give examples of how we are supported by, and can draw on, our capacity for empathy during analysis of transcripts. In part 4 we will suggest ways to access and employ our capacity for empathy more deliberately, as a resource, during qualitative analysis. Finally, in part 5 we reflect upon some of the limitations of empathy as a resource for qualitative analysis.

We have chosen to use analysis of transcripts as our example of how the researchers’ capacity for empathy is at play and can be used deliberately as a resource for qualitative analysis. There are several reasons for this choice. Transcripts of interviews are commonly used as the basis for analysis in health sciences and the social sciences, but also, transcripts are linked to particular challenges for employing our capacity for empathy. This ties into the debate mentioned above regarding whether our capacity for empathy can be elicited by indirect encounters. Transcripts represent a textualization of human interaction, whether they are based on observations, videos, therapy sessions, or research interviews. In human interactions, communication is dense with nonverbal cues, and we rely on more than the lexical meaning to support our understanding. Transcripts are stripped of this additional emotional and contextual data, even though they can be cognitively represented in good quality verbatim transcriptions that are supplemented by memoing and field notes. A key task when analyzing transcripts is, therefore, to consider how texts reflect human interaction. The deliberate use of empathy in the analysis of transcripts might, therefore, be particularly important. The processes and perspectives we describe might be relevant also for qualitative research using sources of data other than transcripts, but that requires further examination that is beyond the scope of this article.

Histories and usages of the term empathy

Notions of Einfühlung and empathy in historical context

Empathy (or related terms) has had various appearances, disappearances, and reappearances in several different disciplines over centuries. A complete overview of its evolution is outside the scope of this article, but we will provide a short, historical outline to anchor and contextualize the discussion. While there are several traditions of thought that are relevant to the understanding empathy (Stueber 2019), we have chosen to focus on a brief outline of how the notion of Einfühlung entered the disciplines of hermeneutics and phenomenology, disciplines that have influenced qualitative research substantially. Because we argue that qualitative researchers can learn from notions and practices of empathy within psychotherapy, it is also worth noting that in modern psychology the term empathy was introduced as a translation of the German term Einfühlung (Titchener 1909).

When the notion of Einfühlung appeared in German scholarship in the 18th century, the argument was part of the relativist-absolutist debate between Herder and Kant. While Kant insisted on separation of the observer and the observed and on clear differentiations between sensations, emotions, and thoughts, Herder argued for a more holistic approach, based on the view that the ‘sensing human being feels his way into everything, feels everything from out of himself’ (Herder, 1778, as quoted in Edwards 2013, 272). To understand objects and phenomena properly, we need to use our capacity as human beings to feel our way into objects, Herder argued (thus the term Einfühlung).

Kant’s view ended up as the more successful in this dispute, and this strongly influenced the transformation of the notion of Einfühlung within 19th century academic discourses. The debates were no longer about the role of Einfühlung in science generally, but more specifically within the human sciences, in disciplines such as aesthetics, hermeneutics, and history. In the development of hermeneutics, prominent theorists such as Dilthey often distanced themselves from Herder’s term Einfühlung, although conceptual similarities were clear. Einfühlung gradually became an important notion in the human sciences of the 19th century, even to the degree that it was characterized as the unique method of the human sciences. Dilthey’s work became central in the development of the methodological dualism behind the assumption that explanations (of causality) are central to the study of nature while understanding (akin to Einfühlung) is the key to the study of human life (Stueber 2019).

Early in the 20th century phenomenologists like Husserl and Stein provided detailed investigations of the experiential aspects of empathy. Human interaction and our embodied experiences of these are seen as forming the foundation of empathy. These accounts emphasize how our perception of other embodied minds differ from our perception of things, and that we can perceive others’ intentionality through their embodied expressions (e.g., Ferran 2015; Jardine 2014; Svenaeus 2018).

