The Narratives Which Connect…

Appendix 2. Consent form

CONSENT FORM

Project: Family Therapists’ Personal Life’s Influence on Clinical Practice

Name of Researcher: Per Jensen, Diakonhjemmets høgskole, Oslo.
Contact Phone No: 22 45 19 87 or best: e-mail: [e-mail]


1. I have read and understand the information sheet and have had the opportunity to ask questions.
2. My participation is voluntary and confidential and I am free to withdraw at any time, without giving any reason or legal rights being affected.
3. I understand that any tape or video-recording made will be destroyed at the end of the research.
4. I understand that any publication resulting from this research will not identify me in any way.
5. I agree to take part in the above study.
Name Date Signature
Address of Informant
Researcher Date Signature
1 for informant; 1 for researcher;
Tavistock & Portman

Appendix 3. Research ethics committee

Research Ethics Committee

Approval Form³⁵

All research proposed by staff or students, directly or indirectly involving human beings (patients, volunteers or others) must have the prior approval of the Research Ethics Committee.
Your name: Per Jensen

Your address: Bestumveien 86F, 0283 Oslo, Norway
Tel [phone] Fax [phone] Att: Jensen E-mail: [e-mail]
Present Position (full details) Associate Professor and Course Director at Diakonhjemmet College (post graduate education in family therapy)
Course you are attending at Tavistock and Portman

_____________________________________________________________

No: M 10 (Norway, distant learning group) Name: Doctorate in Systemic Psychotherapy

_____________________________________________________________
Name of your supervisor at Tavistock & Portman: Arlene Vetere, Ph D
Present position: Senior Lecturer in Systemic Psychotherapy

Address Tavistock Clinic:

Tel [phone] Fax [phone] E-mail: [e-mail]
Name of external supervisor (if applicable): Solrun Williksen, Ph D
Present position: Social anthropologist
Address; Sosialantropologisk Institutt, Universitetet i Trondheim, Norway
Tel [phone] Fax: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail]
Name(s) of other Ethics committees who need to agree your proposal.

Name of Norwegian Committee involved: The National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (Oslo, Norway).

When do you plan to start your research? November 2003
1. Title of your research project:

“The Pattern Which Connects”. Research study of the influence of family therapists’ own personal lives on their clinical practice

2. 
   What is your research question? (use plain English, approx 250 words)
   

The Pattern Which Connects: Looking for patterns that connect therapist’s personal lives with their clinical practice. And my research question is: How do we work with personal narratives in family therapy training and clinical practice: How does the therapist's own life history and personal experience influence the way he/she understands and practices systemic family therapy? What are the influences from systemic family therapy on the therapist's own life and how he/she thinks about the way he/she lives it?

2. 
   Who do you plan to interview? (Please give full details)
   

• 
  clinical patients professionals: Using the theoretical sampling strategy of grounded theory, my primary strategy will be to recruit between 6 – 9 family therapists with different lengths of practice experience from inside Norway. There will be 3 groups. Two or three therapists will be beginners (novices), two or three will be recently qualified and two (three) will be very experienced family therapists.
  

- relatives of patients
- non-clinical population
- others (who?)
4. How will your informants be

• 
  Selected: To approach and address the research question I will do individual interviews with three different groups, (two or three family therapist’s in each group with different experiences). Two groups will be recruited from inside a Norwegian family therapy education programme and one group will be recruited outside an educational program in family therapy. Participants from inside a program should come from the first year and the final year to sample therapists with both less and more experience with the education program. I will not choose participants that I have supervised clinically. Participants from outside a program could be graduates from Diakonhjemmet College or other programs and be without formal training. The main concern here is that they should be experienced in comprehensive practice. I will consider gathering ”paradigm cases” from these three groups. A paradigm case is a case that is typical for some of the participants and it is constructed from their stories.
  

• 
  recruited: A letter describing my research program and requesting participation will be sent to a possible participant after an oral enquiry from me. The letter will emphasize that my criteria will meet gender, multi-educational background, experience, age and systemic training. I will encourage potential participants to thoroughly discuss the implications of participating before agreeing to take part in the research.
  

5. 
   What arrangements have been made for individuals for whom English is not a first language?
   

I will conduct all my practical research work in Norwegian, including devising my questions for the interviews, Information Sheet for Research Participants and Consent Form. I will transcribe case discussions and interviews in Norwegian, and translate into English only the sequences that are relevant to refer in my final report. My reflections and analysis on the way will be carried out in Norwegian, and then my final report will be written in English.
6. Is there any payment to your informants? No X Yes (details)

7. 
   Describe your professional relationship, if any, to your research informants.
   

I will not choose participants that I am closely attached to. I am partly known as a teacher and supervisor within the field, and I will discuss my “reputation” with possible participants in order to identify if there are problems attached to our relationship. I will not seek participants for whom I have been engaged as supervisor.

8. Does your research involve (give details)

• 
  video analysis Yes. After the first interview I will videotape one session with each therapist. Then I will interview the therapist again about his/her thinking and methodology and about the practical implications of their professional assumptions, aims and methods.
  

