Dialogic-reflection for the development of critical thinking in international art-based psychosocial research

ABSTRACT

Background

In recent years, in the face of natural disasters, mass migration and war in a globalising world, professionals from Western societies are conducting art-based psychosocial interventions to support struggling communities. The human encounters that take place during these interventions and the subsequent examination of these encounters by researchers are saddled with power dynamics and cultural differences. A critical stance is required to better address the complex issues of power and oppression that surface; a more authentic framework can make room for cultural humility.

Aims

In this joint dialogical-heuristic research, we describe our critical thinking on cross-cultural research pertaining to art-based, psychosocial and cross-cultural interventions.

Methods

This heuristic study involved analysing transcripts of the two researchers` dialogic reflection (DR) following their interviews with Filipino women, participants of an IsraAID group training programme in the aftermath of the Yolanda Typhon.

Results

The results describe our thoughts on conducting cross-cultural art-based research and the meaning of DR in this context, and focus on three main themes: the evolution and accuracy of the research during data collection; our self-reflection as researchers, and our experience in this cross-cultural setting.

Conclusions

The use of art and DR in art-based cross-cultural qualitative research adds value to the discourse on cultural humility.

Implications for practice

The discussion includes recommendations for using an ongoing process of reflection to facilitate active negotiation of the researchers’ position during the research process, and to enable questions that can better steer the study and promote sensitivity to cross-cultural dilemmas.

Plain-language summary

In recent years, in the wake of natural disasters, mass immigration and military conflicts across the globe, professionals from the Western world are conducting art-based psychosocial interventions designed to support struggling communities. Power dynamics and cultural differences have a clear impact on these human encounters and subsequent research of these interventions. Complex issues of power and oppression can be better addressed by adopting a critical stance and enabling an authentic framework that can promote a position of cultural humility. In this joint dialogical-heuristic research, we present our critical thinking in regard to a cross-cultural study of art-based psychosocial cross-cultural interventions.

We analysed transcripts of dialogic reflection (DR) that we engaged in after interviewing Filipino women who participated in an IsraAid group training programme in the aftermath of the Yolanda Typhon. The results present our insights on cross-cultural, art-based research and the significance of DR in this process, and focus on three main themes: the evolution and accuracy of the data collection process, our self-reflection as researchers, and our experience in this cross-cultural setting.

The discussion focusses on the advantages of using art and DR in an art-based cross-cultural, qualitative study. Possible applications are presented, along with recommendations for the use of an ongoing reflection process that facilitates the active negotiation of the researchers’ position during the research process and enables questions that can steer the study in the right direction and promote sensitivity to cross-cultural dilemmas.

KEYWORDS:

• Cross-cultural research
• art-based research
• dialogic reflection
• art therapy
• qualitative methods

In recent years, cross-cultural art-based interventions have gained popularity in the globalising world (Hass-Cohen et al., 2014; Kalmanowitz et al., 2012; Kapitan, 2015; Yeon Lee, 2017). Studies have been conducted to assess their impact and stimulate critical thinking (e.g. Gavron et al., 2022; Huss et al., 2015, 2021; Milligan, 2016). The literature has drawn attention to the dilemmas that emerge when professionals from Western countries engage in research that involves populations from other cultures (Kapitan, 2015, 2018; Packard, 2008; Potash et al., 2017; Shah, 2004; Yeon Lee, 2017). Cross-cultural researchers encourage a critical stance to better address complex issues of power and oppression and establish an authentic framework that supports cultural humility (Jackson, 2020; Kapitan, 2018; Milligan, 2016; Packard, 2008; Shah, 2004; Stepney, 2022; Watson & Watson, 2011). Researchers who study cross-cultural art-based interventions are strongly advised to adopt a pluralistic approach that fosters creativity as well as a wide range of methods designed to further cross-cultural understanding (Watson & Watson, 2011). We encountered all these challenges in the study we conducted under the auspices of IsraAID (Gavron et al., 2022).