Stein was among the first to articulate and underline the self-other differentiation as a hallmark of empathy (distinguishing it from merging with other’s experiences, or emotional contagion), and to detail how empathy can be understood as an intentional process with different steps and levels, involving both embodied/emotional and cognitive processes. In Stein’s understanding, the process of empathy therefore involves a movement, from perceiving the other as an object (e.g., observing facial expression) to becoming a subject (approximation of the other’s perspective with sensitivity to the other’s experiential context), before we again return to our own position of observing the other, but with an enriched understanding of the other (Jardine 2014; Ratcliffe 2012; Stein and Stein 1917/1964).

Empathy continued to be debated, and Gadamer (1960/1999 included debates on empathy in his reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of 19th century epistemologies of the human sciences. While Gadamer recognizes empathy as an element in a process of interpretation, he was clearly critical of any attempt to elevate empathy to a unique or sufficient method. Empathy cannot ever be the major source of knowledge, Gadamer argued, because we always need to take into consideration how culture, context, and our own pre-understanding affect our attempts to make sense of somebody or something.

The account we have given here is considerably simplified, of course, and does not describe adequately the subtleties of the many different considerations about the role of empathy in various academic disciplines and other contexts during these centuries. Our brief account should suffice, however, to illustrate how the notion of empathy has a complex and multifaceted conceptual history. The heterogeneity of empathy is by some authors described as a problem that should be overcome by more narrow conceptualizations (Coplan 2011), while others argue that the multitude of perspectives provides us with rich possibilities for interdisciplinary work (Lux and Weigel 2017). In our appraisal, such responses do not necessarily exclude each other completely.

The fact that the notion of empathy has been disputed indicates that it is fruitful to clarify one’s own use of the term. At the same time, it is helpful to acknowledge that what empathy means and how it relates to knowledge production, might vary over time and between contexts. Based on our reading of the literature, we argue that definitions and understanding of empathy differ with regards to 1) whether the other’s perspective is perceived as accessible to me more objectively and directly (e.g., Wilhelm Dilthey in the 19th century) versus an approximation of the other’s perspective that is always grounded in differentiation between my own and the perspective of the other (e.g., Edith Stein and Carl Rogers in the 20th century); 2) whether empathy is restricted to people we encounter directly, face-to-face (e.g., phenomenologists in the 20th century) or also could include people we only encounter indirectly (e.g., hermeneutics in the 19th and 20th century, or Wilhelm Dilthey’s position in relation to historical knowledge); and 3) whether empathy is primarily based in cognitive capacities (e.g., simulation theory and theory-theory of social cognition) or also draws on our embodied and emotional experiences (e.g., Stein and Rogers in the 20th century and interaction theories of social cognition). More recently, scholars have also debated whether we can understand people whose life situation differ substantially from our own (e.g., Matthew Ratcliffe (2012)’s ‘radical empathy’) or are more bound by our own experiential background and culture (e.g. Dos Santos 2022). In the following, we will outline our own understanding of the term empathy, with references to contemporary literature.

Current understanding of empathy in human interaction

Today, empathy is understood as a human capacity that facilitates all interpersonal communication and interaction. Even the most rudimentary understanding of others requires some degree of empathy, and others’ ability to be empathic helps us feel safe and understood, understand ourselves, and regulate our affects (Watson 2002). Empathy involves both emotional and cognitive components (Rankin et al. 2006), and our capacity for empathy is seen as developing as our cognitive and affective systems mature. Cognitive components of empathy include perspective taking, abstract reasoning, and cognitive flexibility, while the emotional components include the ability to recognize another person’s emotions, emotional responsiveness, and the ability to correctly identify one’s own emotional and cognitive state (Rankin et al. 2006). In addition, our body postures can influence each other, through more automatic processes that mimic the posture of the person we observe or talk to (also called motor empathy; Blair and Blair 2009).

To fully understand and empathize with another, it is necessary to apprehend the emotional significance of interactions and events (Watson 2002). Although we try to understand and approximate the perspective of the other, maintaining the self-other differentiation, or as-if-quality, is essential. This aspect differentiates empathy from identification, where we merge with the experiences of the other, and pseudo-empathy, where we do not move beyond self-oriented perspective taking. This points to the reflexive processes involved in empathy, and how self-awareness is required to avoid both identification and pseudo-empathy (Coplan 2011; More 1996; Rogers 1965).

