Review: Jörg Frommer & David Rennie (Eds.) (2001). Qualitative Psychotherapy Research: Methods and Methodology

Abstract

FROMMER and RENNIE present a stimulating, thought provoking collection of papers which are surprisingly well-integrated despite the diversity of methods and approaches discussed. In the first section of the book, various theoretical and conceptual bases for qualitative psychotherapy research are proposed and the location of qualitative research within a "double hermeneutic" is described. In the second section, an array of methods and approaches to research are described and evaluated. Athough some of the methods proposed in this section contradict and undermine both each other and the conceptual/theoretical frameworks proposed in the first section, this is, nevertheless, a valuable and insightful text. Its focus on the negotiation and analysis of personal narratives in the sensitive settting of therapy raises issues of interpretation, pragmatics and ethics which are of great relevance for qualitative researchers more generally, and this book is highly recommended to anyone working in the field. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs020464

Keywords

• epistemology
• hermeneutics
• psychoanalysis