IsraAID is an Israeli non-profit organisation that works with survivors of natural and man-made disasters. Among many other activities, they provide psychosocial art-based group training for local professionals. One such project took place in the Philippines after Typhoon Yolanda hit large parts of the country in November 2013. In 2019, we travelled to the Philippines to interview 10 Pilipino women who participated in an IsraAID art-based group training programme; our goal was to evaluate the training programme, its outcomes and sustainability.

During the research process, we felt the need to examine ourselves as Western researchers following each interview; thus, we spontaneously began to exchange views on each interview while recording ourselves. Gradually, we realised that we had initiated a dialogic reflection (DR) process that involved sharing our thoughts and feelings about the encounter with the programme participants and the research method we used.

The aim of this paper is to describe the process in which we engaged in critical thinking in our research of cross-cultural art-based interventions. In this respect, the first question we asked was: How does our Israeli presence affect our research in the Philippines, and how does the creative processes of participants and researchers contribute to this encounter? The second question focused on the emerging process of DR in our research, and its value to us as researchers in this multicultural context.

Method

Research design

This was a qualitative, heuristic study (Moustakas, 1990; West, 2001) since we investigated our own experience of engaging in cross-cultural, art-based research. Heuristic research focuses on the essential meanings and personal significance of a phenomenon to the researcher and participants in the context of the researcher's subjective experiences and his or her familiarity with the topic (Keeling & Bermudez, 2006). Since the two of us reflected and analysed the content together, this study became a joint dialogical heuristic research (Kapitan, 2018). Given that this study deals with a cross-cultural encounter, we tried to maintain a critical stance, i.e. adopt a critical approach in relation to the subject matter being examined, as well as to our methods and research practices (Watson & Watson, 2011).

Participants

We, the two researchers, were the participants in the current study. Tami has worked as a clinician and supervisor in the field of art psychotherapy since 1990, and has been a researcher since 2008. She worked with IsraAID from 2011 to 2014. Sharon completed art therapy studies in 1998, and psychotherapy studies in 2011, and worked as an art therapist for about 10 years. In recent years, she devotes most of her time to research and teaching. Both of us teach art therapy at Tel Hai College in the north of Israel.

Procedure and data analysis

This current DR study evolved while conducting a study in February 2019, that examined the influence of an art-based psychosocial training and involved interviews with 10 Filipino women who participated in the IsraAID group training programme (Gavron et al., 2022). This study was part of a larger study that examined an IsraAID art-based group training programme implemented in the Philippines after the Yolanda Typhon; the programme was created a year before in February 2018 (Gavron et al., 2022). Data collecting for the larger study took place in the Philippines over 12 days, while during this time our need to examine ourselves as researchers evolved. Given the challenges of coming from a different culture and the need for critical thinking, we spontaneously decided to discuss each interview, in order to help each other cope and better understand the intercultural encounter with the participants. Thus, after each interview (we were both present for most of the interviews) we discussed our questions, feelings and thoughts about the interview, and any issues that surfaced. These unstructured reflective conversations were recorded and later transcribed by a research assistant. The first stage of the heuristic research (Moustakas, 1990; West, 2001), the initial engagement, took place when we conducted the interviews in February 2019, and the idea to record and analyse our discussions emerged as a result of our ongoing reflections. The next stage of immersion involved meetings, joint discussions and reading up about the research question. The incubation stage involved our thoughts and conversations as we returned to our daily schedule. This led to the next stage of illumination, in which new insights emerged. In the final stages of explication and creative synthesis, we worked together for four days to pull all the threads of the study together into its final form.

Credibility

The validation process for this study entailed repeated verification of the raw data to create a synthesis of the meaning of the phenomenon being investigated, and to elucidate the themes and qualities that characterised the experience.

Ethics

This study was approved by the ethics committees of Haifa University (approval 151/20) and Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines (approval 18/044).

Results

The DR transcripts were analysed based on research questions pertaining to the implications of our presence as Israelis researchers conducting this study in the Philippines and the meaning of these reflections for research conducted in an art-based multicultural contexts. The first theme relates to critical thinking about the multicultural context in which the research took place, and specifically, cultural differences and power dynamics. The second theme focuses on the significance of DR in our own development as researchers. The third theme relates to how dialogic reflections contribute to the accuracy of the research method during the data collection process. All the quotes in the themes are taken from our verbal dialogic reflections.

