Psychological Methods © 2012 American Psychological Association

2012, Vol. 17, No. 3, 385–398 1082-989X/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0029250

Qualitative Research as Methodical Hermeneutics

David L. Rennie
York University

The proportion of publications of qualitative research in mainstream psychology journals is small. Thus, in
terms of this important criterion, despite its recent rapid growth, qualitative research is marginalized in
psychology. The author suggests that contributing to this situation is the lack of a coherent and unifying
methodology of qualitative research methods that elucidates their credibility. He groups the many qualitative
research methods into 3 main kinds, then applies to them 4 propositions offered as such a methodology: (1)
Qualitative research is hermeneutical, entailing application of the method of the hermeneutic circle to text
about experience and/or action. (2) Implicit in the use of the hermeneutic circle method is the activity of
educing and articulating the meaning of text, an activity that modifies and interacts with C. S. Peirce’s (1965,
1966) logical operations of abduction, theorematic deduction, and induction. (3) The cycling of these 4
moments enables demonstration, achieved rhetorically, of the validity of the understandings resulting from the
exegesis of the text under study. (4) This demonstrative rhetoric is enhanced when researchers disclose
reflexively those aspects of their perspectives they judge to have most relevant bearing on their understand-
ings. The author compares abduction as formulated here with other recent uptakes of it. As an installment on
the generality of the methodology, he explores its fit with the descriptive phenomenological psychological
method, conversation analysis, and thematic analysis.

Keywords: qualitative research, hermeneutic circle, C. S. Peirce’s theory of inference, abduction,

demonstrative rhetoric

In the last 45 years, there has been a dramatic development of
qualitative research methods. These methods involve the discovery-
oriented analysis of verbal text, the returns from which are given as
verbal text. If numbers are used at all, it is to indicate the frequencies
of the constituents of the returns. The methods are intensive, neces-
sitating the study of a smaller number of individuals than is customary
in quantitative research.
Although it has been traced to Freud’s use of the psychoanalytic
interview (Kvale, 1999), as a genre, qualitative research came into
existence much later. It entails basically three kinds of method. The
first, what I call the “experiential” kind, involves the conceptualiza-
tion of meanings of experiences whether reported by participants or
inferred through participant observation. The conceptualizations take
the form of either structures, narratives, themes, categories, or com-
binations of these forms. Prominent members of this kind are the
descriptive phenomenological psychological method (Giorgi, 1975,
1985, 2009); heuristic research (Moustakas, 1990); interpretative phe-
nomenological analysis (Smith, 1996; Smith, Flowers, & Larkin,
This article was published Online First July 23, 2012.
The article is derived in part from Toward a Meta-Methodology of Quali-
tative Research, a keynote address presented at the British Psychological
Society’s inauguration of its Qualitative Research in Psychology section,
York, United Kingdom, 2007. The research leading up to this article was
supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Coun-
cil of Canada. I appreciate comments made by Juan Pascual-Leone, along with
those by Jeanette Bischkopf, Yvonne Bohr, Kurt Danziger, Karen Fergus,
Jayne Greene-Black, Bennett Holman, Gary Johnston, Angela Kertes, Anna
Madill, John McLeod, Rinat Nissim, William B. Stiles, and Kimberly Watson.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David L.
Rennie, Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, M3J 1P3. E-mail: drennie@yorku.ca
2009); narrative analysis (Josselson & Lieblich, 1993; McLeod &
Balmoutsou, 1996, 2006; Polkinghorne, 1995), including Schütze’s
biographical analytic version of it (Riemann & Schütze, 1991; Schü-
tze, 1983); the grounded theory method (Glaser, 1978, 1992; Glaser &
Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 1998); and consen-
sual qualitative research method (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997).
Adding to the diversity of this first kind have been methods fashioned
out of either a constituent of an established method or a mix of
constituents drawn from more than one method (see Rennie & From-
mer, in press).
The second kind of method, which I name the “discursive” kind,
is applied to study of the pragmatics or function of language-use.
Conversation analysis and discourse analysis mainly make up this
kind. Both of these methods are indebted to ethnomethodology
originated by Garfinkel (1967) to study assumptions people use
implicitly when interacting in daily life. Conversation analysis,
developed by Sacks (1972; Silverman, 1998), is directed to pat-
terns of relation describing conversationalists’ speaking turns,
whereas discourse analysis (e.g., Parker, 1998; Potter & Wetherell,
1987) involves delineation of social values interpreted to be taken
up wittingly or unwittingly by conversationalists, public speakers,
and writers. There are varieties of conversational analysis and
discourse analysis as well (Ibanez & Iniguez, 1997).1
This classification leaves as main methods thematic analysis
(e.g., Braun & Clarke, 2006) and the case-study method (e.g.,
1
In the experiential kind of qualitative research, the experience of action
is put in the picture either inferably or explicitly depending on whether
action is observed or the actor talks about it (see, e.g., Strauss, 1987). In
contrast, conversation analysis and discourse analysis address lingual
(inter-)action of communicants wherein the actor’s cognition (i.e., experi-
ence) is often dismissed by the analyst (see Sanders, 2005).

