Beyond Heuristic Research: A Journey In Subjectivity
Jeanne P. Stubbs
Jerold D. Bozarth
University of Georgia
Heuristic research "..refers to a process of internal search
through which one discovers the nature and meaning of experience
and develops methods and procedures for further investigation and
analysis.." (Moustakas,1990, p. 9). Heuristic research is
characterized by an exploration for the discovery of the meaning
and essence of human experience" (Barrineau & Bozarth,1989, p.
467). Indeed, the goal of qualitative research, labeled
ethnography by anthropologists, is "to grasp the native's point
of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his
world" (Malinowski,1922, p. 25, cited in Spradley, 1980, p. 3).
This article notes the relationship between heuristic research
(Moustakas,1990) and the Person-Centered Research model
(Barrineau & Bozarth,1989) which was developed from the
principles of Person-Centered Psychotherapy (also called
Client-Centered Psychotherapy) (Rogers,1951). A systematic
summary of the principles of the Person-Centered Research Model
is proposed and examples from research conducted in
Czechoslovakia during a cross-cultural communication workshop is
presented.
The Person-Centered Research model was developed from the
principles of Person-Centered Psychotherapy. The crux of the
client-centered approach or person-centered approach (CC/PC) in
psychotherapy is the following: "The essence of CC/PC therapy is
the therapist's dedication to going with the client's direction,
at the client's pace, and with the client's unique way of being"
(Bozarth, 1990, p .1). Carl R. Rogers (1957), who developed this
approach to psychotherapy and to interpersonal relationships in
general, hypothesized that there were three core conditions to be
experienced by the therapist that were necessary and sufficient
for constructive personality change of the client. These core
conditions are: (1) Genuineness which refers to the therapist
being a "real" person who is able to maintain a self awareness
and centeredness within the world of the other person, (2)
Unconditional positive regard which refers to the therapist's
ability to allow the client to "be whatever immediate feeling is
going on - confusion, resentment, fear, anger, love, or pride
(Rogers, 1980, p.116), (3) Empathy which refers to the
understanding of the person's world as if the therapist is that
person. The only "goal" of the therapist in person-centered
therapy is to create an atmosphere by experiencing these
attitudes toward the client which then promotes a natural
organismic growth process labeled the actualizing tendency in the
client (Bozarth & Mitchell,1984). The therapist is not in search
of resolving problems, identifying causes for aberrant behaviors
or suggesting therapeutic interventions. The understanding
gained from open inquiry in conjunction with unconditional
positive regard experienced toward the client by the genuine
therapist is the sine qua non that promotes the natural
organismic growth process of the client. The path of
heuristic research and person-centered research seems to be
common when considering open-ended inquiry, indwelling,
illumination, and the researcher's immersion in the phenomenon
being experienced. However, the paths of the two models may
diverge upon consideration of the "extent of the emphasis" of the
investigator's "centered" self-disciplined dedication to the
internal reference of the client/co-researcher. In practice, the
person-centered therapist works with no particular preconceptions
about what a client might do or be or become and goes with the
client in any and all directions of exploration dictated by the
client no matter how absurd or "off base" they might seem from
external observation.
Guidelines for a person-centered research model:
The following guidelines were proposed by Barrineau and
Bozarth (1989) as the beginning of a systematization of the
principles of the person-centered research model. They suggest
that the researcher approach data collection by: - embodying
oneself as much as possible in the attitudinal qualities of
genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathy -
working toward freeing oneself of presuppositions about the
individuals or phenomenon being investigated
- striving toward total attention and receptivity to these
individuals or phenomena - focusing on understanding the
person's world (including feelings, cognition, and meanings)
and testing these understandings (pp. 472-473). A Study
Application:
The following discourse offers examples of the application
of the person-centered research model in a cross-cultural study
of the phenomenon of the "Person-Centered Community Group"
conducted by J. P. Stubbs. The research questions of the study
are: What is the individual experiencing of the participants
within the person-centered community workshops? and What are the
themes or patterns of individual experiencing? The data
collection measure was conversational interviews of thirty to
sixty minutes. The Person-Centered Community Group is a term
used to identify the application of the principles of the
person-centered approach to large groups. Such groups include
groups that are intensive training programs, professional
organizations and cross-cultural training programs. The general
depiction of such groups are that fifty to 400 individuals meet
over a period of four days to two weeks in a large community
group. During the large community group, other activities are
decided upon. These activities often entail small interaction
groups, topic group discussions, participant demonstrations, and
leisure activities. Participants usually live in a dorm or
similar community type setting. There are experienced
facilitators who attempt to create an atmosphere for personal
growth by experiencing and communicating the attitudinal
conditions of genuineness, unconditional positive regard and
empathic understanding.
