SWNOVELS Chapter The Gifts of Imperfection: About the Research Process
For Thrill-Seekers and Methodology Junkies
Many years ago, a young woman came up to me after a speaking event and said, “I hope you won’t think this is weird or rude or something, but you don’t look like a researcher.” She didn’t say anything else; she just stood there waiting and looking confused.
I smiled and asked, “What do you mean?”
She replied, “You seem so normal.”
I chuckled. “Well, looks can be deceiving. I’m so not normal.”
We ended up having a great conversation. She was a single mother getting her undergraduate degree in psychology and loved her research classes, but her faculty advisor wasn’t encouraging her to pursue the research track. We talked about work and motherhood and what researchers are supposed to look like. It seemed that I was missing the mice, the long white lab coat, and the Y chromosome. She told me, “I pictured older white guys working in labs and studying mice, not a soccer mom studying feelings.”
The journey that led me to become a researcher was anything but a straight and narrow path, which, ironically, is probably why and how I ended up studying human behavior and emotion for a living. I was a college drop-in and drop-out for a number of years. During my “off semesters,” I waited tables and tended bar, hitchhiked through Europe, played a lot of tennis… you get the point.
I found the social work profession in my late twenties and knew it was home. I did a two-year stint in junior colleges to raise my GPA enough to get into a big university with a social work program. It was in those junior college classes that I fell in love with the idea of teaching and writing.
After years of dropping out, I graduated with honors from the University of Texas–Austin with my bachelor’s degree in social work when I was twenty-nine and immediately applied for graduate school at the University of Houston. I got accepted, worked hard and finished my master’s, and was accepted into the doctoral program.
During my doctoral studies, I discovered qualitative research. Unlike quantitative research, which is about tests and statistics that give you what you need to predict and control phenomena, qualitative research is about finding patterns and themes that help you better understand the phenomenon you’re studying. They’re equally important approaches but very different.
I use a specific qualitative methodology called Grounded Theory.¹
I was fortunate enough to be trained by Barney Glaser, one of the two men who developed the methodology in the 1960s. Dr. Glaser commuted from California to serve as the methodologist on my dissertation committee.
The basic premise of Grounded Theory research is to start with as few preconceived ideas and assumptions as possible so that you can build a theory based on the data that emerges from the process. For example, when I first started with what I would later refer to as Wholehearted Research, I had two questions: What is the anatomy of human connection, and how does it work? After studying the best and worst of humanity, I had learned that nothing is as important as human connection and I wanted to know more about the ins and outs of how we develop meaningful connections.
In the process of collecting data to answer the questions, I ran into shame—this thing that corroded connection. I decided to take a quick detour to understand shame so that I could better understand connection. At that point, my questions became, “What is shame, and how does it affect our lives?”
My quick detour turned into eight years (there was lots to learn). I posed new questions based on what I had learned: The research participants who had embraced their vulnerabilities and imperfections and developed a powerful level of resilience to shame seemed to value a certain way of living. What did they value, and how did they cultivate what they needed? These questions became the basis for determining what it takes for most people to live with their whole hearts.
My data doesn’t come from questionnaires or surveys; I interview people and collect stories using field notes. I’m basically a story catcher. When the first edition of this book was published, I had collected more than ten thousand stories. I’d done formal research interviews with close to one thousand participants individually and in focus groups. People shared their stories with me through letters, email, my blog, and the courses I’ve taught. Some have even sent me their art and copies of their journals. I’ve also presented to tens of thousands of mental health professionals who have shared their case studies with me.
When I’m finished interviewing, I analyze the stories for themes and patterns so I can generate theories from the data. When I code data (analyze the stories), I go into deep researcher mode where my only focus is on accurately capturing what I heard in the stories. I don’t think about how I would say something, only how they said it. I don’t think about what an experience would mean to me, only what it meant to the person who told me about it.
Rather than approaching a problem and saying, “I need to collect evidence of what I know to be true,” the Grounded Theory approach forces me to let go of my interests and investments so I can focus on the concerns, interests, and ideas of the people I interview.
The data-coding process is laborious and difficult. My husband, Steve, likes to leave town with the kids when I go into my comparing, coding, memoing phase. He says it’s kind of scary because I walk around the house dazed and mumbling with a stack of yellow legal pads in my hands. It’s a very attractive process.
What I love/hate the most about Grounded Theory is that it’s never really done. The theory that you generate from your data is only as “good” as its ability to explain new data. That means every time you collect a new story or a new piece of information, you have to hold it up against the theory you’ve developed. Does it work? Does it ring true? Does your existing theory work this new data in a meaningful way?
If you follow my work, you can probably attest to the evolving nature of my theory-building. If you want to honor the stories that people have shared with you, you have to stay rigorous in your attempts to accurately capture their meaning. It’s a challenge, but I honestly love what I do.
If you’re really interested in Grounded Theory or if you want more information on methodology, visit my Web site for links to the academic articles on Shame Resilience Theory (brenebrown.com).