385
386 RENNIE
Elliott, 2002; Frommer & Langenbach, 2006; Stiles, 2003; for a
survey, see McLeod, 2010). These methods have been applied to
either experience or discourse and thus constitute a third, “expe-
riential/discursive” kind.
The number of methods has burgeoned. Recently Madill and
Gough (2008) listed 32 of them without being exhaustive, as they
noted. Meanwhile, books have been devoted to qualitative re-
search, societies and journals have been created for it, and many
established professional societies have made room for it.
Whether or not qualitative research has made an impact on main-
stream psychology depends on how it is viewed. Willig and Stainton-
Rogers (2008) have claimed that it is increasingly endorsed in the
United Kingdom, observing that the British Psychological Society
now requires accredited degree programs to include training in qual-
itative research methods, and that some U.K. funding agencies are
beginning to favor mixed-method (i.e., qualitative and quantitative)
research proposals. Nevertheless, in a study of appearances in Psy-
cINFO and Dissertation Abstracts International of several search
terms having to do with qualitative research, a research team led by
me found that during the 20th century, the number of appearances of
the search terms in the titles and abstracts of British and Irish publi-
cations was similar to that of American and Canadian publications
when the populations of the two regions were taken into account
(Rennie, Watson, & Monteiro, 2002). This study also showed that
although the publications containing the search terms increased dra-
matically in the 1990s, even then the proportion of these publications
out of the total number of publications was very low. Moreover, in
only 10% of 315 of what we judged to be psychology journals were
there five or more hits of the search terms in all volumes of the given
journal, and only a few of these journals are solidly in the mainstream.
Similar returns have come from related studies (Kidd, 2002; Marchel
& Owens, 2007; Michell, 2004; Munley et al., 2002; Ponterotto,
Kuriakose, & Granovskaya, 2007). Meanwhile, the uptake of quali-
tative research in Germany and Scandinavia appears to have been
even less (Rennie & Frommer, in press). Thus, although there is no
doubt that qualitative research has been increasingly looked upon
favorably by psychologists in a number of ways, in terms of the
important criterion of publication, especially in psychology’s main-
stream journals, it is still on the margin.
In the interest of stimulating increased reception of qualitative
research in the mainstream, in what follows I offer a methodology, or
theory of method, that holds promise as a rationale for all qualitative
research methods—and one that preserves the discovery-orientation that
is the forte of qualitative research while teasing out intrinsic logical
operations involved in its conduct that make its returns credible.
Before doing so, however, I give two examples of qualitative
research, drawn from psychotherapy process research. The first is
my study of the client’s experience of an hour of psychotherapy,
which illustrates the experiential kind of qualitative research; the
second is a case-study by Madill and Barkham (1997), exempli-
fying both the discursive and the experiential/discursive kinds.
Two Examples of Qualitative Research
(1) The Client’s Experience of an Hour of
Psychotherapy
In my study, contingent on the agreement of their therapists, I
invited clients in psychotherapy to join me in witnessing a replay
of either an audiotape or a videotape of a therapy session they had
just completed and to report resulting recollections of having
experienced anything of interest or significance to them (Rennie,
1990, 1992, 1995b). This procedure was thus an application of the
technique of interpersonal process recall (IPR), which Kagan
(1984) developed for counselor training, to the study of the
moment-to-moment experience of an entire hour of therapy (cf.
Angus & Rennie, 1988; Elliott, 1986).
I conducted 16 of these IPR interviews with 14 participants,
having interviewed two of them twice. I transcribed each IPR
interview and, for context, the therapy session it was about as well.
I analyzed the IPR transcripts as I went along. In conducting the
analysis, I began by reading the given transcript to get a general
sense of the participant’s recalled experience of the therapy session
as a whole. I then broke the transcript into passages that seemed to
have a main meaning, allowing that the given passage could be
large enough to include fringes of meaning associated with that
main meaning. These passages ranged from a few lines to two or
three double-spaced pages in length. I interpreted the meaning(s)
of the passage and represented each meaning as a category,
whether created then and there or drawn from the list of categories
I had previously conceptualized. I then assigned to the passage
every category I interpreted to be applicable. This was my way of
conducting the first phase of the constant comparative analytic
procedure of the grounded theory method (Rennie, 2006; Rennie,
Phillips, & Quartaro, 1988; cf. Turner, 1981).