The current lay and academic interest in empathy has been strengthened by neuroscientific research. Since the 1990s, the role of mirror neurons has been a topic of debate. In studies of monkeys, Gallese et al. (1996) found that specific neurons in the prefrontal lobes fire not only when monkeys perform an action but also when they observe the same action performed by others. Later experiments indicated that humans possess a mirror neuron system spread across various areas of the brain, and there is growing consensus that three major neuroanatomically based subprocesses are involved in empathy: An emotional simulation process, a perspective-taking process, and an emotion-regulation process (Elliott et al. 2011, 43). This highlights how our capacity for empathy comprises both automatic processes (e.g., emotion simulation) and more conscious processes (e.g., perspective-taking; Elliott et al. 2011; Leake 2019).

In summary, empathy can be seen as a basic way of relating to others that is not good or bad in itself. It is an inherent capacity containing both motor, emotional, and cognitive components that can be automatically activated in human interaction through facial expressions and body posture, or used more purposefully through perspective-taking, association, or imagination. It differs from sympathy in important ways, as empathy does not require us to agree with or normatively evaluate the experiences or perspectives of the person we seek to understand (Kohut 2020).

Importantly, although representing an inherent capacity, empathic understanding in human interaction can be augmented and harnessed to further understanding. It represents a highly complex process where empathic understanding involves integrating and synthesizing information from multiple sources to identify the idiosyncratic meaning of experience for different individuals. Consequently, empathy is fueled by curiosity and willingness to understand the other and requires openness and presence with the other (More 1996; Rogers 1965). Our empathic knowledge is always only an approximation of the other’s experience. We therefore need to maintain a tentative quality of our understanding and modify our initial empathic hypothesis through continuing interaction with the other, where we seek further observation, information, and conversation to check and deepen our understanding (More 1996; Rogers 1975; Watson 2002).

The role of empathy in qualitative analysis – using transcripts as an example

In the following we will give examples of how our capacity for empathy supports us during qualitative analysis of transcripts – whether we have interacted with participants during data collection or not. We will also briefly discuss how we can use our capacity for empathy when abstracting meaning patterns that are anchored in participants’ perspectives, and when we formulate and communicate our research findings.

What we present is the result of a prolonged iterative process where we have worked to articulate more implicit processes by synthesizing knowledge from a broad knowledge base. Examples of sources of knowledge we have drawn on in this process is literature from philosophy, history, psychology, and music therapy; recurrent reflections and discussions on empathy in qualitative analysis; direct engagement in qualitative analysis where we have paid particular attention to how we draw on our capacity for empathy; discussion of transcripts we have coded individually before we met; and our experiences as researchers, supervisors, reviewers, and editors. The examples presented are articulated as an invitation for reflection, discussion, and further examination, not to be exhaustive examples of how we can draw on our capacity for empathy during analysis of transcripts.

Our focus on the role of empathy during qualitative analysis should not to be read as a suggestion that the use of empathy during analysis is sufficient or should replace processes, principles, or procedures as articulated in different analytical approaches, methodologies, and theories (c.f. Gadamer’s concerns in regard to empathy as mentioned in part 2.1).

The use of empathy when analyzing data that we have co-created with the participants

The first example illustrates how we can use information from the data collection phase deliberately to support our capacity for empathy during analysis. The example comes from an interview study of adult survivors of childhood trauma (Stige, Rosenvinge, and Træen 2013), where interview as a data collection mode was a poor fit for one of the participants. The interview was characterized by vague descriptions without concrete examples:

Participant:

I have depressions, I feel blue, but I don’t feel that way that long … well, like, maybe I used to do. I don’t know.

Interviewer:

So, in a way, you feel more secure in meeting the things you encounter?

Participant:

That I encounter, yes. I, in a way, have something I can work … grab onto … I know how I can try to work with myself to get out of it. And I didn’t know that before. Or, like, I probably knew, but I didn’t manage to see how, because … It is a bit easier now.

