IMPUGNACIÓN DEL ACTA DE CONCILIACIÓN

By reflecting on the process of research here and sharing my reflexive approach I hope to enhance the transparency of the study and illustrate coherence with the theoretical assumptions of IPA. Coherence and transparency are important, according to Yardley (2000), in enhancing the quality of qualitative research.

From the outset I was consciously aware of the researcher-participant weight difference and my contrasting experience of the world as someone who has never been

overweight. Whilst I recognised that this would influence the perspective from which I interpreted my participants’ experiences, I felt that it had the potential to minimise the prior assumptions that I might have regarding their experiences. However, I was also aware of the potential influence this difference could have on the participants’ perspective of me as their researcher and how they engaged in the interview process. As a Trainee Clinical Psychologist I was aware that it would be impossible for the participants not to make assumptions about me based on my appearance. I considered that their awareness of society’s blaming and

prejudicial portrayal of obese people and possible experiences of prejudice and discrimination in their lives increased the likelihood of them anticipating negative judgement and blame, even if I were able to engage in an empathic and non-judgemental approach. Despite these potential difficulties, all participants shared a detailed and in-depth narrative of their experiences and I feel I was able to listen and analyse from an open-minded, curious but interpretative ontology. It does bring into question however whether the development of the superordinate theme ‘The difficulty and emotion of self-reflection’, is a representation of my own anticipation of their discomfort in engaging in the interviews.

My expectations of the research and my relationship to the research participants were largely from a personal perspective. When initially introduced to the prospect of conducting research in the area of obesity by my supervisor, I became aware of my curiosity and personal interest in this area. Having a mother who had developed obesity in adulthood I embarked on the research with feelings of frustration due to my inability to offer any effective support to my mother in her efforts at weight loss. My emotional relationship with this topic became more apparent to me in the first interviews I conducted, as I found myself affected by the level of emotional vulnerability that the participants were willing to share. As a novice qualitative researcher I was already aware of a lack of confidence in my ability to effectively carry out semi-structured interviews in a way that would remain true to IPA. However, I believe that this professional perspective gave me a focus beyond the emotional connection to the topic and to the participants, giving me the opportunity to refocus and be guided by the

interview schedule. Nonetheless, I was surprised by the intensity of the feelings I experienced during the interviews, but on reflection I recognised that there were a number of other

similarities between my participants and my mother.

Not having previously carried out IPA I embarked on the research with anxiety, exploring its epistemology and at each stage questioning whether I had captured IPA’s main principles. Facilitating research interviews and analysing the data came with the added responsibility of doing justice to the rich and personal data that the participants had shared. It was particularly difficult to move past my anticipation of making insensitive assumptions opposed to idiographic interpretations. However, I found that during each stage of the analysis as well as the writing up of the analysis, opportunities arose to reconsider the data and my interpretations and make adjustments where necessary. At the point of reviewing my analysis write-up I felt that I had become sufficiently familiar with the participants, their narratives and my interpretative notes. However, it was the process of validation through supervision that allowed me to feel more confident that I had made appropriate interpretations that remained sufficiently anchored to the interview data.

The development of the study title was approached from a researcher perspective and influenced by medical definitions of weight problems. It was unfortunate that as first-time qualitative researcher I had not realised the importance of implementing a reflexive approach from the outset. However, on reflection of the participant transcripts it became evident that the term obesity had been used by only one participant and on only one occasion. In a qualitative study by Thomas et al. (2008) they had noted that 80% of their participants had said that they hated or disliked the word obesity and would rather be called fat or overweight. In order to reflect the experiences of the participants the results and discussion refer to weight problems and being overweight, in contrast to the introduction which in order to reflect the published literature predominantly refers to obesity and morbid obesity.