To illustrate how this worked, here is a passage consisting of a
participant’s comment on her therapist’s analysis of a dream the
former had reported in her therapy session:
At this point I was trying to remember what kind of psychology that
is—in the back [of my mind] like, is that kind of Jungian? What are
the right responses to a Jungian-type psychotherapy session? Umm, I
read mostly in fictional literature, like the Deptford Trilogy [by
Robertson Davies], where things like that come into it, and also some
Shakespearean things and I’m afraid to admit it but in the back of that
moment I was trying—“Oh, what’s the right response to that kind of
therapy?”
I took this passage to mean that during this moment, the par-
ticipant had been trying to ascertain where the therapist had been
coming from. To represent this meaning, I created the category
Client Understanding the Therapist’s Frame of Reference
(CUTFR) and assigned this passage to it. Later, I also assigned the
passage to Meeting Perceived Therapist’s Expectations.
To manage the analysis of the many passages excerpted from
the IPR transcripts, I condensed the meaning of each passage into
a gist a line or two long. In this case, the condensation was “Client
tried to remember, from what she had read, the approach the
therapist was using in interpreting her dream.” I typed it onto an
index card devoted to this particular category, giving the gist an
identifier so that I could trace it to its source.2 When the dust had
settled, I had assigned 51 passages derived from 11 IPR transcripts to
CUTFR (Rennie, 1992). To illustrate, below are four condensations,
the above one plus one derived from the IPR transcript of each of
three other participants (the identifier gives the location, among the
2
The labor involved can now be eased through use of software such as
ATLAS.ti (Muhr, 2004).
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS METHODICAL HERMENEUTICS
1,118 passages excerpted from the 16 transcripts, of the passage from
which the gist was derived; a pseudonym of the participant; and the
passage’s number out of the total in his or her transcript).
469F22: C tried to remember, from what she had read, the
approach the therapist was using in interpreting her dream.
657J2: C didn’t know what T meant by “For sake of accu-
racy”; was lost.
881Su50: C didn’t know if T knew C wanted reassurance;
however, T did good.
1023Sa24: The big question for C was: is T’s head clear?
It can be seen how the shades of meaning evident even in the
condensations of the passages support and enrich the category.
When writing up the study, I found that my immersion in the
material was such that reading the condensations brought back
my recollection of the full contents of the passages and that,
correspondingly, scanning the condensations helped me to se-
lect the best passages to illustrate a given category.
(2) Discourse Analysis of a Theme in One Successful
Case of Brief Psychodynamic-Interpersonal
Psychotherapy
An example of both the discursive and experiential/
discursive kinds of qualitative research is the discourse analytic
case-study by Madill and Barkham (1997), also addressed in
Madill (2006). They examined extracts from transcripts of an
eight-session course of successful psychodynamic-interpersonal
psychotherapy for treatment of a 42-year-old woman’s clinical
depression. Her situation was that after spending 17 years
caring for her senile mother, she had recently decided that she
must put her into a care facility. The same case had been the
focus of an earlier study (Field, Barkham, Shapiro, & Stiles,
1994) where the method had been quantitative. As part of that
study, the client had been given a questionnaire in response to
which she had named 10 personal problem areas. Using these
responses, Madill and Barkham decided to address the single
theme of the client’s problems in her relationship with her
mother. When addressing this theme, the researchers used the
same passages that Field et al.’s (1994) team had extracted from
the first, third, fifth, and seventh therapy sessions.
Madill and Barkham (1997) derived from the extracts the three
subject positions of the dutiful daughter, the bad mother, and the
damaged child. They reported that the dutiful daughter subject
position is first indicated in Extract 1, Session 1, given below. (In
the extract, the symbols “(.)” and “(0)” signify a brief pause and a
pause in seconds, respectively, whereas words spoken with em-
phasis are italicized.)
1. T: What have you (.) what have you done to
2. (tails off)
3. C: (upset) Exactly (.) yeah (.) or why am I
4. like this you know? I can’t think of any
387
5. particular reason why I should be like that
6. or why I am so frightened of illness (.) um (.)
7. me mum lives with us (.) and she’s eighty-four
8. (.) and (.) um (upset, whispered) I’m very
9. sorry er (.) she’s lived with us for
10. seventeen years (.) she has senile dementia
11. and I finally made the decision last week
12. that she has (upset) to go into permanent
13. (whispered) care (.) because I can’t cope with
14. it any more er (.) my own doctor seems to
15. that’s sort of the problem (.) but I feel
16. very guilty but I really can’t cope (whispered)
17. any more (9) so I’m just waiting to hear now
18. (9) (in tears) I wish she’d die (whispered)
19. before I have to send her in (.) (very upset)
20. I’m awfully sorry (p. 234)
Madill and Barkham’s (1997) method is illustrated by the be-
ginning of their analysis of this extract as follows:
The client indicates her dutifulness toward her mother in several ways
in this first extract. First, is the length of time the client’s mother has
been living with her. “Seventeen years” (Line 10) suggests a pro-
longed commitment even though the decision has now been made
“that she has (upset) to go into permanent (whispered) care” (Lines
12–13). Second, indicating that the decision to place her mother in
care has been “finally made” (Line 11) implies that it has been a
drawn out process. The decision is therefore suggested to have been
made reluctantly and with some consideration. Third, the client uses
the phrase “permanent (whispered) care” (Lines 12–13) instead of “a
home” or other alternative. Thus the importance of her mother being
looked after properly is emphasized rather than her just residing
elsewhere . . . . (p. 235)
Although I cannot get into it here, a principle of discourse
analysis is that what people say varies depending on the func-
tion it plays in the context in which the utterance is made.
