Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

The methodology of recording and transcription
Interviews introduce methodological concerns about transcription and analysis of the text as
these are in themselves interpretative tasks as ‘Transcriptions are translations from an oral
language to a written language’ (Kvale 2007: 93). To minimize translation difficulties I
adopted a verbatim record of what was said to ensure reliability and avoided editing out
potentially important material unconsciously. I did not tidy up or correct grammar and
included pauses, repeated words, and verbal non-words that communicate hmh, ah, uhm etc.
I included descriptive terms in the transcript – emphasis, loud, passion, laughter etc. –
indicating aspects of the interview that appeared on the recording but not the text to capture
the ‘feel’ of the interview.
As the overall aim was to capture the lived experience of a range of analysts from different
theoretical traditions and analytic locations a research methodology that encompassed
broader rather than narrower emphases was adopted. A thematic analysis of text fitted this
rather than discourse or conversational analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) which have very
specific transcript conventions best suited to detailed analysis of a very small number of
texts (McLeod 2001). In my research development I had been part of a discourse analysis
group looking at a text by Ricoeur where I learnt the discipline of staying with the text
rather than the associated ideas that the text stimulated in my thinking. I did not experience
this as a research method that best fitted with my evolving research identity focused on what
texts generate in the being of the researcher and the researched. I did adopt hermeneutic
principles developed by Ricoeur and other biblical scholars, drawn from my previous
training as a minister of religion, within a Baptist tradition that placed great emphasis on
reading and exposition of biblical texts (Thiselton 1980; Vanhoozer 1998).
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