During the interview the interviewer experienced through both automatic and purposeful use of empathy how hard the participant worked to convey her experiences and that she had experiences that she wanted to share. Her words bore weight. As this interaction was turned into text, even with good verbatim transcription, important information for grasping the perspective of the other became less accessible. There were very few concrete examples that drew the reader’s attention in, and without the contextual information from the interview one would maybe wonder whether the participant’s descriptions were anchored in her genuine experiences or rather were an expression of social pleasing in the interview situation. In this situation, the tentative understanding that the interviewer developed during the interview becomes a possible resource for approximating the perspective of the participant during analysis.

During the analysis the interviewer initially noticed a discrepancy between the impression the participant’s words made when she read the transcripts versus her experience of the same words during the interview. She therefore intentionally slowed down the pace, went back to her fieldnotes, paused to recollect memories from the interview situation, visualized the participant, so that she could ‘hear’ her voice as she went on reading the transcript. The interviewer was dwelling with the text – trying to grasp the significant moments that had touched her so much during the interview by paying keen attention to how and when she was bodily/emotionally moved by the text. In other words – she tried to reconstruct the text as interaction and to actively draw on relational and contextual information from the data collection to support her capacity for empathy during analysis.

The second example illustrates how the phase of data analysis might provide new opportunities for employing our capacity for empathy that were not accessible to us during data collection. The example comes from a focus group study exploring the therapist perspective on adolescents coming to treatment at the initiative of others (Stige et al. 2021). Interview situations are dense with information. As we co-construct data with our participants our empathy is in play, for example as we work to be aware of and keep our own perspectives at bay to approximate participants’ perspectives. However, sometimes this is difficult.

In this example, the interviewer had strong reactions to participant utterances that she understood as reflecting an unwillingness to consider the adolescents’ perspective. ‘If the difficulties are big enough, they (the adolescents) manage to make it work within that frame. And if they don’t, maybe their difficulties aren’t that big after all.’ The interviewer experienced this as inflexibility on part of the therapists, demonstrating a preference for system requirements rather than the adolescent perspective, which elicited strong reactions in her. These experiences influenced the interviewer’s experience and understanding of the data from this focus group interview.

Data analysis involves new opportunities for using our capacity for empathy by providing distance and time that is not accessible to us during data collection or during direct interaction with others. In this example the interviewer was already aware that her reaction in this particular interview differed from her experiences of the other interviews, and that her own emotional reactions were challenging her ability to approximate the perspectives of the participants and ensure a fair interpretation. She used this information together with the new opportunities for empathic engagement provided by data analysis to challenge her perception of this interview. She therefore focused on slowing the pace when reading and analyzing this interview, to decenter from her own perspective and try to grasp what these participants were trying to communicate. She also drew very actively on contextual information, including the increased pressure on mental healthcare over the past years, imagining these therapists’ workday. In this process, other aspects of the data came to the foreground, showing that the adolescent perspective was also given weight and was valued:

When we manage to do it [make a relationship with the adolescent], it comes down to our ability to understand how they [adolescent] are doing and that we manage to in a way convey that we have understood at least some of it.

The deliberate use of empathy during analysis described above helped the research team to see that the therapists in this focus group interview stressed the same relational aspects as therapists in the other interviews. However, these therapists experienced that the degrees of freedom available to them to exercise clinical autonomy and follow the adolescent’s needs were extremely limited (Stige et al. 2021). This example thus illustrates how data analysis provides some unique opportunities for deliberately using our capacity for empathy to develop a deeper understanding through providing distance and time that is not available during data collection.

The use of empathy when analyzing data without having interacted with participants during data collection

The next example will illustrate how we can draw on our capacity for empathy when we analyze data that we have not collected ourselves, for example in team-based research where many researchers have participated in the data collection, or when supervising students who have done the data collection.