Accordingly, Madill and Barkham (1997) have showed that in
an early session, the client had insisted that she could not
remember her childhood; yet, in a different context in a later
session, she had revealed that she vividly remembered a lot of
it.
I now proceed to the methodology, which I present as four
propositions. Following that, I make an installment on the
exegesis that would be required to demonstrate the generality of
the methodology by presenting a cursory analysis of its fit with
a representative of each of the above three kinds of qualitative
research.
388 RENNIE
Proposition 1: Qualitative Research Is Methodically
Hermeneutical
Originally hermeneutics was applied to the interpretation of
legal documents and Scriptures. Over the course of its long history,
however, Schleiermacher (1768 –1834) extended hermeneutics to
interpretation of texts of all kinds (Sandage, Cook, Hill, Strawn, &
Reimer, 2008). Schleiermacher had in mind written texts; how-
ever, following the more recent advent of language philosophies,
oral texts have been included as well (see Ricoeur, 1981). Schleier-
macher’s emphasis was on method, or methodical hermeneutics.
The thrust of this methodical hermeneutics differs from that of
either of two contemporary forms of hermeneutics. These are
Gadamer’s (1960/1992) philosophical hermeneutics that empha-
size the role played by tradition in the understanding of text, and
the critical hermeneutics of Habermas (1968/1971, 1981/1987) and
Ricoeur (see Hahn, 1995) directed to social emancipation (cf.
Bleicher, 1962/1980; Thompson, 1981).
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) observed that methodical herme-
neutics began in the 16th century when Flacius, a Croatian scholar
who Latinized his name after moving to Germany, developed a
method of interpreting Scriptures to support the Christian Refor-
mation (Dilthey, 1996a). This is the hermeneutic circle method
where the meaning of a whole text informs the meaning of its
parts, and the meanings of the parts illuminate the meaning of the
whole. Dilthey maintained that in making this innovation, Flacius
was the first to use methodically the help to be gained from
context, aim, proportion, or links when inferring the meaning of
text and its passages.
When Schleiermacher took up this method, he held that the
purpose of hermeneutics is to divine authors’ intended meaning,
holding that the interpreter’s knowledge of authors’ backgrounds
and the contexts of their writings enable interpreters to understand
authors’ texts better than they were capable of themselves
(Dilthey, 1996b). Dilthey judged this divination approach to be too
subjective. Influenced by John Stuart Mill’s logic and Auguste
Compte’s positivism, and being critical of introspective philoso-
phizing such as what he saw in Neitzsche’s writings, Dilthey held
that the same logical operations are applied in the natural and
human sciences (on the idea of human science, see Proposition 3,
on demonstrative rhetoric, below). These are the operations of
induction, analysis, construction, and comparison.
Dilthey recommended that induction can be made objective in
two main ways. The first is to pay attention to familiar grammat-
ical and syntactical arrangements and to the more or less determi-
nate meanings of words, and to make use of art objects, artifacts,
and architecture as objective indicators of historical events and
personages. The second way is to compare other wholes to an
individual whole to aid understanding of the latter (Dilthey, 1996b;
Rickman, 1979).
There are three things that I find wrong with Dilthey’s recom-
mendations. The first is that he allowed his concern about objec-
tivity to get in the way of Erlebnis, or lived experience, which he
championed in his contribution to the idea of human science. The
second is that he was more interested in understanding particular
historical persons and events than in inductively developing gen-
eral understandings from particulars. The third shortcoming is that
he underplayed the role of imagination in the hermeneutic circle
method.
The following proposition allows this method to be applied not
only to lived experience but also action, including the pragmatic
use of language. Moreover, it does so in a way that offers a better
depiction of the logical operations involved in the hermeneutic
circle, one of which in particular amply involves imagination.
Proposition 2: The Hermeneutic Circle Method
Involves Eduction That Modifies and Cycles With
Abduction, Theorematic Deduction, and Induction
Among those contemporary thinkers who have either written on
methodical hermeneutics specifically (e.g., Betti, 1962/1980) or on
what amounts to it (Hirsch, 1967), the position taken by Hirsch
(1967) is most in keeping with this proposition. When writing on
validity in interpretation, Hirsch has observed that the act of
understanding a text is at first either a genial or a mistaken guess
at its meaning. In his opinion, there are no methods for making
guesses, or rule for generating insights, but the methodical activity
of interpretation begins when we begin to test and criticize our
guesses. Once made, the guess is tested via qualitative probability.
