States of Mind in Social Work and Society – Methodological innovations in social work research

1. States of Mind in Social Work and Society – Methodological innovations in social work research Vimala Uttarkar

2. Methodology in practice-near Research: • My Research Questions • Finding suitable methodology • Explaining the methods I used • Exploring subjectivity

3. My Study In this study I attempted to understand how mental health workers deal with the emotional impact of working with people suffering from severe mental illness in the community.

4. ‘…….the simple fact (is) that mental illness is unbearable; that working with people who are losing their mind is unbearable. The sense of deterioration and unbearability that plagued psychiatric hospital backwards did not reflect the abuse of the mentally ill from this perspective. The unbearability of the psychiatric hospital backward reflected the awfulness and deterioration that is mental illness. From this perspective, the function of the new mental health philosophies and models of practice was not to improve the lot of the mentally ill, but rather to manage the despair of the and provide the illusion of progress in an area where progress is slow.’ Morris (2002) (p83/84).

5. Research design The nature of the study and a relatively small sample meant that a qualitative research design was preferred using a method that was ‘inductive’ or ‘grounded’ rather than ‘experimental’ (Balint 1993). In the attempt to capture the intra-psychic and inter-subjective experiences of workers as they interact with this particular group of clients, I favoured a research design that facilitated the gathering of data in its natural settings and interpreting the phenomena according to the meanings that participants themselves gave to them.

6. Questions: • Are workers aware of these impacts? • How do they cope with the relative lack of meaningful achievement in their day-to-day work? • What qualities do they possess to enable them to continue to work in this way? • Does professional training have any bearing on these experiences or coping mechanisms? • What actually happens in these teams? • What structures and processes are there to help these processes?

7. Choice of Methods In order to ensure the validity of my findings, and for ‘the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials’ Denzin and Lincoln (1998 p3), I adopted a qualitative research with multiple interconnected methods. However, the choice of methods must facilitate data collection without too much complication

8. Methodology for data collection Methodology for different stages of research: • Questionnaire • Observation of team meetings • Observation of individual home visits • Interviews with individual social workers • Interviews with senior managers and commissioners • Feedback from the research seminar group • Feedback from the Teams about my findings • Examination of relevant documents • Examination of my own perspectives

9. Survey to select the sample:Questionnaire In an attempt to get a representative sample of workers and teams, I constructed a questionnaire to elicit information about teams, including the clarity of purpose for the team, availability of policies and procedures, details of staff make-up, length of service, turnover and sickness, serious incidents involving staff and/or patients, support structures in the form of supervision, consultation and meetings. A questionnaire that would not take the team manager more than ten minutes to answer

10. Observations • Hammersley and Atkinson (1995) point out that ‘Ethnography as the most basic form of social research, bears close resemblance to the routine ways in which people make sense of the world in everyday life’(p1). Rather than testing a hypothesis, it involves participant observation by the researcher in the exploration of a particular social phenomenon, by collecting unstructured data that is analysed to gain explicit interpretation of the meanings and contexts of human actions, through detailed verbal descriptions rather than statistical tables. • Rustin points out that ‘participant observations of ethnographic or case-study methods can be the original sources of insights which are subsequently formulated as concepts and hypotheses, and tested in more empirically rigorous ways’ (1997 p56),

11. Interviews • The interviews encouraged participants to talk about their experiences and views of their work – using prompts to elicit details within their narratives • As Holstein and Gubrium (1997) state, ‘understanding how the meaning-making process unfolds in the interview is as critical as apprehending what is substantively asked and conveyed. The hows of interviewing, of course, refer to the interactional, narrative procedures of knowledge production not merely to interview techniques. The whatspertain to the issues guiding the interview, the content of questions, and the substantive information communicated by the respondent’ (p114).

12. Triangulation It is acknowledged that these teams, like all human organisations, are complex systems with intricate relationships which may produce unpredictable and transitory processes that are impossible to validate. With this in mind, triangulation was sought through using different kinds of methodology for data collection, using a range of theoretical concepts and multiple sources of data.

13. Distortions by the researcher • In conducting this research, I had the advantage that I had prior knowledge of the context and so was able to understand the circumstances of the data I collected. • However, the concept of an independent reality has evoked intense epistemological debates in terms of the possibility of conceiving an external reality without considering the researcher’s function in creating and understanding it.

14. Researcher use of self • Knowledge and experience of the field • Identification with the workers and the work • Awareness of transferences and counter transferences • Appreciation of researcher predisposition and bias • Choice of the focus on data for presentation • Evidencing my interpretation of the data

15. Researcher - self The researcher’s self-portrayal as either too deeply committed to or clearly outside of the context, influences the choice of cultural stories that are revealed and the way they are presented. The interpretation and understanding of the responses are in turn greatly influenced by the researcher’s own beliefs and interests.

16. Self in data collection • In introducing myself and my research project to the teams, I briefly revealed my background. • I was also careful to ensure that all the respondents were somewhat familiar with me through my observations of a few team meetings before approaching individual workers for participation. • Workers were individually observed during their visits to their clients prior to being interviewed. This level of familiarity with the respondents enabled me to facilitate the weaving of authentic accounts of their personal worlds along with the cultural stories about the teams in their responses.

17. Self in data Interpretation • Research Supervision was particularly helpful in examining my own perspectives both in the transcription of the data and I attempts to understand and interpret it. • Peers in the Research seminar contributed actively from the development of the questions, collection and interpretation of the data, helping me to examine my bias at each stage