Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis : Theory, Method and Research

This book presents a comprehensive guide to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) which is an increasingly popular approach to qualitative inquiry taught to undergraduate and postgraduate students today. The first chapter outlines the theoretical foundations for IPA. It discusses phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography and how they have been taken up by IPA. The next four chapters provide detailed, step by step guidelines to conducting IPA research: study design, data collection and interviewing, data analysis, and writing up. In the next section, the authors give extended worked examples from their own studies in health, sexuality, psychological distress, and identity to illustrate the breadth and depth of IPA research. The final section of the book considers how IPA connects with other contemporary qualitative approaches like discourse and narrative analysis and how it addresses issues to do with validity.

Jonathan A. Smith is Professor in Psychology at Birkbeck University of London. Paul Flowers is Professor of Psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University. Michael Larkin is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Birmingham.