He has written,
We reach those meanings entirely on the basis of our judgment that
such meanings will occur more often in an instance of this sort than
will other meanings, and we are able to make this inference because
we have concluded that the instance is of this sort (i.e., class) rather
than another sort. If we could not subsume the unknown meanings
under a class on the basis of what we already know, then we could not
make such an inference. (Hirsch, 1967, p. 178)
Hirsch (1967) has concluded that the discipline of hermeneutics
is not founded on the logic of construction but rather on the logic
of validation. I think it is founded on both. His formulation can be
strengthened when the activity of eduction is brought into the
picture and in a way that modifies and interacts with the logical
operations formulated by Peirce (1965, 1966). These are the op-
erations of abduction, what he called “theorematic” deduction
(Peirce, 1966, p. 124), and induction. I begin my development of
this second proposition with consideration of eduction.
Eduction
Among the definitions of eduction is the following: “The action
of drawing forth, eliciting, or developing from a state of latent,
rudimentary, or potential existence; the action of educing (prin-
ciples, results of calculation) from the data” (Oxford English
Dictionary, Compact Edition, 1971, p. 834). More elaborately
and relevantly, a dictionary of philosophy gives the following
definition:
Eduction, the process of initial clarification, as of a phenomenon, text,
or argument, that normally takes place prior to logical analysis. Out of
the flux of vague and confused experiences certain characteristics are
drawn into some kind of order or intelligibility in order that attention
can be focused on them (Aristotle, Physics I). These characteristics
are often latent, hidden, or implicit. The notion is often used with
reference to texts as well as experience. Thus it becomes closely
related to exegesis and hermeneutics, tending to be reserved for the
sorts of clarification that precede formal or logical analysis. (Suppe,
1999, p. 253)
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS METHODICAL HERMENEUTICS
When applying the hermeneutic circle method, meaning is
drawn forth. In qualitative research, a meaning judged to be
relevant to what is being studied is represented by a string of
words. The string may consist of few words when a category or
more when a structure, narrative or theme.
Understanding the activity of educing the meaning of text ben-
efits from Eugene Gendlin’s writings on the creation of meaning
and how it is embodied (Gendlin, 1962, 1997). Gendlin has taken
up Dilthey’s notion of lived experience while seeing it as a
process, whence he has applied to it the gerund, experiencing (see
Gendlin, 1997). Gendlin has maintained that our experiencing of
ourselves and the world involves an embodied felt sense of mean-
ing. This felt sense has much to do with the lingual forms we use,
but not entirely: Experiencing also involves embodied feelings,
sensations, and images. Such meaning may be inchoate in that it
has a presence or implicit form within us calling for development
through precise articulation. We search for the right words in quest
of this precision. Sometimes the search is rapid and seemingly
automatic but the testing of the articulation goes on all the same.
At other times the search is deliberate, where various strings of
words are tried for size. In response to each string, we have a sense
of the correctness of the fit (Gendlin, 1991).
Gendlin’s favorite examples of the creation of meaning are the
experiencing involved in creating a poem, and a client’s explora-
tion of personal meaning when in conversation with a therapist.
Thus, in the production of a poem, every completed line implies
the next line. In responding to this implication, poets create strings
of words while working with their embodied felt sense of meaning
until they come up with a string that best articulates the implica-
tion. The activity continues until the poet judges the poem to be
finished.
In his experiential phenomenology, Gendlin’s attention has been
directed to individuals’ creation of meaning. Although he has
drawn on Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology (Gendlin,
1978/1979), Gendlin has paid no attention to methodical herme-
neutics. Nevertheless, his formulation applies well to what me-
thodical hermeneuticists do in that they use their embodied expe-
riencing when creating the meaning of interpreted text (Rennie &
Fergus, 2006).
Peirce’s Theory of Inference and Its Application to
Methodical Hermeneutics
A friend of William James, Charles Peirce was a polymath
who wrote much on logic wherein he developed a theory of
inference to account for the conduct of modern natural science.
The theory involves primarily abduction supported by what he
named “theorematic” deduction (Peirce, 1966, p. 124; see be-
low) and induction.
In Peirce’s view, science involves enquiry guided by a sense of
what is to be expected. During its course, the scientist may en-
counter an unexpected, surprising finding. The scientist then imag-
ines a cause that, if true, would explain the finding. Peirce vari-
ously called this activity hypothesis, retroduction, and abduction,
finally settling on the latter more than the other terms (Brent,
1998). He called it “nothing but guessing” (Peirce, 1966, p. 137).
