Page 199 [199]
OCR
88 = USING INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS recovering helpers’ identity change) before planning design of an IPA study we should possess information about how identity works and the process of identity change during recovery. Therefore, one of the limitations of using an IPA method that it works with a narrow focus, so the results will not necessarily give much new information about the research topic, but nuances, patterns, processes of experience and aspects of identity change could be discovered fruitfully. As it was presented earlier another limitation of IPA that it works with the homogenous sample, so the results are not generalizable, but this may not an aim of an IPA study (Smith et al., 2009). IPA is developed to examine phenomenon, especially personal experiences about what general truth cannot be declared. That is why a further limitation of IPA that the researcher could not declare e.g. what is it the experience of recovery from addiction (except if her/himself is a recovering addict), the researcher is only able to tell what recovery from addiction for them is, who were asked in the interview. However, as it appeared in the included studies common patterns of experiences could emerge across separate IPA studies that were conducted in the same topic (e.g., results of many previous IPA studies about recovering from addiction are could be put together). To collect the patterns of experiences that can be seen across related areas and to examine how this could contribute to a shift in how topics are seen in the mainstream is one of the future aims to develop the IPA method (Eatough & Smith, 2008). During many qualitative studies also in IPA semi-structured interviews should be conducted which has limitations too. In semi-structured interviews the researcher is taking a significant role in determining what is said (by flexibly following the preconstructed questions and topics), that could limit the participant’s account. However, if the interviewer allows the participant a strong say where the interview goes, it could jeopardize the phenomenological endeavor (Eatough & Smith, 2008). A further limitation could be that during IPA data analysis the researcher uses “double hermeneutics” and sometimes it is challenging to find a proper way of doing this. The level of interpretation should be descriptive, emphatic and critical, it should probe the accounts in ways which participants might be unable to do themselves at the same time (Eatough & Smith, 2008), especially when participants could not tell coherent narratives about their experiences as it was in Study 2 and Study 3. In this case, the researcher still should stick strictly to reliability and validity of qualitative research by using previous research results of related topics (e.g., combine experiences of synthetic cannabinoid users with the experiences of psychoactive substance users).