Critical observation of cultural differences and power dynamics

The intercultural encounter and critical thinking

The intercultural encounter that took place during the interviews revealed and illuminated points of difference, such as unsimilar Israeli and Filipino worldviews and responses to traumatic situations and authority. Other cultural differences were also discussed in the reflective process, such as the participants’ level of religious observance as opposed to out secular lifestyles and educational gaps.

Tami: Maybe there's something cultural here, too. In the ability to simply accept and be happy with things, something that you and I don't always have … I think it is also something that connects us both- we often complain about things and are not always happy with what there is … and the people we met seem to complain less.

The situation in which we were required to conduct interviews in a multicultural context sometimes triggered anxiety for both us and the interviewee. Since we did not expect this, we discussed and processed these feelings through the dialogic reflection process. For example, while discussing an encounter with participant who shared her anxiety with us.

… She (the participant) went to church to pray that she would have a good interview and that we would be good people. Then she came early and looked at us, she asked who we were and looked at us for a while until she felt that we were good people, and then she decided she would do it.

Following our understanding of some of the participant`s anxiety, we wondered whether the interviewees could authentically share their whole experience (the positive as well as the negative aspects) with us. We realised that they perhaps perceived us as representatives of IsraAID, an organisations towards which they felt profuse gratitude. Sharon asked, ‘Is there an exaggeration or idealization of things that seemed to be unflawed? I constantly asked myself these questions’. These difficulties in the intercultural encounter were connected to the fact that the interviews were conducted in English, a second language for all of us. In some parts of the interview, we weren't sure we understood what we were being told ‘No … It's hard, I didn't understand part of what she said … I’m not sure I understood her correctly’.

Faced with the challenge of the intercultural encounter, alongside the ongoing examination of issues of privilege present in the IsraAID intervention, we reflected on the significance of being Israeli researchers who come from a more affluent country that even employs Philippines as health workers ‘This is where we have to face and explore our own colonialism, the fact that we came in with our Hebrew, from Israel, to interview them about what they got (from the training)’.

It was important for us to emphasise that we were not representatives of IsraAID, especially because the interviewees constantly expressed their gratitude to IsraAID in every interview. During our discussions in the DR process, we were more aware of the meaning of our nationality in this situation. During the interviews, we repeatedly stated that we did not belong to the organisation, assured the participants of anonymity and asked them to be as genuine as possible. ‘What they say demonstrates a lot of gratitude, and it does not waver. Nevertheless, I was able to sense their authenticity. And this intercultural relationship seems authentic to me. I feel it in the interview’. We often referred to our Philippine co-researchers and expressed our need to consult with them. ‘We must ask Cara (Dr Karina Fernandez) about being so thankful’.

One of the themes that emerged in the DR was the connection and the identification we often felt with the participants. We discussed the similarities in being women, mothers and our shared desire to protect our children, and to work with and help people. Our shared sense of helplessness [in the face of conflict] and our longing for peace and wellbeing established common ground. The similarities were especially apparent in shared emotional moments centred around pain or joy, which were often accompanied by tears. ‘Here I felt some closeness, and then I told her that I felt the connection between us, I felt there was a difference as well as a connection’.

The DR also enhanced our appreciation of the unique value of this multicultural encounter, which offered a new experience in an unfamiliar space, and a search for an authentic experience beyond culture. As Sharon said, ‘There is a difference, and it makes me wonder how to approach her, and how to ask her questions, and how to trust what she says, or how to invite her to doubt, to reflect … ’ We felt excited and delighted by these meetings. The interviewees also expressed their excitement, and even talked about the power of the external eye and its ability to see something new and different, and to expand perspectives. ‘She said, “I want them to come from outside, I want outsiders to come … “I asked her why she needed outsiders, and she said: “They see things we don't.”’