This example is taken from a PhD project on terror-bereaved parents’ grief process that the first author supervised, where parents were interviewed 9 years after the terror attack. The PhD candidate had conducted the interviews. The way of drawing on the capacity of empathy during analysis therefore differs in important ways compared to the examples given in 3.1. The main challenges the supervisor faced was being able to move beyond self-oriented perspective taking (pseudo empathy) and grasp the experiential context of the participant while being restricted to the information available through transcripts and the PhD-candidate’s memos and field notes. The supervisor therefore took measures to sensitize her perception of experiential aspects that might be important for participants. This was particularly important as she had not had similar experiences herself. She therefore read up on the terror attack and the following legal procedures, she read up on parental grief, including first-person accounts, and she saw several films and series about the terror attack prior to reading the transcripts.

When reading the transcripts, the supervisor made sure to set aside large chunks of time where she could read and immerse herself in the material. She paid attention to her own bodily reactions as she read, and noticed where her attention was drawn in, for example where she underlined words or sequences. She then used this information to dwell with descriptions, actively decentering from her own position and using available information, images that got elicited by the descriptions, and imagination to try to approximate the meaning of what was expressed. For example, in one transcript a mother described her desperation as she was calling and calling her daughter without getting through on the day of the terror attack. While reading, the supervisor immediately got up an image from a movie about the terror attack; a scene showing a meadow with empty tents that were permeated by light from the mobiles victims had left in their tents. She also noticed tearing up, feeling the desperation of the mother, relating to her own desperation had it been her own child involved in a terror attack. Then she used the available information, for example that the participant’s daughter was one of the last persons killed in the attack, and the relationship the mother had described having with her daughter to move beyond pseudo empathy and try grasp the emotional meaning of what is described for this mother.

Other processes during qualitative analysis supported by our capacity for empathy

The processes and ways to deliberately draw on our capacity for empathy described above illustrate how this can help us expand our understanding of our data material during qualitative analysis. Our capacity for empathy helps us consider participant context and perspectives, thus supporting fair interpretations. These processes therefore also facilitate the development of meaning patterns, condensations, and abstractions that move beyond our preunderstandings and are anchored in participants’ perspectives.

In addition, our capacity for empathy supports us when we decide how to communicate our research findings. Here we face the challenging task of finding ways to convey the understanding we have developed through prolonged engagement with the data material to a reader who does not know the data material and might only read the findings once. We have to stay true to the understanding and patterns of meaning we have developed during analysis and at the same time decide how to transfer this understanding to our readers. As Sandelowski and Barroso (2002) have articulated: The production and communication of knowledge are tightly linked, where an important task for researchers is to consider who the reader of the research will be, what information the reader will need, and how the research report effectively can communicate and convince the reader of the understanding that the researchers have developed.

We can use our capacity for empathy as a resource in these processes, including perspective taking, cognitive flexibility, and imagination, to make informed choices. Most often qualitative research is conveyed in traditional research articles or reports, using quotes, narratives, or other parts of the data to anchor the analysis and convince the reader of the fairness and trustworthiness and the presented interpretations. But these processes can also result in more unconventional ways to disseminate research results, including making theatre plays to allow ‘readers’ to experience the findings more directly (e.g., Råbu et al., 2022), or by including narratives or elaborate descriptions of the situation and context before the analysis is presented, to allow the reader to follow the researcher’s understanding and reflections more easily (see e.g. Stige et al. 2010).

Ways to access and harness empathy as a resource for qualitative analysis

As we have seen, empathy can enhance processes of qualitative analysis. In the following we will therefore explore examples of how we deliberately can access and harness this capacity as a resource for qualitative analysis.

Make time and room for prolonged engagement with data

Finding ways to make room for continuous time for the analysis and avoiding time pressure is supporting qualitative analysis more generally (e.g. Finlay 2014; Stige, Malterud, and Midtgarden 2009), and is vital for accessing and using empathy as a resource in qualitative analysis. As we have seen, empathy requires a commitment to understand, be present, and self-aware, as understanding is built carefully, layer by layer, and evolves over time (e.g. Greenberg and Rushanski-Rosenberg 2002; More 1996; Stein and Stein 1917/1964; Watson 2002). The examples in part 3 illustrate how prolonged engagement with data allows us to draw on empathy to move beyond self-oriented perspective taking and to use our full repertoire of capacities to approximate the perspectives of others.