More formally, he put it into an argument:
The surprising fact, C, is observed.
389
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course.
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. (Peirce, 1965, p. 117)
In Peirce’s view, abduction is the sheet anchor of science
(Tursman, 1987). Curd (1980) has suggested, however, that there
is a deficiency in the above abduction argument. Observing that
Peirce wrote extensively on probability theory, Curd has proposed
that Peirce unintentionally diluted abduction when putting it into
the logic of probability. In Curd’s judgment, what Peirce meant to
do was to put it into the logic of pursuit in order better to allow for
the creativity involved in it. Accordingly, Curd has made the
following amendment:
The surprising fact, C, is observed.
The hypothesis, A, is capable of explaining C.
Hence, there are prima facie grounds for pursuing A. (Curd, 1980, p.
214)
Meanwhile, Peirce was led to conceptualize theorematic deduc-
tion having endorsed the observation made by Kant and others that
the Aristotelian syllogism (e.g., All men are mortal. Socrates is a
man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal) is tautological because the
meaning of the conclusion is contained in the premises. The
consequence is that this form of deduction, which he called “cor-
ollarial” deduction (Peirce, 1966, p. 124), does not move science
forward, unlike his theorematic deduction. A theorem is defined in
the Oxford Shorter Dictionary as
[. . .speculation, theory, (in Euclid) proposition to be proved . . . be a
spectator, look at . . . THEOR.] A universal or general proposition or
statement, not self-evident (thus dist. from an AXIOM), but demon-
strable by argument (in the strict sense, by necessary reasoning): “a
demonstrable theoretical judgement.” (Oxford Shorter Dictionary,
1987, p. 2280)
Peirce observed that theorematic deduction makes room for a
lemma, or an assumption that something is the case, and allows for
the innovation that science requires.3
He coordinated abduction, theorematic deduction, and induction
in the following way. After imagining, through abduction, a cause
that would explain a surprising finding, scientists theorematically
deduce an experiment to test the abduction. They proceed to gather
data resulting from the experiment, thereby shifting the enquiry
into induction. This induction may lead to more surprising findings
calling for new abductions. Abduction, theorematic deduction, and
induction are cycled in a program of enquiry progressively ap-
proximating truth. As observed by Tursman (1987), Peirce worked
out a way of making induction self-correcting.
Several years ago, I saw implications of Peirce’s theory of
inference for methodical hermeneutics as a methodology of the
grounded theory method of qualitative research (Rennie, 1998,
2000). I also expressed tentative thoughts about its wider applica-
3
In my initial application of Peirce’s theory of inference (made most in
Rennie, 2000), I missed his distinction between corollarial and theorematic
deduction and took his dismissal of what I now understand to be the
former, only, to be a dismissal of deduction entirely. I thus assumed by
mistake that for Peirce, the testing of a hypothesis involves only induction,
that is, without its initiation by deduction.
390
bility (Rennie, 1999; Rennie & Frommer, 2001). Especially attrac-
tive was Curd’s amendment of Peirce’s abduction argument, an
amendment that I modified as follows to make it applicable to
methodical hermeneutics:
The (interesting, surprising, etc.) passage of text, C, is encountered.
The meaning, A, of C may apply to the text as a whole.
Therefore there are prima facie grounds for pursuing A. (Rennie,
2000, p. 490)
Notice that in this argument, the symbols, C and A, are meant to
be analogous to those in Curd’s formulation.
It now seems to me that eduction needs to be taken into account.
It is through eduction that the meaning of a text is drawn out prior
to its articulation as a concept whether in the form of a structure,
theme, category, and so forth or a combination of them. I have also
come to realize that the abduction argument needs to account for
entry into the hermeneutic circle through either the whole or a part
of text. Thus, taking the term text to mean generically either a
whole text or part of it, the argument now becomes:
The interesting, surprising, significant, and so forth, meaning is
educed from text, C.
The concept, A, created to articulate the meaning of C may be both
accurate and applicable to the text as a whole.
Therefore there are prima facie grounds for pursuing A.
The other two constituents of Peirce’s theory of scientific infer-
ence—theorematic deduction and induction—follow from my
modification of his abduction argument. The theorematic deduc-
tion is that evidence bearing on the abduction should be found in
either the text as a whole or parts of it, depending on how the
hermeneutic circle is entered. Specifically, it is deduced that upon
entering the circle via a text as a whole, exegesis of parts of the text
should produce evidence bearing on the accuracy of the concept
ascribed to the whole text. Conversely, when the circle is entered
through a part of a text, it is deduced that exegesis of the whole text
should produce evidence bearing both on the accuracy of the
concept articulating the meaning of the part and on the generality
of that concept in the text as a whole. As for induction, in
methodical hermeneutics this is the actual search for such evi-
dence, through study or exegesis of text.
