Qualitative Research Interviews

After presenting a brief overview of the complexity of the qualitative interviewing process used by psychotherapy researchers, the authors discuss some of the major ideas that psychotherapy researchers using such interviews must consider both before and during the interview process. They then offer thoughts regarding approaches to strengthen qualitative interviews themselves. Much of qualitative psychotherapy research relies on spoken interviews with participants to gather detailed information regarding the phenomenon under examination (Polkinghorne, 2005). In an activity that calls on not only strong interviewing techniques but also the very skills used when working with clients, interviewers confront challenges inherent in both domains: How do they conduct an incisive interview that yields rich and meaningful data while simultaneously helping participants feel safe enough to explore in depth often difficult experiences with a relative stranger? Perhaps complicating this process, qualitative psychotherapy researchers also must attend to the ethics of interviewing. (The ethics of interviewing are beyond the scope of this article, but interested readers are encouraged to see Haverkamp, 2005.) Such researchers, for instance, have often been trained, and may even be credentialed, to address others ’ distress