Research including excerpts from interviews conducted in
two towns in eastern Czechoslovakia illustrate the investigator's
striving toward following the aforementioned guidelines of the
person-centered research model. In April, 1991, a small country
inn served as the site of a Person-Centered Community Training
Program sponsored by the Center for Cross-Cultural
Communication. Ninety-seven individuals of varying professions
from nine countries gathered together to study, train, and
experience the person-centered approach to psychotherapy.
Translation was provided in three working languages, English,
Russian, and Slovak/Czech. An ethereal experiencing of freeing of
individuals was an emergent theme in the interviews conducted at
this site. In July, 1991, a Cross-Cultural Communication
Workshop, occurred in Modra-Harmonia, Czechoslovakia. Three
hundred twenty-nine participants from nineteen countries gathered
to expand intercultural communication, hoping to meet the
challenges of becoming more complete as individuals as well as
better members of the world community. Translation was provided
in English, French, and Slovak/Czech. Ironically, the site of
the cross-cultural workshop had previously served as a communist
school whose purpose was to prepare people for positions in the
communist party. However, since the Revolution in Czechoslovakia,
the school had become a school for nursing. It was in the
gymnasium that the participants initially gathered in an
oppressively sweltering heat, accented periodically by a slight
breeze entering from only a few of the predominately unopened
windows overhead. As the days of the workshop continued,
impending onerous sounds of dynamite blasting from a nearby
quarry periodically accentuated the struggles within the
workshop. An overwhelming aura of impending aggression was
sensed by the researcher and reiterated in the interviews. A
Hungarian man stated ". . . somehow the bombs are not coming. .
. you know in a group sometimes you can feel the tick of the time
bomb and, you know that's here . . . and I have a lot of fear of
here." The overwhelming aura of fear and aggression permeated
the workshop to the point that an emergent theme from the
interviews and field notes was "fleeing." Ironically, the
researcher notes that only a month after this workshop, the
turmoil and collapse of the Soviet Union occurred. The influence
of the communist regime in the history of the majority of the
nations represented at the workshop is omnipresent.
It was in these emerging themes of "freeing" and "fleeing"
that the researcher conducted interviews endeavoring to recreate
the individual experiencing of the participants. One guideline
of the person-centered research model involves the extent of the
researcher's embodying the attitudinal qualities of genuineness,
unconditional positive regard, and empathy. Peshkin (1988)
recognized the significance of the associative variables of the
researcher and the researching as being vital to the issue of
subjectivity in qualitative research. The intensity of the
imprint of personal factors of the researcher on the research
design and hence on data gathering may be correlated to the
extent of the dedication of the researcher to "know thyself."
Therefore, the dedication of the researcher's embodiment of the
attitudinal quality of genuineness, maintaining a self-awareness
and centeredness within the world of the other person, is vital
in data collection. Not only does a self perception of who the
researcher is affect the research question and what is studied,
but also who the researcher is perceived to be affects the issue
of accessibility of what the researcher is allowed to see and
whom the researcher is allowed to meet. The interviews in this
study were opportunistic sampling based on interaction within the
workshop with the participants. The attitudinal qualities of
genuineness, unconditional positive regard and empathy may have
engendered a more trusting and freeing atmosphere to the extent
that the participants allowed their interviews to be taped in a
country historically limiting in freedom. To be allowed to speak
and even more to tape these interviews with people whose very
lives only one year ago could have been endangered as a result
of something they had said, this researcher believes is a
testimony to her endeavoring to embody the attitudinal qualities.