The alternative ways of entering the hermeneutic circle can be
seen in the above two examples of qualitative research. In my
study, I entered the circle through a given part of a text and used
the whole text to test the category or categories conceptualized
hypothetically to represent the meaning(s) educed from the part,
and where the whole text included not only the IPR transcript from
which the part was taken but also the corpus of transcripts. In
contrast, it seems clear that Madill and Barkham (1997) educed
and conceptualized the three subject positions they ascribed to the
client from the whole text made up of all of the extracts that they
drew from those therapy transcripts they used. After that, they
tested the subject position they selected by analyzing the meanings
of parts of the text.
The conceptualization of meaning has more to do with under-
standing than with explanation, which is a leap, given Peirce’s
focus on explanation. Nevertheless, an understanding may also be
RENNIE
explanatory. For example, in my study I came to understand that
clients in a therapy session often gave the impression of being
happier with how the therapist conducted the therapy than they
felt. They suppressed their discontent because they attributed au-
thoritative expertise to the therapist, whereupon they were reluc-
tant to criticize the therapist, forgave her or his mistakes, and so
on. This understanding led me to conceptualize the category,
Clients’ Deference to the Therapist, a category that was supported
and elaborated as the study proceeded (Rennie, 1990, 1992, 1994).
As an understanding, it helps to explain such compliance.
As mentioned, when Peirce’s theory of inference is applied in
natural science, a given application of induction may lead to a new
surprising finding necessitating another cycle of abduction, theo-
rematic deduction, and induction. In methodical hermeneutics, the
eduction and articulation of a new meaning adds the resulting
concept to the set of concepts under study, and the cycling of the
three modified moments of Peirce’s logic is carried on until all
concepts are dealt with in one way or other.
Specifically, out of the cycling there may be any of several
outcomes, in terms of a given concept. The cycling may support it,
enriching its meaning (cf. Rennie, 2009; Stiles, 2009). Or the
cycling may lead to re-conceptualization of it. Or the concept may
be judged close enough to a different concept to warrant pooling
the former into the latter. Or the cycling may fail to yield sufficient
evidence to support the concept whence it is dropped from anal-
ysis. Eventually the cycling leads to stability of all conceptualiza-
tion in the interpreter’s judgment, at which point the enquiry may
be brought to a close.
Other Contemporary Uptakes of Abduction
Recently, Peirce’s abduction has been taken up by several
methodologists and some have applied it to qualitative research.
For example, Shank (1994), too, has taken human experience and
action to be text and has also advocated that, when interpreting a
text, the meaning of the whole of it needs to be related to its parts.
As a way of putting abduction in motion, he has recommended a
tactic he found useful in his own research. This is the juxtaposing
of what is to be explained and something else seemingly unrelated
to it. Shank has found that exercising the juxtaposition stimulates
possible explanations that might have been missed otherwise.
Other qualitative research methodologists have viewed abduc-
tion as not being about hypothesis as much as about the develop-
ment of theory. They have recommended the use of existing theory
to develop new theory (e.g., Kelle, 1995; R. Richardson & Kramer,
2006). Here, the grounded theory method has been focused on
likely because, among the many qualitative research methods, it is
foremost in being about the development of theory. Kelle (1995)
and R. Richardson and Kramer (2006) have taken this position in
virtue of the greater role Glaser (1978) and Strauss (1987) gave to
extant theory in the development of new theory vis-à-vis where
they stood on this question in their initial presentation of their
method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The former methodologists have
concluded that this shift by the originators of the grounded theory
method makes it justifiable to use extant theory as a heuristic to
develop theory in the conduct of this method, and have made such
theory development part of abduction.
Finally, Haig (2005a, 2005b, 2008b) has made abduction into a
theory of method, or ATOM. This theory is schematized as fol-
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS METHODICAL HERMENEUTICS
lows: (a) Phenomena are detected through a variety of strategies
and methods. (b) Theory is generated either through exploratory
factor analysis (EFA), the grounded theory method, or heuristics
(described as the principle of the common cause). (c) Theory is
developed through analogical modeling. (d) Theory is appraised by
using any of a number of methods of making inference to the best
explanation,4 such as the theory of explanatory coherence (Haig,
2005a, p. 373). In ATOM, Haig has endorsed EFA more than any
other way of generating theory but, as indicated, has brought into
play the grounded theory method as well. Meanwhile, ATOM has
been criticized as being underdetermined by evidence (Romeijn,
2008), a charge that Haig (2008a) has rebutted.
Compared to the above uptakes of abduction, mine is the most
radical in its being situated in the activities of educing meaning
and articulating it, activities involving embodied experiencing.
