Researching the Moral Dimension of First-Person Narratives

Abstract

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, London, UKResearch with reflexive, narrative accounts has grown in popularity within psychology, not least because it legitimates the deployment of clinical skills. These skills are often directed toward evaluating the quality and substance of narratives according to criteria that are intrinsic to models of psychological well-being and clearly relate to professionally held moral goods. I describe a tension for the clinician-researcher between, on the one hand, evaluating a narrative according to widely accepted norms of "good" storying and, on the other, allowing the participants' own ethical logic to be privileged. Using narrative extracts from a project on parents of transgendered teenagers, I illustrate these two broad approaches to reading reflective narrative accounts. I argue that we require more studies taking a direct interest in the ordinary, unremarkable work of ethical accounting within a local moral order. Research that focuses on the moral particularity of each participant could help us both in understanding the way that ethical reasoning guides action-grasping how participants' uncertainties are expressed in the vocabulary of moral choice-and in deepening our scrutiny of the meaningfulness and relevance of our preferred clinical judgements and the ethical biases they reveal.

Ethical issues arising in the provision of medical interventions for gender diverse children and adolescents

“…For some, being immersed in the everyday life of gender incongruence and its associated injustices is a perturbing experience that may teach much about the self and the world. Parents too might contribute particular insights, given their experiences and allegiances (Wren, 2011).…”

Constructing Personal and Couple Narratives in Late‐stage Cancer: Can a Typology Illuminate the Caring Partner Perspective?

“…Wren () comments that stories of important life events are refined over time and over different contexts of telling. Blow‐by‐blow accounts may have been rehearsed and retold many times; they may have been edited and the significance adjusted in the light of subsequent knowledge and experience.…”

“…While some gave accounts of the injustice of their partner's illness or treatment, all indicated a desire to do what was right by their partner. Frank () and Wren () emphasise the importance of taking account of narrators’ ethical positions. In choosing to speak out, participants were taking a moral stand.…”