The use of art as a tool in multicultural research

During the first DR which we spontaneously conducted after the first interview in 2019, we decided that from now on we would invite the participants to join us and paint with us at the last part of their interviews. The participants were asked to draw how they see themselves before and after the IsraAID art-based psychosocial training. We, the researchers, sat at the same table and shared the same art materials, while each separately created artwork in response to her own experience and feelings after listening to the interviewee's experience of the intervention. Following the painting, at the end of the interview, we (the researchers and each interviewee) observed our own painting as well as the participants painting and shared our experiences.

Later on, we discussed the meaning of adding artistic tools to the research. We felt that the art process played a major role in the multicultural encounter. Since the participants had all graduated from the art-based training course, art was a familiar and available tool for them. We both felt that being able to observe and discuss our paintings gave us all additional knowledge about the training process. The painting seemed to validate the explicit information and helped us to better understand the explicit meaning ‘The interviewee … conveyed her feelings while painting during the interview’. For example, while engaging in the response painting during the last part of one of the interviews, Sharon realised that she had drawn a plant image without leaving room for the roots. Through this experience, she realised that during the interview she experienced the interviewee as not having acknowledged her inner resources (such as resilience) while coping with the consequences of the typhoon. She added the roots to the painting and shared this experience with the interviewee (see Figure 1): ‘She was really excited when I talked about the roots in my drawing. I drew the roots and connected it in response to the things she said and told her that the roots were there all along’.

Figure 1. Don't forget your roots. Sharon's reaction painting which describes her perception of the interviewee as growing, while connecting to her roots.

During the DR we realised that the art-based communication served as another shared framework that connected us with the participants, as it bridged the cultural gap and become a shared cultural and professional space. ‘The moment she painted herself and her strengths … It helped us to really feel and understand her experience’. The expression of the interviewee's strengths was expressed by Sharon in her painting, see Figure 2.

Figure 2. You are a strong and growing woman. Sharon's reflection on her connection to the interviewee.

We felt that the response painting allowed us to be more equal partners and to express ourselves authentically; we could observe and be observed, listen and share. We had the impression that after the artmaking and the subsequent sharing, the interviewees felt more comfortable with us. We also experienced this mutuality as researchers. ‘The painting itself helps me to process … because art is not hierarchical and is related to profound communication’. Figure 3, in which Tami painted two women facing each other, reflects such a moment ‘Something happened between us and there is a new experience stirring in the center’.

Figure 3. Face to face interpersonal meeting. In this figure Tami expressed her excitement about the encounter with the interviewee.

We discussed the significance of the verbal sharing that took place upon completing the paintings, and how it contributed to mutual understanding and added to the verbal discourse of the interview. Most of the participants talked extensively about their images. The stories about their paintings and the symbolic images expanded the dialogue regarding the changes and growth that some of the interviewees experienced. Moreover, our own images and paintings seemed to serve as a tool for empowerment because they echoed the participants` implicit and explicit messages in a non-verbal way. In other words, our artwork was a way of providing feedback and stimulating reflection. Tami's painting from one of the meetings reflects her admiration for the way the interviewee cared for her people and served as a social leader in her community (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. A leader of her community. Tami painted the interviewee with her community.

In addition to the information gleaned from the images, our presence and observation of the creative process allowed us to gain more information about the participants` involvement and the authenticity of their expression. For example, Tami responded to the way one of the participants painted: ‘ How she created … Her whole body was involved and it was important for her to use color . .. It told me something about her desire to express herself authentically, even before I looked at the image’. It seems that our active participation in the painting process, i.e. our simultaneous observation and painting, allowed us to identify additional feelings and insights about the interviewee's process ‘Our art within it helped us find more answers’.

The DR allowed us to examine our role and development as researchers

During the DR, we strengthened our abilities as researchers. We shared our experience of the interviews, examined our responses, inquired into the content that arose, and helped each other to better understand it. During these conversations, we tapped into our skills as researchers and helped each other through constructive criticism.

For example, we talked about Sharon’s recurring questions about the project’s circles of influence:

Tami:

“It was unclear to me why you were insistent … . There were some questions that you repeated; you asked questions she already answered.”

Sharon:

I thought that if I keep asking, she would remember another aspect of influence.

