A Hugger Mugger of thoughts

I am currently in Switzerland - looking out across at those majestic trio of mountains, the Eiger, the Mönch and the Jungfrau.

It is a good place to gather thoughts.

I read a poignant story today - you can read it here http://laurencemoffitt.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/a-very-recent-encounter.html
One brave woman. Her story motivates me because it is for her and others like her that I keep on going at this research. It is also of course, for me  - part of my healing journey.

I am struggling a bit at the moment having decided to write the methodology section of my thesis. I find reading about phenomenology, epistemology, ontology and anything really to do with philosophy hard. But I am getting there slowly. I have read almost all the books and papers I wanted to read  before writing and today I have come up with  a structure for this section. Although this thesis is only 35000 words (largely because I have been given credit for previous work) it is still a lot of work.

The brethren continue to confuse my professional with my private life - they are to some extent intertwined but what I do in my private life has nothing to do with my professional one. This blog is a personal blog, it is intended to chart my journey, record my reflections, keep track of my state of mind, talk about emerging insights etc. It is not a professional one and has little if anything to do with my work as a therapist.

A number of former brethren are engaging in activities of remembrance - I took part when they came to Beckenham where I live. We tied yellow ribbons on the gates of the local meeting 'room' with the names of family members we have lost on them. Yellow ribbons are appearing in various places - for current pictures go to http://peebsnet.com More are waiting to be added. I like the idea - it is peaceful and non confrontational and yet makes the point that people like the woman in the story above, still cannot have normal relationships with their families.

I wonder if other groups go to such lengths to present a wonderful public face whilst behind the scenes treat people as the mother and sister did in the story above. It feels very confusing to me - very split. How can a group of people behave simultaneously in such diametrically opposing ways?

Back again - such long gaps

My desk if finally cleared and I can get back to this research. Much has got in the way such as conferences in July, daughter's visit in August from Melbourne, not to mention the activity by the lawyers representing the brethren earlier in the year. The brethren's activity at the Cardiff conference was totally inappropriate. I did not know they were there. I gave a paper based on my quantitative research and it seems two of them, at least, were in the audience. After the paper one of them handed sheets out containing excerpts of a critique written by a psychologist of my research - since he had only seen the questionnaires and the information sheet but not the methodology or the analysis I am not sure how he thought he could write a critique. The critique was light and trivial but the excerpts were taken out of context so that opinions became facts about me. Not good and not sensible of them.

So now I am reading about narrative enquiry. This is for a different study - and I repeat this blog is my personal reflections, I am writing as me the human being, my thoughts and feelings, not as me the professional. This research has little to do with my professional activities such as providing therapy for a variety of clients and research supervision for other doctoral students.  It may in the future have an impact but at the moment it is a personal journey I am on, seeking to understand the experience of being brought up in and leaving the Hales Exclusive Brethren. I can never understand definitively of course, this is not a 'hard' science but I can move further along the journey all researchers in this field are on towards the understanding of cult member's experiences as children and on leaving.

But I am struggling at the moment with philosophy - so many words that I don't quite get still like epistemology, ontology, constructionism, post structuralism etc etc groan.

So expect to see me more often here and please do comment and encourage me- it has been a difficult tough journey due to a number of factors.

Research Proposal needs revising

My task this week is to revise my research proposal - I changed the methodology some time ago but no one told me I needed to change my proposal. I have always seen a research proposal as just that - a proposal and not something that is etched in stone

I am struggling a bit - I seem to be have been so immersed in the Exclusive Brethren for months now what with finishing off the quantitative research and writing my witness statement. I hope the charity commission make up their minds soon about this proposal - everything seems to be in limbo and I don't care much for limbo-dom.

So why did I change my methodology. The one I chose originally was suggested by my supervisor - it sounded good though it took me some time to get my head around the terminology. It was the heuristic approach. As time passed I realised I was unhappy with this choice though I could not articulate why. Then I attended a masterclass on the narrative approach - and bingo I know that was the right one for me. Former Exclusive Brethren tells stories. The minute they know you are also a former member they start telling of their experiences. Telling stories is the way we have of making sense of our past.

The heuristic approach requires a lot of words and I only have 35 000. It also requires the researcher to get completely emotionally involved and walk the journey with the participants - the researcher goes through a metamorphosis themselves. It seems to be a good approach for universal concepts like loneliness but I don't think that the EB experience is universal in that sense. Each former member has very different experiences depending on a number of factors such as when they were born, how enmeshed their family was in the brethren, their personality, whether they lost family when they left, whether they have contact with that family now and so on.

So that is what I need to write about and hand in by Friday. Heads down again I think.

Dear Bloggers
I have resurrected this blog because I need somewhere to record my thoughts and reflections as I pursue my research journey. I got a bit way laid last year and for legal reasons decided to close it for a while. But here I am again.

This blog represents my own personal views and thoughts and will focus on what emerges from my qualitative study that I am doing for a doctorate. In this research I am interviewing former members of the Exclusive Brethren and exploring their narratives in order to get a better understanding as to why the experience of growing up in and leaving the brethren is so distressing.

There is much going on at the moment with the charity commission's involvement and various parliamentarians but on this blog I am going to bracket that off as much as I can and only focus on the research.

At the moment I am having to rewrite my research proposal because I have changed my methodology from the heuristic approach to narrative analysis. It is a little annoying to have to do this but as I was not really sure why I changed I am hoping it will be a useful exercise.

So my friends - I am back but in a slightly different mind set.