However, even when we have secured continuous time to engage in analysis, we can sometimes enter a ‘sorting mode’ where we only want to finish categorization and sorting of transcripts in different codes, for example. We therefore need to be aware of our own state while analyzing transcripts, as empathy requires an open and non-judgmental attitude where we are curious about the perspective of the other (e.g. Finlay 2005, 2014; Ratcliffe 2012; Watson 2002). As we have seen in the examples in part 3, we have to work actively to be present with the text in order to access our capacity for empathy during analysis. Limiting the number of transcripts that we analyze in one day and keeping an eye on the quality of analysis as we go along might be helpful in this respect. Mindfulness, focusing exercises, or other means to help stay present with the data might also be useful. The first author, for example, uses music actively to obtain a state of presence and focus during analysis. This exemplifies one of several ways in which arts-based practices can be a significant part of qualitative studies.

Use details and context actively when developing your understanding

The way we understand something depends on the way we see the situation and the context. For example, research indicates that neural circuits are not automatically activated but respond selectively depending on the context with mirror neurons firing differentially depending on the situation in which actions are embedded (Iacoboni et al. 2005). This points to the significance of having a sense of the other’s current and past contexts to build an adequate understanding of what is emotionally significant for them and to gain an understanding of what motivates their actions (e.g. Ratcliffe 2012; Stein and Stein 1917/1964; Watson 2002).

This relates to the way our data collection and transcription practices influence the quality of data material and therefore our starting point for a qualitative analysis. It also relates to the concept of thick descriptions (Geertz 1973). Vivid, and clear stories will enhance our empathic capacities, not only by providing sufficient detail, but also sufficient information about situations and circumstances. As Schleiermacher articulated already in the 19th century: ‘If we now begin with the fact that the utterance is a moment of life, then I must seek out the whole context and ask how the individual was moved to make the utterance (occasion) and towards which subsequent moments the utterance was directed (purpose)’ (Schleiermacher and Bowie 1838/1998, 19).

One way to access our capacity for empathy during analysis is therefore to intentionally focus on and be sensitive to details and to critically examine which details matter, focusing on poignant words or phrases, evocative images, metaphors, or words that have a poetic quality. Also, as we saw in the first example in part 3.1, being mindful of the relational basis of transcripts and reading transcripts as textualized interaction will help us develop our empathic understanding. In addition, we can use audio- or video recordings along with transcripts in the initial phases of analysis. This will help us draw on our capacity for empathy by making more information available to us, allowing us to focus on details such as rhythm of speech, repetition, pauses and silences, tone of voice and voice quality. As we saw in part 3.2, using details and context actively during analysis will be particularly important when you have not collected all the data yourself, for example when supervising students, or collecting and analyzing data as a team.

Practice decentering by actively seeking the perspective of the participants

The ability to decenter from your own perspective while maintaining a self-other differentiation is decisive in separating empathy from identification and pseudo-empathy (Coplan 2011; Jardine 2014; Rogers 1975; Stein and Stein 1917/1964; Watson 2002). As we have seen in part 3, we can practice this skill, and actively seek the perspective of participants in order to draw on our capacity for empathy during analysis. One way to do this would be to first clarify your own perspective, for example by imagining what it would be like to be in the situation the participant is describing, before actively using available information about the participant’s context, situation, personality, and life-experiences, and so on, to nuance and adjust this understanding (see also Wharne 2021 for examples of questions to facilitate this process). This type of activity strengthens our capacity to move beyond self-oriented perspective-taking. Also, more ideographic approaches to qualitative analysis potentially support these processes by maintaining a focus on the participants’ stories as a whole. When using other approaches to analysis we have to keep an intentional focus on the perspective of the participants as a crucial context for interpretation of segments of text or meaning patterns across codes and participants.