Tami:

I understand now, but she really spoke of every aspect of her life She talked about her grandmother, her aunt, her nephew, the school principal, the director of the district education department. Like, who else?

Sharon:

I might have pushed too hard. I think I needed to know that we had covered everything, but you think it was too much.

Tami:

I think that in qualitative research, we must find the answers in the interview … this interview flowed and she said everything even without us asking.

Tami's reference to Sharon's questions helped Sharon understand her fear that she would not get all the information, and how this concern might be connected to the huge effort involved in meeting the interviewees. Similarly, we talked about situations in which Tami used her skills as a therapist; specifically, when statements were not clear enough to her, she felt the need to mirror the interviewees’ words. In the dialogic reflection, we realised that in order to better understand the interviewee's meaning, we should simply ask questions, and not fall back on mirroring techniques

Tami:

I need to learn to be not so set on mirroring and interpretating, and remember that this is a research interview and not therapy. Sometimes I can't help it.

We discussed the insights we gained based on our clinical perception of the content of the interviews and the participants’ description of the art-based interventions they experienced during the training. The psychodynamic approach that was part of our training converged at times with the psychosocial approaches adopted in the IsraAID training programme. This led to questions about the connection between psychotherapy and psychosocial interventions; the limits of psychosocial interventions; and the role of art in this process. Those questions and subsequent insights were discussed in the DR, where we examined the meaning and impact of these interventions. For example, Tami mentioned a method she learned from her psychosocial experience of creating a future, tangible image of change or a hopeful situation that would foster resilience. Tami: ‘You can see the importance of the “future image” method in this type of intervention … In psychosocial and art-based supervisions, I am constantly using the “future image” method. I rarely use this method in psychodynamic, psychotherapeutic treatments’.

During these conversations, we redefined new aspects of our identity. An inner dialogue was sparked with parts of our identity that had been numbed. For example, Tami defines herself mainly as a clinician; during the study, she encountered her researcher's identity. At the same time, Sharon, who has been mainly involved in research, rediscovered the clinician in herself, and dusted off her mirroring and listening skills, which appeared through countertransference. ‘There were also things I really didn't … like I reflected on her experience, but you know, using my skills as a therapist, gently, as she talked about this trauma while crying terribly’.

The DR as supporting, advancing and refining the research method during the data collection process

The reflection engendered a dialogue in which we engaged in a critical examination not only of our role as researchers, but also of the study methods, such as data collection and communication during the interviews. The DR enabled us to conduct an initial processing of the interview that lead to changes and adjustments. The discussion of the content that came up in each interview helped us to make ongoing adjustments in the outline. We noticed that the knowledge we accumulated about the phenomenon and questions we studied gradually changed our way of asking questions, and this had a positive impact on our ability to receive authentic answers. As Sharon said: ‘I understand that it's important for me to ask about this issue, otherwise I can't really understand what happened to them during the training’

We could express our thoughts about methods of data analysis, their implications and further studies that we were prompted to conduct in light of the findings and the limitations of this study. As Tami said: ‘We have to think about the way we define and present the themes, because in this study … there is something different … it is important to think about the ways this training and intervention can be applied.’

During these conversations, we felt that this was still a nascent and evolving study. ‘There is something in art-based research that is always evolving – that the way you start is never how you end, and all the layers of doing, observing, changing … ’

As a result of the DR, the structure of interview itself was changed; during this first discussion, the idea of painting as part of the interview emerged. ‘I really liked your idea that we would also paint. It fits … as if I felt that some of the things we had planned to ask were expressed in the paintings … We saw it, how we didn't stick to the interview and something else came out’.

It is important to note that the evolving nature of the study was also associated with a loss of control, and challenged our abilities to be flexible and spontaneous. These led at times to some anxiety. For example, Sharon was concerned as to whether she could paint spontaneously with subsequent interviewees while responding with the same authenticity she felt the first time.

Discussion

In this study, we describe the process of applying critical thinking to the research of cross-cultural, art-based interventions. The discussion focuses on reflective observations pertaining to art-based intercultural research, and the importance of DR to research of this kind.

