TPC-Journal-V5-Issue1

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 1 31 crying in session. In total, 11 counselors and professionals with related experience were included in this study. Participants were between 25 and 71 years old; four participants were males and the remainder female. The sample consisted of licensed professional counselors, school counselors, national certified counselors, a licensed marriage and family counselor, and a psychologist, with a combined average of 15 years’ experience in their related fields. The participant’s theoretical perspectives were varied and consisted of the following: cognitive behavioral, family systems, existential, Adlerian and person centered. Open-ended questions provided a general guide to the interviews (see Appendix), while allowing for discussion of relevant material. Data Collection Data collection consisted of semistructured interviews varying in length from 30 – 120 minutes. Interviews were chosen in order to open up topics and receive the participants’ stories of crying in session with clients. Each interview was audio recorded and notes were taken during the interviews to facilitate transcription and future analysis. Repeat interviews were conducted with all but three of the participants, thus contributing to richer descriptions. The following topic areas were covered in the interviews: (1) What issues would make you cry in session? (2) What is your response to a client who starts crying in session? (3) How would crying be beneficial to the therapeutic relationship? (4) How do you keep yourself from crying in session with a client? (For more complete information, see Appendix.) The data were processed in order to discern meanings and actions by first using a central idea or question relating to the research. The central questions used to guide this analysis were as follows: 1. What is the counselor’s internal experience of a client who cries in session? 2. What is the counselor’s internal experience of allowing him or herself to cry in session with a client? Second, the author and a colleague brainstormed other terms that relate to the central concept of crying. This process led to further questions and terms, such as awareness , empathy , crying as choice , loss , grief , genuineness , control , equality , acceptance and permission . Third, connections were drawn among the various terms based on how the ideas related to each other, until ideas were exhausted about the central topic. Fourth, the findings were summarized and a graphical representation of the data was used to draw themes at face value, rather than explain or interpret at that point. Fifth, the author discussed the findings with a non-biased professional colleague in order to interpret how the data were linked to the big picture, theoretical perspectives and previous literature. Data Analysis Following the qualitative guidelines proposed by Creswell (1998) and Moustakas (1994), phenomenological analysis proceeded through several stages. The first was horizonalization of the data, in which the researcher read through the data and identified statements that described how the participants experienced the phenomenon of crying. Moustakas (1994) called these meaning statements and Creswell (1998) called them significant statements . For instance, one participant contributed a significant statement by describing crying as a genuine and spontaneous response: I see it [crying] as an expression of a deep emotion and a genuine or real thing that happens. The client can see how I’m experiencing what they’ve told me. If that involves crying, that means that’s how I experience their story. The second stage was transcribing the statements into separate themes. Third, phenomenological reduction was used to group the meaning statements thematically by coding them with short descriptions for each theme. Lastly, imaginative variation was used to vividly capture the textures of the themes. Through intuitive