Attend to your own visceral experiences and body sensations

Because we use ourselves so actively as instruments during qualitative analysis, a double focus, where we are engaging with the data while being aware of how we are affected by the data, will be important. We not only analyze the data in a systematic way by looking for patterns of commonalities and divergences in, for example interview transcripts. We are also listening for the emotional tone in the text – what is at stake here? This is linked to the way empathy helps us orient to aspects of the text that bears particular meaning for participants, as we saw in the examples in part 3. It materializes, for instance, in our own emotional experiences while analyzing data, including the rhythm of reading and coding transcripts. We can read, and then suddenly our attention is drawn to an aspect of the text. We can then stop and engage with the text to grasp its significance and meaning.

The body is therefore an important source of information when using empathy intentionally during qualitative analysis. As we saw above, mirror neurons can be seen as recorders of actions, and are also seen as the precursors of mimicry. Being mindful of our own visceral experiences and body sensation is therefore a vital resource when building tentative understandings about others’ experiences (see also Finlay 2005, 2006; Stein and Stein 1917/1964; Watson 2002). Self-awareness and reflexivity are, however, essential when drawing on our bodily sensations to approximate the perspective of others if we are to succeed in moving beyond self-oriented perspective taking (i.e., Stein’s (1917/1964 description of the subtle differences between my experience of the world and the experiences of the other’s experience). Mindfulness and other focusing exercises could be a helpful resource to cultivate a capacity for presence and noticing one’s visceral experiences and body sensation in a flexible and tentative way so that they can be utilized as a resource during analysis.

Utilize your capacity for imagination and creativity

The use of imagination and creativity is central when actively working to be empathic (e.g., Greenberg and Rushanski-Rosenberg 2002). This also relates to the way stories or texts that are anchored in concrete examples touch us differently than more general descriptions. Concrete examples elicit our empathic capacity through stimulating visualization, imagination, and contextualization of understanding – thus allowing us to grasp the emotional meaning of what is said (i.e., empathic understanding; Watson 2002). Detailed and contextualized examples thus support us in moving beyond pseudo-empathy.

Some scholars argue that arts and narratives might be particularly helpful in promoting empathetic engagement, due to possibilities for combination of visceral, emotional, and cognitive elements, with possibilities for imaginative variations of perspectives as well (Leavy 2020). Visualization comprises one aspect of imagination, and research has shown that we can heighten our understanding of others by actively visualizing the details that are being shared. Decety and Jackson (2004) observed, for example, that deliberate acts of imagination produced stronger responses in the neuronal empathy circuit than observation alone.

Although it varies among people how readily available visualization and imagination is as a resource, we can facilitate empathic understanding by using imagination and creativity to dwell with and expand on the meaning of what is shared by participants, as we saw examples of in part 3. We have almost infinite resources to support us in this effort, including documentaries, films, books, music, and qualitative studies. Such activities can help us to grasp the emotional meaning of the situation for the other – but only if we manage to use available information about the unique situation of the other person to nuance and adjust our understanding to move beyond self-oriented perspective taking to approximate the perspective of the other. As Kohut (2020) stresses, the understanding we develop by the deliberate use of empathy has to be supplemented by rigorous empirical analysis (p. 14) and requires critical self-consciousness regarding when and how we use empathy to develop knowledge (p. 20). This points to the key roles of engagement and reflexivity in qualitative research (Stige, Malterud, and Midtgarden 2009), which is critical when deliberately drawing on our capacity for empathy during analysis.

What empathy cannot do

Much of what we do as qualitative researchers is based on tacit knowledge about how to engage and seek to understand the experiences and perspectives of other people in specific contexts – drawing on our abilities to listen, sense, feel, resonate with, and imagine the experiences, feelings, thoughts, and life worlds of other people. Empathy is therefore an important foundation for qualitative analysis. However, empathy in itself is no guarantee for quality. Also, while the deliberate use of empathy might reduce the risk of researcher power and privilege silencing perspectives that differ from the researchers’, our capacity for empathy does not eliminate these important issues. Critique and self-critique are therefore an important part of all qualitative research (Stige, Malterud, and Midtgarden 2009). Moreover, there are critical voices against using empathy deliberately in qualitative research (e.g. Brinkmann and Kvale, 2017; Stephenson and Kippax 2017).