Critical thinking regarding art-based cross-cultural research

An ongoing question during our dialogical reflections involved the fact that we were Israelis researching in the Philippines, and the object of our study was a training programme implemented by an Israeli organisation. We explored this question in the context of assertions regarding power dynamic and privilege in research (Broesch et al., 2020; Hruschka et al., 2018). The cultural and language gaps, and the Philippine participants` feelings of gratitude towards the Israeli organisation made us doubt the reliability and the trustworthiness of the study.

Our ability to maintain ‘cultural humility’ (Stepney, 2022; Tervalon & Murray-García, 1998) in a situation where power differences are evident is still under discussion, together with the question of whether it would have been better that a Filipino researcher conduct the interviews. In this context, the solution we found was to invite co-researchers from the Bulatao Center – Department of Psychology at the University of Athenao in Manila (Gavron et al., 2022) to take part in preparation stages of the research, analysis of the interviews and discussions of the findings. Their intellectual contribution and insights were invaluable during the interview process, and our joint conversations helped us to better understand the content of the interviews.

Though the multicultural nature of this overall research gave rise to certain limitations, we did discover the importance of our presence there as researchers: the intercultural encounter was fascinating for both sides and led to fruitful exchanges according to some of the participants, and we felt the same. The fascination of the intercultural encounter is described in the literature in different contexts (e.g. Arthur, 2001). Some participants in the original research, and we as well, saw value in the opportunity to express experiences and thoughts with someone from the outside; these circumstances make it possible to talk about issues and express criticism. Similar experiences are sometimes described in cross-cultural psychotherapy, when clients, who are fearful of being judged, may find it easier to open their heart to a therapist whose background is different from their own (Dwairy & El-Jamil, 2015; Kobeisy, 2004).

Artmaking as a bridge in cross-cultural research

The drawing we added at the end of the interview made a meaningful contribution to our efforts to have an intercultural encounter on even ground. The shared painting time during the interview seemed to create intimacy. A more equal space was created in an unequal situation where interviewers and interviewees from different cultures came together. Creating and sharing allowed us to practice cultural humility (Bal & Kaur, 2018) so that we could learn about the other`s experiences in a unique, non-verbal and personal way. As Stepney (2022) notes, the artistic lens can give art therapists an opportunity to sharpen their focus on the ways in which individuals see themselves in their world and how they understand and experience it. Using art during the interview enabled us to be exposed to multi-layered expressions; we witnessed the implicit communication of knowledge through body movements, formal elements and metaphoric content, along with explicit, verbal sharing (Gavron et al., 2022). As McNiff (2021) states, artistic expression allows access, gives form to and activates a more complete multisensory sense of presence, process and thus knowledge. The value of artmaking as creating interpersonal connections is recognised in different contexts (Hass-Cohen & Findlay, 2015; Howells & Zelnik, 2009; Moon, 2007), including social and research contexts (Kapitan et al., 2011). In this study, our DR helped us to realise that this was also true of an encounter between an interviewee and an interviewer in a research context.

The use of DR in research

The dialogical verbal reflections we engaged in throughout the research process served as a container and enabled a process of mentalization. In many ways, this reflection served as a space for memoing, where we could create conceptual leaps from raw data to abstractions that explain research phenomena in the context in which it is examined (McGrath, 2021). While memoing in qualitative research is recommended and discussed in the literature (Birks et al., 2008), the ongoing discussion between us seemed to expand the meaningfulness of this process. The continuous dialogue between us created a shared reflective space that made it possible to ask difficult questions; bring up contradictory thoughts; develop new ideas; and formulate an evolving and creative research approach. It also served as a space for self-development as researchers (McNiff, 2021). This ongoing discussion as part of the research method are similar to Coles et al. (2019) who used researchers’ verbal reflections as the means for a profound, straight-forward exploration of the research themes.

