Professor R K Etherington

• Narrative, collaborative, reflexive research. 

Postdoctoral research:

• A narrative, heuristic, collaborative study of counselling adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse (with two ex-clients).
• A study of how childhood trauma is lived out in the body and the resources used to heal. A collective autoethnography - ten people writing their own stories (including the researcher).
• A study about becoming a reflexive researcher and using our selves in research. Narrative methodology - conversational interviewing with people at different stages of 'becoming' researchers.
• A qualitative study commissioned by the Southmead Drugs Project (funded by the European Social Fund) to evaluate their services and to explore any potential links between trauma and subsequent substance misuse. This work involves using questionnaires, interviews and narrative inquiry. Volunteer researchers, with research training, were enlisted to help with this work and a research assistant was employed.
• A study of the links between childhood trauma, substance misuse and how people transform their drug user identities. By using Life Story Methodology this study provides an account across the length of eight lives whilst focusing on particulars aspect of lived experience, i.e. drug misuse and the transformation of identities.

PhD Research:

• 'Adult Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual abuse'. Interviews with 25 men - phenomenological study with narratives.

MSc research:

• 'The father-daughter relationship and its impact on the lives of adult women'. Interviews with 12 women - heuristic inquiry with thematic analysis.

Diploma research:

• 'The Disabled Person's Act: the need for counselling'. 26 questionnaires and interviews with 12 people registered as disabled with Social Services.