are 2 of the most well-known American psychologists from the mid-20th century. Less well-known, however, is their pioneering methodological work. In this article we explicate their transgressive research, their epistemological visions, and their struggles to enact a more existential, historical, relational, participatory, and experientially focused human science. Using their personal documents, as well as published and unpublished works, we weave their stories to create an assemblage of these unknown, unacknowledged, or forgotten histories. We try to show that, for both Maslow and Leary, the phenomena and questions they sought to understand drove them from the prevailing modernist ethos and toward new ways of thinking and working. In the process, they fashioned methods for, and visions of, science that have striking echoes in the contemporary qualitative traditionsexperimenting with unquantified stories and texts as data, with iterative interpretive methods, with participatory research relationships, and with existential and postmodern philosophies of science. Of course, these bold forays into the unsanctioned forward edge of psychological inquiry were disciplined in different ways-expulsion for Leary and assimilation for Maslow, erasure for both-and this also is instructive for us. The experiences of these influential scholars reveal how the challenges and potentials of the use of personal documents in research were (and are) embedded in a broader struggle over the scientific and political value of human experience.
In contrast to an often-repeated and reductive story about the establishment of psychological research practices, the narrative of the field’s methodological development is unfolding, contentious, and situated within a wide range of historical developments. Such dynamism is evident in the recent ascension of qualitative inquiry. A new generation of researchers, scholars, and instructors are embracing methodological pluralism and qualitative inquiry, but their expectations may be incompatible with existing curricular materials that are rooted in the historical legacy of the standard storyline. To assess the extent to which (and how) qualitative research was presented to readers, we conducted a summative content analysis of nine best-selling U.S.-based introductory research methods in psychology textbooks. We found that the coverage and treatment of qualitative research is varied, spotty, dependent on a problematic and pejorative framing, and incommensurate with contemporary methodological thinking and learning standards. The perpetuation of misleading and/or incoherent epistemic narratives and the minimal and/or absent presentation of qualitative inquiry are significant obstacles for the next generation of research methods instructors. The dearth of sufficiently inclusive methodological training materials poses a challenge for new teachers who recognize the need for a more sophisticated approach to science education—specifically within the field of psychology.
The Listening Guide (LG) is a method for narrative inquiry into people's inner worlds, their sense-making, and their navigation of experiences, relationships, and conflicts. The LG is appropriate for research questions predicated on unearthing the "psychological logic" of how people live with, in and against conflict and challenge in human experience. A fundamental principle of the LG is that the psyche-the soul, the self, the inner worldis relational, dynamic, embodied, and in constant inter-action with the social, material, and cultural contexts within which experience occurs, and enters the social world through the telling of stories about one's experience. We offer a "how to" primer to clarify what the LG method is and how to do a LG analysis. We begin by laying out this methodology-the foundational commitments of curiosity and empathy-by clarifying the key concepts of the embedded psyche, voice(s) and voicing, and relational attunement-to make clear that the LG is an interpretive approach focused on illuminating the psychological processes and psychological logic of the people who share their stories with us. We will then explain the method, the fundamentals of the five steps that comprise a LG analysis, providing a succinct scaffolding of how this methodology is translated into a method. Finally, we will put "flesh on the bones" of this scaffolding by presenting two LG analyses from our own very different studies, showing how each step works toward building an interpretation to answer a research question, including our reflective analytic processes.
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