Ethics and Process in the Narrative Study of Lives

by Ruthellen Josselson (Editor)

First-hand accounts of the ideological, moral, emotional and practical complexities that surround the doing of narrative research are offered in this volume. Exploring such issues whether work that risks exposing sensitive aspects of peoples′ lives can ever be fully ethical; what effect being written about has on people; the line between narrative research and psychotherapy; and the after-effects of this research on the researcher, the contributions reveal the struggles and anxieties that narrative researchers face.

312 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 1996

About the author

Ruthellen Josselson, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Fielding Graduate University. She was formerly Professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Visiting Professor at Harvard University School of Education, and Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University. Dr. Josselson is a cofounder of the Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology; coeditor of 11 volumes of The Narrative Study of Lives, a series dedicated to publishing qualitative research; coauthor of Five Ways of Doing Qualitative Analysis; and author of many journal articles and book chapters that explore the theory and practice of qualitative inquiry. She has conducted workshops on interviewing skills for qualitative inquiry in the United States, France, Norway, Finland, Israel, and the United Kingdom. Based on interviews she has conducted over 35 years, she has written two books exploring women’s identity longitudinally (Finding Herself and Revising Herself) and three other books (The Space Between Us, Best Friends, and Playing Pygmalion). Dr. Josselson is a recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Henry A. Murray Award and Theodore R. Sarbin Award as well as a Fulbright Fellowship.