DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

thesis, and I shall later in this chapter describe why, despite its criticisms, it is still one
of the most valuable and comprehensive methodologies available.
2) The Phenomenological Approach
In 1985, Giorgi (1985) produced a seminal reader on applying
phenomenological method to psychology. Phenomenology was a continental
philosophical movement that had been developed by Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau
Ponty in the 1930s. It emphasised the study of direct experience, the avoidance of
speculative theoretical systems, thick description of the contents of consciousness or
‘the lifeworld’ and the ‘bracketing’ of a-priori theoretical assumptions when
researching. Giorgi’s application of phenomenological principles to empirical
research in psychology brought all these principles to qualitative inquiry.
3) The Discursive Approach
In 1987, Potter and Wetherell published Discourse and Social Psychology, a
book that crystallised postmodern and post-structuralist philosophical tenets into an
actionable empirical method. Post-structuralism was a philosophical movement
based substantially on the work of Foucault and Derrida. Foucault stated that it was
impossible to step outside discourse to view a situation objectively, and Derrida
emphasised that all text has ambiguity, therefore the possibility of a final and
complete interpretation is impossible. Derrida also thought that text actually
structures the world, and therefore that language shapes us. Potter and Wetherell’s
method correspondingly focused on the way in which life is shaped by text, by
ambiguous textual meanings and by social influences such as power agendas or
prejudices.
Alongside these three emerging qualitative types, Grounded Theory remained
a popular option in psychology. Grounded Theory can been used and interpreted
according to different philosophical positions; it is sometimes considered to be poststructuralist
and constructionist (e.g. Henwood and Pidgeon, 1994; Charmaz, 2000),
for others it is more phenomenological (Rennie, 2000) and for others a more realist
methodology (Strauss and Corbin, 1998), and for one of its founders it is none of the
above (Glaser, 1998). This adaptability of Grounded Theory, and its generic use
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