Friday, 14 January 2005 - 8:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Sexual Abuse

Qualitative Research with Childhood Abuse Survivors: Addressing Boundary Issues between Investigator and Participant

This workshop will review ethical issues and boundary quandaries encountered when conducting qualitative research with survivors of childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to discuss issues such as those related to time and place, relationship (e.g., requests for personal self-disclosure), physical contact (e.g., hugs), confidentiality concerning participant safety, and the researcher versus counsellor role.

Two studies based on a constructivist paradigm using an ethnographic approach or grounded theory to analyze the data, and one study using a semi-structured interview will be discussed. In-depth qualitative interviews were completed with: (a) 30 male and female survivors of childhood abuse six months after discharge from an in-patient trauma program to assess what was helpful or not helpful in maintaining treatment gains, and (b) 11 male and female childhood sexual abuse survivors to understand therapist-client boundaries. A third study employed the Adult Attachment Interview, a semi-structured interview, based in a positivist paradigm, with 40 female survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Dilemmas faced when working from participant-centred, empowerment based approaches will be discussed.

Interpersonal boundaries define the limits of relationships, make them consistent and predictable, and protect participants from harm. In qualitative research that requires investigators to be responsive to participants and their concerns in order to understand them better, these limits can be challenged. Informed consent is used to address ethical issues such as confidentiality of information and risks to participants, but rarely are the more ambiguous boundary issues addressed. Individual researchers often must make these decisions with little time for reflection. Furthermore, there is a paucity of literature in this area that can guide them in decision-making.

The use of unstructured and semi-structured interviews with survivors will be discussed in terms of their relationship to the occurrence of boundary dilemmas. Fontana and Frey (1994) note that, influenced by feminist researchers and in the interest of developing greater intimacy between investigator and participant, researchers are “doing away with the traditional, hierarchical situation in interviewing” (p. 370). Interviews related to abuse are usually emotion-laden, and feelings of intimacy often develop between the investigator and survivor; these dynamics can potentially lead to an increased risk for crossing boundaries. It is important, therefore, that investigators consider these dilemmas when undertaking research with this population.

The goal of this workshop is to begin to fill a void in the literature and to encourage qualitative researchers to reflect on the ethical issues and boundary dilemmas that may arise in studies involving abuse survivors. Workshop participants will be encouraged to describe ethical issues and boundary dilemmas they have encountered while conducting research with similar populations. The objective of the workshop is to encourage participants to identify potential high-risk situations and consider principles for decision-making regarding interviewer boundaries when conducting qualitative research with vulnerable populations.

Fontana, A. & Frey, J.H. (1994). Interviewing: The art of science. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 361-376.

See more of Sexual Abuse
See more of Oral and Poster

See more of Celebrating a Decade of SSWR (January 13 - 16, 2005)