SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND ETHICS

Becoming an ethically sound scientific researcher is a time-intensive journey. It is not just about qualification. Good science demands minimising bias, a skill that evolves with experience. Mastery involves understanding research methods for exploring a chosen phenomenon. By the time you attain a PhD, you should at the very least be an excellent critical thinker, capable of deep reflection in order to prevent cognitive biases and very importantly, to prevent scientific biases.

In qualitative research, people's stories are data, and because of this, the process can be emotionally charged. The challenge lies in separating emotion from analysis as emotions risk research bias. Lately, this has been a key issue in social science research. Research interests have become heavily subjectively driven by personal experience of not just the participants but often of the researcher themselves. This has seen a rise of individual-centric methods and methodologies. As universities are the hub of disseminating new knowledge, this new era of research patterns are causing not only division in academia, but evidently also creating societal disharmony.

My educational goal is social unity, not division. I aim to educate about science without bias against other scientific fields. My role is to uncover and highlight systemic barriers in society to expand and extend our understanding of people and their relationship with their social world.

I've studied social constructionism as a theory of knowledge in great depth and I continue to do so in all the work I ever do. To educate on potential social constructs, I also acknowledge what are not social constructs - there are many. The relationship between our biological, psychological and social worlds are intricately interconnected.

I am deeply interested in exploring the meaning and role of relationships and how to forge beneficial bonds with others drawing on our biology, psychology and social experiences. Social relationships and our negotiations within them are the bedrock to our personal sanity.

MY PhD RESEARCH

POLLUTED IDENTITY AND OBSTRUCTED ESCAPE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE THERAPEUTIC ALLIANCE IN A SPINAL CORD INJURY REHABILITATION UNIT.

I will demonstrate the design, theory, and analysis process for my research below. I explored the meaning behind relationships between power-holders (practitioners) and patients experiencing threatened identities in Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation. The concept explored is referred to as the therapeutic alliance (TA) conceptualised by Edward Bordin in 1975. In other words, that is, the bond, connection or relationship forged between a helper, that is, the practitioner and the helpee, that is, the patient.

ABSTRACT

The research was a qualitative study conducted through two interrelated studies informed by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep’s (1960) theory of liminality and philosopher Michel Foucault’s approaches to power (Foucault, 1975; 1977; Foucault & Gordin, 1980; Foucault et al., 1977; Foucault & Faubion, 2000; Foucault & Senellart, 2008).

Study One explored views and lived experiences of patients participating in rehabilitation through analysis of their stories using in-depth interviews. Study Two explored views and experiences of rehabilitation practitioners represented across an interdisciplinary team using semi-structured interviews.

When combining data from Study One and Study Two, the results found that for patients, rehabilitation was a liminal world, and they entered a state of liminality. Inside this world, TAs with practitioners were considered important to aid in the escape from liminality. However, there was an antagonistic dialectical relationship between the desire to escape from liminality and being pushed back by disruptive forces of institutional power.

KNOWLEDGE

The research situates the hospital as a socially constructed space where those in power designed the processes primarily for the hospital's benefit, rather than the patient's benefit. Social constructionism is a branch of knowledge, that is how knowledge is to be understood. It was introduced to the world by Berger and Luckmann in 1966. A famous quote which sums up it’s epistemological knowledge positioning is:

The man [sic] in the street does not ordinarily trouble himself about what is ‘real’ … and about what he ‘knows’ unless he is stopped short by some sort of problem.

(Berger & Luckmann, 2011, p. 19).

This quote underscores how ordinary individuals typically accept everyday facts without much thought. It suggests that people tend to question and explore deeper when they encounter discomfort or face problems, as it's during these moments that they re-evaluate their understanding and seek answers. That is, consciousness is often more likely to be triggered when we encounter a subjective existential problem.

THEORY

My research drew on the anthropological theory of liminality by Arnold van Gennep (1960) who studied tribal lore across the world in order to develop his understanding of human cultural practices. The theory suggests that regardless of culture, community, or country, individuals must undergo life rituals and passages to transition from one identity position to another. The passage must be unobstructed, or the ceremonial transition will not occur authentically.

The second theory I drew upon and studied in depth was Michel Foucault’s (1975) work on power and institutions, namely the concepts of Governmentality and Technologies of Power. Foucault wrote extensively on the body politic, which was concerning the human body as an object of power (1988, 1989, 1990, 1995). He wrote, people are the products of societal surveillance (biopolitics); that power is everywhere and omnipresent, and through their daily activities, people form a social body, obedient and disciplined and self monitor (Foucault, 1995).

In my research, biology and psychology of the patient mattered to all participants. It contributed to deeper understanding of the patients experience. For patients the injury to their body meant they wanted medical intervention and advice on how to correct the physical body. They did not accept disability or a broken body. At the same time, I found that the pathway to advance in rehabilitation was distorted by outdated institutional practices and problematic relationships. This complicated the pace of the patient's transformational journey. This resulted in a forced transition that placed their identity at risk.

DATA

Patients and practitioners were recruited and interviewed in a spinal cord rehabilitation unit. Interview audio were transcribed verbatim.

ANALYSIS

NVivo software was utilised for data analysis and coding. A six-step reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) approach suggested by Clarke & Braun (2013) was adopted for this research. 1. Total immersion. 2. Coding (NVivo). 3. Theming. 4. Reviewing. 5. Defining and naming. 6. Production of report. Peer review was sought throughout the data coding, theming, review and analysis process.

FINDINGS

My research contributes significantly to the expansion of the theory of liminality as this liminal space was complicated by institutional practices. Patients as liminal nomads, attempted to navigate, albeit with uncertainty, through the ambiguous space of the liminal hospital-based rehabilitation world - conceptualised in this research as institutionalised liminality. It suggests that the Western institutional liminal phase, is fraught with substantial risks during this life transition. Given the rites of passage were distorted, patients experienced forced transition which presents a significant threat to identity, potentially leading to a state of perpetual liminality and identity risk.

One critical finding of this research is the glaring inadequacy of identity training among practitioners, despite the profound disabilities their patients contend with. In response, I have developed a comprehensive model aimed at informing best practices and training methods for rehabilitation following spinal cord injury.

RECOMMENDATIONS

A model has been developed to inform training and upskilling for practitioners in rehabilitation.

A series of published articles to report on the findings of this research study.

PHILOSOPHICAL LESSONS FOR HUMANITY

The findings from my research reinforce broader philosophical meaning for people and society.

Theoretically my research was driven by an anthropological theory used for studying the meaning behind tribal behaviours and patterns and Foucauldian theory which is a social and political theory and enables the analysis of power and how it manifests in society. These theories assist in drawing some conclusions about the people and the world.

Globally and collectively despite place, time, race or culture must experience and surrender to life’s rituals, these may be better known as traditional life stages which enable us to end one journey and begin another. These milestones are important ceremonial events and include socially and psychologically significant collective identity symbols which many people share. These are events such as birth, baptism, childhood adolescence, communion, puberty, coming of age, sex, marriage, child birth, motherhood, fatherhood, grandparenthood, trauma, injury, death and many other significant transformational periods of our lives. Elements or all of our previous identity may stay behind and a new one may emerge and be embodied. The problems occur when we do not transition organically and our pre-and post identity needs face identity chaos. This is when there is not only risk to our own psychological health because of identity confusion but also to those around us.

The study of power in society also derives very important lessons and that is that those in control will abuse power and use status to impose rules over others despite resistance. It also enables us to see that most people will self-monitor their speech and behaviour not to go against the status quo.