Qualitative Story Completion for Counseling Psychology Research: A Creative Method to Interrogate Dominant Discourses

Qualitative story completion (SC) research involves the novel qualitative application of a technique previously used in quantitative research and clinical assessment, in which participants write stories in response to a story "stem" designed by the researcher. The resulting stories are ana...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of counseling psychology 2021-04, Vol.68 (3), p.286-298
Main Authors: Moller, Naomi P., Clarke, Victoria, Braun, Virginia, Tischner, Irmgard, Vossler, Andreas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical assessment
Clinical research
Counseling Psychology
Creativity
Discourses
Focus Groups
Human
Interrogation
Intersectionality
Mental health
Projective Techniques
Psychological assessment
Qualitative research
Quantitative analysis
Resistance (Psychology)
Self report
Social Justice
Statistical Analysis
Thematic Analysis
Therapeutic Environment
Workplaces
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Summary:Qualitative story completion (SC) research involves the novel qualitative application of a technique previously used in quantitative research and clinical assessment, in which participants write stories in response to a story "stem" designed by the researcher. The resulting stories are analyzed to identify patterns of meaning using conventional qualitative analytic approaches such as thematic analysis. In place of the more typical self-report methods used in qualitative research, such as interviews or focus groups, the method provides a categorically different way to explore a topic, one which can offer new understandings to counseling psychology researchers. In particular, SC's capacity to illuminate social discourses makes it particularly useful for understanding the potential ways in which socially marginalized populations are understood in therapeutic spaces as well as for understanding how clients of all kinds may make sense of therapeutic interactions. This article provides an introduction to qualitative SC, explaining the method and its origins, and offering practical guidance about how to use it. The method is illustrated with examples from the existing SC literature and a hypothetical study focused on understandings of mental health difficulties in the workplace. Public Significance Statement This article introduces a method of data collection, qualitative story completion. The article argues that by providing a different type of data (stories), new possibilities are opened up to counseling psychology researchers.
ISSN:0022-0167
1939-2168
DOI:10.1037/cou0000538