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CHAPTER FOUR
THE FIRST ANALYSIS:
THE PILOT STUDY
4.1 Introduction
This chapter looks at the analysis of the pilot study to demonstrate how it was done by
examining extracts from the data. It examines the interrelationships between the forming
categories and shows how the categories were defined. The participants‟ responses to the
analysis are included to show how they understood the categories and how the analysis seemed
to enable them to discover more about themselves.
The analysis of the journals led to the emergence of categories that split the
original constructs of
containment and freedom into the following feeling states:
1. Uncontained-unfree
2. Overcontained-overfree
3. Fighting containment-freedom
4. Desire for containment-freedom
5.
Towards containment-freedom
6. Containment-freedom
For example the category of uncontained-unfree was named through finding words in the
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journals that implied that the participants felt stuck and/or unable to move from an internal
position. This category implies
a position of no movement, a stuck place where the client can
neither, contain their own feelings or free themselves from the stuck position. The categories
were formed by finding similarities within the journals. All five participants use the words
safe/safety, and secure to describe their feelings (or how they wish to feel) with the counsellor.
This seems to suggest a desire for containment which is protective/caring of the self. However
opposing words like unsafe and vulnerable may suggest a desire for freedom
as the client may
also feel irritation towards the counsellor and want to escape from counselling. Such opposition
within each category led to the construction of the joint categories which mirror the notion of
what became the overall polarity of containment-freedom.
4.2 The analysis
Getting to know each journal was an important part of the analysis. Typing them out, accurately
copying punctuation and format on the page was part of this process. Repeated readings of each
journal created the first stage of this process so that I became familiar with them. Only then did
the task of analysing the journals commence. Words and phrases were investigated as holders of
emotional meaning, and placed in categories by colour-coding so that there was a visual
reference to each category (appendix 13). However less time was spent interpreting the journal
narratives than in the main study in that the interpretation and construct categories were worked
on simultaneously. Unlike in the main study they did not know the theme of the research so the
main aim of the analysis was to discover whether there was evidence that the containment-
freedom polarity might exist.
The following extract from a pilot study journal provides an
example of how the analysis
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progressed and how the interpretation of text and construct were written about together alongside
the journal narrative. Precedence was given to searching for opposition and discovering the
potential categories through interpreting the meanings of individual words and phrases. Initially
the whole entry was seen as being in the category of containment-freedom:
Extract 1a . Journal entry and analysis
Line Words from a journal Analysis
1.
Caught between
2. Chaos and salvation
3. I tip out the box
4. That is my secret self
5.
Upon that tranquil space
6. Beyond the sky
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