• 
  tape recording analysis
  
• 
  research records
  
• 
  case notes/clinical files
  

9. Will your research data be stored on computer? No Yes X
My transcriptions of discussions and follow-up-interviews will be stored on my computer, and I will follow the instructions given by the Data Inspectorate (Datatilsynet) in Norway. I will register my study with them according to their rules.
My videotapes will be locked up in the safe at Diakonhjemmet college when they are not used.

I will delete all data from case discussions and interviews and my videotapes when I have finished my analyses and my report.

10. a. Is this study likely to cause discomfort or distress? (details)
According to my research question, I aim to focus upon and analyse my participants’ pattern which connect their personal lives with their clinical practice. I will ask how the therapist's own life history and personal experience influence the way he/she understands and practices systemic family therapy. Further I will ask what the influences from systemic family therapy are on the therapist's own life and how he/she thinks about the way he/she lives it? It is to be hoped that this will be instructive also to the participants. However, I expect that to be interviewed, to be under observation and to be interpreted may represent some elements of stress and insecurity, and I may of course come up with observations and interpretations with which they disagree or even feel uncomfortable.

2. 
   How will you respond to this?
   

It is very important to obtain reflexivity and a positive interaction between me as researcher and my participants, in order to get maximum “depth understanding” of dilemmas and challenges in family therapy practice. I need to communicate with my participants throughout the research process and at the end, when working on my final report. Therefore I will on the way bring my observations, hypotheses and reflections back to the participants and ask for their comments and viewpoints. Finally, I will send my report (a rough draft) to my participants and ask for their comments and views. I will arrange a focus group that consist of my participants before my report is concluded. I regard this as crucial in order to obtain validity and trustworthiness to the gathered data and to my analysis and perspectives. I also suppose that the issue of being observed and interpreted will be part of my running communication with them. If I find it necessary, I will be prepared to terminate sessions.

11. 
    Describe fully the ethical implications of your research
    

As a researcher I have extensive power as to the way I ask questions, collect data and how I handle the gathered material. For example I could manipulate with quotations, t. i. with the contexts I put their statements into. Further, I am in position to ‘belittle’ their views and ways of working through my way of writing. I also could be unfortunate enough to make ‘generalisations about professionals’ on the basis of my findings. I see this as possible ethical implications that I should be very aware of in my project. I will try to avoid such misuse of my participants’ information. By staying in interaction with them, discussing my reflections and observations on the way, and by use of supervision, I hope to avoid such pitfalls.

When I view a therapy session it implies that I will get information about concrete client cases. My videotapes and transcriptions of case discussions then will of course contain information about the cases discussed. I will start with asking what permission is needed to use a case discussion in this way, and the agency I go to must of course have cleared such a permission. Moreover, I will disguise all client information in my report. In addition I should state that, in my analysis and final report quotations that implies revelation of case data is relatively irrelevant, since it is the therapists` understanding of their own personal influence that is my focus, not their client stories.

12. Outline your proposals on confidentiality and anonymity of your material
First, I must tell my participants that the data I collect is to be used in a research project and that also the other course members (3 other students) and the supervisory staff at Tavistock Clinic in London will have access to the data that I use in my analysis.
However, the participants will be anonymous, and in my descriptions I will conceal information that may identify the participants. All names and places will be substituted by “given” names, and I will also avoid specific descriptions that indirectly may identify the members. Examples or quotations that may imply that client cases could be identified will be correspondingly concealed. Though, the family therapy field in Norway is limited, and I will propose to my participants that neither they nor I should talk about their participation to ‘outsiders’. In the end then, we have to find solutions together with my participants. I will discuss questions regarding confidentiality with them and I will follow the procedures and solutions to such questions as far as possible.
My transcriptions (in Norwegian) will be confidential and only used as material during my analysis (according to given rules), and my videotapes will be locked up in a safe when not used.
13. What steps are you taking to ensure consent of informants
I will carefully inform my participants about my project (see above), and when I finally choose the participants, I will, before starting the project, get a written consent from all participants. It should be clearly underlined that the participants should at any time have the right – and possibility - to withdraw from the project (see Information sheet later).
I will also ensure I have written consent from the families that are videotaped during the project. The involved therapists and agencies will be responsible for the client’s consent to be videotaped.

14. 
    If you are considering publication of your results, how are you obtaining consent for this?
    

I will inform my participants about how the material will be used, and their consent will include that they are aware of and accept my publication plans (se Consent Sheet).

15. If your study is retrospective, provide details of permission from professionals responsible for the case
The information in this form is accurate and I take full responsibility for it.
Signature of Applicant Date
Signature of Tavistock & Portman Supervisor Date
Signature of External Supervisor (if applicable) Date
4 copies of this form (completed in full), the information sheet and consent form and one copy of your protocol should be sent to Lucy Ettinger, Secretary of the Research Ethics Committee, Adult Department.
Examples of completed forms, information sheets and more detailed information on the committee’s requirements are also available from her. Contact Lucy Ettinger (0171 435 7111 Ext. 2459).
* No application can be considered by the Research Ethics Committee without these papers, and the signature of your Tavistock & Portman supervisor.