“Any philosophical view that attempts to understand in a subjective manner what at first glance would seem to be a class of judgements that are objectively either true or false – i.e.: true or false independently of what we believe, want, or hope.”
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2006, p.885
The subjectivity in a research process need not emerge to allow it to be as simple as controlled variables in quantitative research. However, scholars such as Mucchieli (1979) propose sustaining subjectivity at a minimum level by yielding to the text that is analyzed, thus determining an understandable link between qualitative and quantitative research through a search for objectivity, in other words a near-positivist point of view (Rennie, 2000). On the other hand, many researchers endorse making use of subjectivity to improve understanding of the community under examination (Rennie, 1994; Schneider, 1999). For these researchers, separating themselves from the community through the use of standardised or semi-standardised methods would keep the community at a distance (Patton, 1990).
Such an effort can also present some risks including the prediction of the researcher’s own blind spots, and a sometimes unclear differentiation between subjectivity and
misconception (Kahn, 1996). The question then, is how to use subjectivity in research while avoiding these difficulties. In this PhD, the researcher attempted to understand a way in which to employ the use of subjectivity (Kobayashi, 2003). To better use subjectivity is to understand and own one’s subjectivity. This not only validates how subjectivity can influence this research but also suggests that what the researcher found may be nothing more than what the researcher was specifically looking for, sometimes without even knowing it. The following Figure 3.3 shows the experience of the researcher as a member of a disaster, development and conflict affected community, but also as a service delivery worker in different parts of the world.
This experience has created a sense of frustration and distrust about mainstream mental health interventions that are based on concepts such as PTSD and trauma. However, this frustration and distrust was not being addressed well within the mainstream concepts and interventions, where the researcher kept questioning them.
1994: Volunteering at a Government Youth Counselling Service. Confusion without guidance and with many questions about social, family, relationships and sexual problems of clients. Humanistic (Carl Roger’s) approach to problems were found not useful and refused by clients.
1995: Assistant Counsellor for a children and youth oriented counselling programme. Mainly worked with conflict affected and orphaned children and youth. Theoretically, these children and youth were supposed to suffer from PTSD and trauma, but their problems were different, including education, schools, abuse by carers, worries over their siblings and futures. I didn’t have any answers to these and my skills from humanistic counselling were inadequate.
1996: Senior Counsellor of a national NGO working with conflict affected communities in the North East of Sri Lanka. I quite enjoyed this work as I got to travel and live with communities in North East Sri Lanka. However, communities and field staff challenged the organisational assumption of trauma, stress and PTSD. They were not particularly looking for counselling or stress management, but economic, social and personal support for their tangible problems of being displaced. Further, there were many torture survivors that needed some sort of mental health support, but they were eager for legal aid assistance to access justice. Within the organisation children were treated as severely affected by the conflict and aimed to provide psychological support. As part of this I developed a stress management booklet for caregivers of children in conflict affected areas, and mainly provided some skills such as play and games. This was not received well by the expert community as it is not technically sound and theoretically displaced within trauma discourse. The two workshops described below summarise my experiences in learning at local level.
Workshop 1 – Psychological support for sexually abused children: This two day workshop was designed to teach local counsellors and carers about psychological impact of child sexual abuse. Examples were given from Norway. I couldn’t relate to these theories and experiences and couldn’t understand much of the English. According to the evaluation by others this was a very effective and useful workshop Workshop 2 – Counselling Skills: This three day workshop aimed at training local
counsellors to build confidence in their jobs. I was surprised when told not to be friendly with clients and treat them as different due to ethical concerns. In the field I live and work with communities, I found this quite confusing. However, the standards were from the American Psychological Society (APA).
1998: By this time I was frustrated and wanted to learn more about psychology and counselling. I applied to the All India Institute for Counselling, Psychotherapy and Human Relationships in Vellore, India and was accepted to study on their post-graduate programme in counselling and psychotherapy. This was a very good experience as they were more localised in their teaching. I participated in many skills learning processes. Unfortunately, they were still using the same Western modalities – a framework to provide counselling.
1998-1999: Project Advisor for the largest psychosocial project conducted by the largest national NGO in Sri Lanka. I was providing basic training for field colleagues on communications, basic organising and selected mental health skills such as care and relationship building. We conducted play and games for children. However, this approach was not being accepted by my employer and by this time I had had enough of trauma, PTSD and conflict-related mental health. I left mental health work altogether by 1999.
FIGURE 3.3: LIFE EXPERIENCE1