DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

10.9 Reflexive Considerations: The Researcher and the Final Model of Crisis
There is little doubt that another researcher who had encountered the data on
crisis in the three empirical studies would have interpreted it in a different way and
emphasised different elements, according to their own theoretical orientation and their
experiential make-up and learning. The model of crisis that emerged in Chapter 9 is
the outcome of a dialectical interaction between my own framework of reference and
the participants’ accounts of crisis, and reflects both. The model was carefully tied to
the data, and the participant exercise has shown that the participants were strongly in
agreement with the model as a satisfactory interpretive summary of their crises. But
on the other side of the dialectic, how does the theory relate to me as a person?
As I mentioned in Chapter 1, I am someone who tries to synthesise ideas and
theories, and correspondingly tend to work between established paradigms and
theories. The eclectic nature of the thesis is clearly a result of this trait, and the
integrative nature of the Chapter 9 model (it has social, motivational, identity and
experiential elements) is also a reflection of this desire for synthesis. I have always
been interested by the big questions of psychology – what is the mind? What is
suffering? What is an explanation? What is psychosocial ‘adaptation’? What is
development? It was this tendency that led me to ask the generic question ‘What is
crisis?’ that underpins this thesis. I am aware that some qualitative psychologists
prefer to maintain a local focus, but I believe that psychology as a discipline should
not shy away from what postmodernists might call “meta-narratives” – larger ideas
that link local ideas together. I think if we leave generic conceptual issues out of our
range of focus we leave them implicit and unchallenged.
I am also an amateur student of philosophy and help run a philosophy book
group in my spare time. This undoubtedly influenced my choice of topic; the thesis in
many ways can be seen as an empirical look at an age-old philosophical idea that can
be traced back to the Stoics; that it is through experiencing adversity that we grow to
become fully human.
On the personal side, I have had my own experience of crisis. Prior to
studying for the PhD I was working as a research executive in a market research
consultancy just south of London. Over the two years I was there, I became deeply
unhappy with myself and the lifestyle I was leading. I felt like I felt like I was
disappearing into a hole of corporate mediocrity. I didn’t like the idea that all my
efforts were in the end orientated towards one end only – the profit of our clients. My
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