Gliding across the liminal space between counsellor and counselling researcher: Using collective biography practices in the teaching of counselling research methodologies

Abstract

Aims: Drawing on their engagement in a specific collective biography research project, the co‐authors aim to demonstrate how the weaving together of creative story‐telling and the theory underlining collective biography practices resulted in an understanding of rhizomatic research methodologies from within the process. This paper aims to demonstrate one way in which research methodologies training can become more firmly embedded within counsellor training courses. Method: A collective of counselling students and a session tutor colleague used collective biography practices to research their memories of traversing the liminal space between ‘counsellor’ and ‘counselling researcher’. Alongside the resulting collective stories, a collaborative review of the research process examined our chosen ways of working within the project. Outcomes: Engaging in collective biography practices resulted in an experiential shift from ‘learning to do counselling research’ to ‘becoming counselling researchers’. Weaving together research processes and researcher reflexivity generated personal and professional learning. Ways in which these research methodologies complement core components of counselling training, within and beyond the teaching of research, were identified. Conclusions: Collective biography practices offer a way of introducing non‐arboreal creative research methodologies into counsellor training. Careful consideration of potential challenges surrounding the introduction of these practices is required.

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Reflections on Offering a Therapeutic Creative Arts Intervention With Cult Survivors: A Collective Biography

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Portraying Reflexivity in Health Services Research

“…What appeared to be a “binary” posturing of the researcher—confidence yet resistance, betwixt and between—could be considered a metaphor representing the “place” of one of us, John, as a researcher, somewhere between the academy and his former professional practice of health services management. A move from practitioner to researcher has been noted as leading to ambivalence and incongruency (LaRocco & Bruns, 2006), both resulting from and producing tension (Bandow, Minsky, & Voss, 2007), just as the shift from learning to do research to becoming a researcher requires traversing a liminal space (Dalzell, Bonsmann, & Erskine, 2010).…”