We need to be mindful of how empathy can focus our attention on the individual in ways that can make us lose sight of the larger role of culture and context. Moreover, although we can strengthen our ability to decenter from our own perspective, our understanding will always be situated. This reminds us of the importance of maintaining humility and acknowledging the challenges we face when attempting to look beyond our own culture and context. Empathy therefore has clear limitations that we need to acknowledge. Our capacity for empathy, although allowing us to approximate the perspective of others, will never give us direct access to the perspective of others. This is why self-awareness, reflexivity, and keeping empathic understanding tentative is so important.

Without these qualities, empathic understanding can even be dangerous, as Bloom (2016) argues when using emotional empathy and moral reasoning as an example. Our capacity for empathy therefore calls for conscious attention to how and when we use empathy in the process of analysis (see Kohut 2020 for a similar argument in relation to interpreting historical texts).

Concluding thoughts

In this article, we have used empathy as a lens to articulate more implicit processes in qualitative analysis. We have proposed that deliberately drawing on our capacity for empathy during analysis – for example through prolonged engagement with data, practicing decentering, attending to detail and context and our own visceral experiences, and actively using imagination and creativity – bears the potential of enhancing qualitative analysis.

We have chosen to use analysis of transcripts as an example in this article. Transcripts are a peculiar form of text, as they are created through textualization of interaction. During the original situation, for example in an interview, our capacity for empathy is supported by non-verbal information and we can check our emerging understanding with the participant. The possibility of testing the accuracy of our empathic understanding is, however, limited when interacting with texts. In many ways, then, a key task for the researcher when analyzing transcripts is to bring the data to life, so to say: To reconstruct and read the text as interaction, with an awareness of all the nonverbal data lost in the transition from interaction to text, and to maintain a tentative quality of understanding.

While we lose something when moving from human interaction to textualized interaction, we might also gain something. The interview situation is an information-dense situation with high cognitive load, potentially influencing our capacity for self-reflection or decentering. Transcripts therefore also provide opportunities for the intentional use of empathy. They give us the opportunity to pause and gain sufficient distance from the interaction and to fully engage the resources of self-reflection and decentering. Also, they provide opportunities to dwell longer with imagination and attention to detail and context. The deliberate use of empathy therefore bears great potential in qualitative analysis of transcripts, but requires hard work, self-awareness, and reflexivity to be realized.

What we present is a situated perspective on the use of empathy in qualitative analysis of transcripts. We hope that future work can expand on this and explore the role of empathy in the analysis of qualitative data more broadly. Our thinking on the role of empathy in qualitative analysis suggests several avenues for further development of qualitative research. The roles we take as researchers, the choice of media and data sources, the methods of analysis, and so on all matter when it comes to creating conditions that facilitate the optimal use of empathy. Participant observation of situations and social practices, use of audio and video, arts-based and narrative analysis might all be paths to explore within research projects that actively seek to use our human capacities for understanding other human minds and activities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Signe Hjelen Stige

Signe Hjelen Stige is a clinical psychologist, PhD, and professor of clinical psychology at the Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway. She has published widely on qualitative psychotherapy research, clinical decision-making, and training.

Hanne Weie Oddli

Hanne Weie Oddli is a clinical psychologist, PhD, and professor of clinical psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway. She has published widely on qualitative psychotherapy research and clinical decision-making.

Aslak Hjeltnes

Aslak Hjeltnes is a clinical psychologist, PhD, and professor of clinical psychology at the Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway. He has published widely on qualitative psychotherapy research.

Jeanne Watson

Jeanne Watson is a clinical psychologist, PhD, and professor at the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She has published widely on psychotherapy research, particularly on humanistic-existential psychotherapy and empathy.

Brynjulf Stige

Brynjulf Stige is a music therapist, PhD, and professor of music therapy at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen, Norway. He has published widely on community music therapy and qualitative research.