Collaboration and co-operation: using the voices of colleagues in psychodrama research

Abstract

This article, for the Zeitschrift fur Psychodrama und Soziometrie, focuses on a study that used collaborative qualitative research methodology; namely the Co-operative Inquiry Cycle (1988). Co-operative Inquiry Cycle (CI) aimed to identify the ways in which psychodramatists worked with people who were survivors of sexual abuse and how they ensured that the protagonist experience was healing rather than harmful and re-traumatising. This study comprised of four senior psychodrama trainers/practitioners, who acted as co-researchers and co-subjects for two cycles. The texts were collected through semi-structured interview, audio-taped and transcribed; once analysed any questions unanswered or issues that were unclear formed the basis of the second cycle of inquiry. Analysing qualitative text presents challenges to new practitioner researchers, so there is an emphasis on how to do this, using material from the study and how to present the results in coherent ways.