One egregious example of the researcher's striving towards
freeing herself of presuppositions about the individuals or
phenomenon being investigated involved an interaction at a meal
with the first person she eventually interviewed in Pezinok. As
she sat at a table, she was formally addressed by a middle-aged
man, a clinical psychologist, who asked, "For what purpose did
you sit at this table?" The researcher had been struggling for
two days with an awareness that there seemed to be an
overwhelming and almost imprisoning atmosphere of loyalty to
groups within the workshop. She presupposed that this country's
culture was the cause. In an effort to respect the culture
of "group think," she felt a restraint on her own individual
freedom. Therefore, the question from this man suggested to her
that she had again broken some kind of group taboo. The man's
second comment that this table was for vegetarians seemed to
reemphasize her supposition. However, in an effort to be genuine
and to free herself from the "group presupposition" she stated in
response that the table looked like a friendly table. The man
then began to laugh and stated that he had wanted to invite her
to join his group. They began to joke about all the different
"groups" she had imagined and he even added a few. This
interaction led to an interview in which the man recounted his
freeing experience in terms of self-acceptance when the group
pressured him to speak.
And in a moment . . . there was a pressure on me to speak
more about something . . . the whole group made a pressure
on me. Speak, speak, and I was in a tension. And in that
moment the facilitator said "Well you know, if you don't want
to speak it's perfectly okay." And it was the very first moment
which made me good, made me feel well. And it made me feel
safer . . . the great point of that change was that I felt
my mother (the facilitator) accepts me with all my mistakes,
all my wrong qualities . . . Because I was not accepted by my
own mother, long ago in my childhood.
An interview with a man from Hungary attending the
cross-cultural workshop in Modra-Harmonia is an illustration of
the researcher's striving toward total attention and receptivity
to the individual or phenomena. This man stated with great
anxiety that he might not be able to answer many of the questions
in the interview because he was not attending the workshop as a
private citizen but as a representative of the government. In an
attempt to focus totally on him and to be receptive to him, the
researcher gave him total control of the tape recorder, promoting
a free flowing atmosphere. Consequently, he felt open enough to
make statements about political persecution in which he had
continuously been relocated as a result of his family being
politically, religiously and financially influential. These
upheavals in his life, from the time he was three, included
changes in religion, forced relocation of a place to live, and
the loss of his father. Some of his statements revealed his
finding his "roots" and its effect on his life and his view of
politics:
If you are in the historical situation where your home is
taken away at all times, you have not the feeling of the
safety of your micro milieu [community] . . . But somehow
this process in the last year, it was for me to base or to have
safety to make my own life. . . Uh . . . I think l learned
in person-centered group to cry. I'm not sure but I think
really cry, and I had it held for a long time maybe
sometimes I have now, l don't know. I learned to confront .... I
think cross-cultural groups could be one of the most
important tool to handle such problems what is in Yugoslavia
. . . because the tools of the politician is limited,
because it's not enough to handle the detail between people . .
. And I think that the non-directivity is very important to
teach the people how to turn from a Stalinistic or from
centralized determined system to the liberty. The guideline
of focusing on understanding the person's world and testing these
understandings can be illustrated through an interview at
Modra-Harmonia with a fifty-two year old black woman from
Jamaica. During the interview she stated that her cultural
background was a factor in her focus on power and personal
empowerment. The researcher found herself testing her
understanding of the cultural concept and consequently was able
to understand the concept of the intertwining of power and
personal empowerment in this woman's life. The woman's focusing
on this concept and the researcher's testing her understanding on
the cultural background engendered a free flowing atmosphere
revealing the following statements:
So it doesn't matter what I achieve, l still have to break
through the barrier of being black before I can be accepted
as who I am . . . And there are times when I still slip
back in that you know. And there are times when I get back in
there and feel quite powerless. . . The person-centered
approach what that has done has enabled me to focus and
really take hold of that power and to actually appreciate
how I can use it constructively and continue to struggle and to
try because it is worthwhile.
The preceding research are testimonial examples to the
reality of the researcher's endeavoring to follow the guidelines
of the person-centered research model resulting in a natural
emerging creation of a free flowing atmosphere engendering a
heightened awareness of the researcher, the research, the
researching, and hence the results of the qualitative study.
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