The DR was created spontaneously, without prior acquaintance with this research tool. In retrospect, we realised that the concept exists in the literature and that it has been used in research. Similar to this evolving method, researchers who use DR suggest that ongoing reflective practice may enrich professionals and researchers’ understanding, assumptions and perceptions of each interview encounter (Smith, 2015). According to this point of view, mutual conversations of this kind allow an exchange of thoughts and feelings and provide support in face of ethical and cultural challenges (McDonough & Brandenburg, 2019). According to Liu (2015), a reflective inquiry enables the examination of one’s beliefs and actions, and facilitates the search and evaluation of solutions. The DR exchange ‘creates communicative spaces’ (Smith, 2015, p. 656) and an authentic framework for our research that was generated together (McDonough & Brandenburg, 2019). In a DR exchange, each one can express a personal perspective while embracing other perspectives.

This process can be understood in light of relational theories that see interpersonal relationships as a space for individual growth and development (Lyons-Ruth, 1999). According to these theories, mutual recognition enables differences, individual expression along with new concepts which are created together, and allows processes of mutual change and growth (Benjamin, 2009). Within such a space, and given the safe relationship that existed between us during the research process (and still exists today), each of us could feel secure in the other's presence to explore thoughts, identify areas that require change, and dare to grow (Mallinckrodt, 2010). The possibility of contemplating in the presence of the other encouraged us to explore together. The mutual exchange led both of us to new places, as happens many times in an interpersonal encounter.

As art therapists who recognise the power of reflection through art, we suggest that in future studies the dialogic reflections also include an artistic response. An artistic response will allow the researcher to understand implicit aspects of the experience, and serve as a basis for the continuation of the dialogue.

Limitations of the study

The limitations derive from the fact that we were co-researchers, exploring our own experiences during a single study, without a third party that was present to observe the phenomena. It is also important to remember that this research was carried out in the specific cultural context of Israeli researchers investigating an intervention held by an Israeli organisation in the Philippines, and its findings are limited in relation to other intercultural encounters. Thus, these findings should be seen as a starting point for further research.

Implications for policy, practice and further research

The current research findings indicate the importance of integrating and incorporating artmaking as a parallel and third meeting space for participants, including both researchers and interviewees (Gavron, 2013).

As to the DR, when conducting an inquiry, the researcher is more than often alone in the process of inner reflection. We suggest that in a daunting research situation such as a cross-cultural study, a shared ongoing dialogue between the researchers may allow a more profound exploration of the data and more effective application of critical thinking. The ongoing use of DR facilitates active negotiation of the researchers’ position during the research process; it also allows the emergence of questions that can steer the study appropriately and promote sensitivity to cross-cultural dilemmas (Agee, 2009).

Conclusion

In summary, we suggest that in a daunting research situation such as cross-cultural studies, a shared ongoing dialogue between the researchers may allow for a deeper understanding of the data that needs to be analysed and better application of critical thinking. The findings also point to the importance of using art within the meeting space, during the interviews and its invaluable contribution to the process.

As researchers working together in a different culture, the DR enabled a deeper understanding of the participants’ perspectives, and allowed us to be humble and adopt a critical stance. We assume that this resulted in more trustworthy and credible research. We both cherish our ability to work together with earnestness and honesty; it allowed us to grow as researchers, therapists and educators.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that IsraAID organisation funded part of the data collection. However, the authors had the full freedom to analyse data in this study and take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Additional information

Funding

The authors declare that IsraAID organisation funded part of the data collection, by paying for our travel and stay at the Philippines.

Notes on contributors

Sharon Snir

Sharon Snir is an art therapist and a researcher. She is an associate professor at the M.A. Art Therapy Program and the head of the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Arts and Spirituality: Therapy, Education and Society at Tel Hai College in Israel. In her research she focusses on the integration of art therapy within the education system and among different populations; the relationship triangle in art therapy, and the development of art therapy research instruments.

Tami Gavron

Tami Gavron is an art therapist, supervisor and a researcher. She is a faculty member at the M.A. Art Therapy Program and a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Arts and Spirituality: Therapy, Education and Society at Tel Hai College in Israel. In addition, she is a lecturer at The School of Creative Art Therapies at the University of Haifa. She has a private practice in the north of Israel. Her research and clinical specialisations include parent–child art psychotherapy; art-based supervision; and community-based art therapy.