Correspondingly, this formulation makes abduction to be more
broadly about the achievement of an understanding than the de-
velopment of theory, although, like a theory, the understanding
may provide explanation. Finally, the idea that extant theory can
be used in the development of theory is accommodated because
educing and conceptualizing the meaning of text allows for draw-
ing on knowledge of any kind, including prior theory, so long as
doing so is in keeping with the development of new understand-
ings rather than merely the confirmation of old ones.
Proposition 3: Qualitative Research Involves
Demonstrative Rhetoric
Rhetoric has been defined as “the rationale of the informative
and the suasory in discourse” (Bryant, 1974, p. 239). Aristotle
observed that in his time the (Platonic) distinction usually was
made between demonstration (science), rhetoric (enthymeme), and
philosophy (dialectic) as uses of speech and language (Lanigan,
1995). Aristotle narrowed the gap between science and rhetoric
when holding that the latter can be demonstrative as well, in two
ways. The first is by taking the enthymeme to be an analogue of
the syllogism used in demonstration. The second is by using
examples as an analogue of induction (Vickers, 1989).
The enthymeme is defined as “an incompletely stated syllogism,
with one premise, or even the conclusion, omitted” (Boh, 1999, p.
267). Thus, for example, in the argument, “All men are mortal
(major premise), therefore Socrates is mortal (conclusion),” omit-
ted is the minor premise that Socrates is a man.
There has always been a connection between rhetoric and me-
thodical hermeneutics. The groundwork was laid during the me-
dieval period when rhetoric became an instrument in theology to
“clarify the meanings and remove the ambiguities of scriptural
statements” and to systematize collections of authorities, making
discordant canons constant (Vickers, 1989, p. 282). Accordingly,
Flacius drew on rhetoric when originating the hermeneutic circle
(Dilthey, 1996b), and this connection has been retained to the
present day (Eden, 1987; Hernadi, 1987). When the Reformation
was followed by the Enlightenment, however, rhetoric fell out of
favor, and this prejudice continues today, certainly in mainstream
psychology. Here, the threat to validity is founded on the research-
er’s subjectivity, which is seen to be in need of control. The
resulting objectivist methodology has been assumed to provide
demonstration pure and simple, not rhetorical demonstration.
391
There are, of course, two main sets of objectivistic methods that
have become conventionalized in most social and health sciences,
especially in psychology. Whether experimental or correlation
methods are used, emphasis is placed on the importance of sepa-
rating the researcher as subject and the object under observation,
on measurement of the object, and on application of statistics to the
measurements. The test of significance then becomes the index of
demonstrated truth, or so we are led to believe (Bakan, 1966).
Although it has been argued that this mode of demonstration is
actually rhetorical (Bazerman, 1988; Billig, 1987; Maki, 1988;
Nelson, Megill, & McCloskey, 1987), this argument has taken
little effect. Faith in the objectivism underpinning conventional
methodology prevails (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999).
In contrast, in qualitative research typically there is use of small
samples, no use of experimental and correlation methods, little if
any use of measurement, and no use of statistics. It involves
interpretation of human experience and/or action, and its claims
are made lingually. It is meant to persuade and so is clearly
rhetorical. But is the rhetoric sophistical or demonstrative? The
sophists prided themselves in being able to win an argument from
any side. Qualitative researchers are not like that. They argue on
the side of their understandings, and when their arguments are
grounded in experience and/or action, their arguments take effect.
How and why this rhetoric works has to do with the idea of
human science, which can be traced to Aristotle’s synesis or
understanding, a variant of phronesis or ethical wisdom and dis-
tinguished from episteme, or science/knowledge (Bernstein, 1983).
Perhaps the first modern contributor to the idea was Hobbes
(1651/1968). Following his attempt to apply to civics Galileo’s
approach to mechanics, Hobbes concluded that civics is both more
and less complex than mechanics. It is more complex because its
laws of motion must of necessity take into account human will. It
is less complex because we know best what we create, and al-
though we did not create the natural world, we have made the
commonwealth.
The line of thinking set in motion by Hobbes has been expressed
comparatively recently by sociologist Anthony Giddens (1976)
when writing of the double hermeneutic. He has observed that,
unlike natural science, which involves a subject-object relationship
and hence a single hermeneutic (because natural science, too, is
interpretive), sociology involves a subject–subject relationship and
thus a double hermeneutic. Giddens has pointed out that its in-
volvement in the latter relationship makes for sociology a pre-
interpreted world in which the meanings developed by active
subjects enter in fact to the actual constitution or production of that
world. He has maintained that the resulting double hermeneutic
has no parallel elsewhere, concluding that the logical status of
generalizations is in a very significant way distinct from that of
natural scientific laws.
Sociology is thus reflexively bound up in its subject matter. The
same of course applies to related disciplines such as psychology
except, perhaps, neuropsychology (for application of the idea of
human science to psychology, see, e.g., Fischer, 1977; Giorgi,
1970; Rennie, 1995a). The double hermeneutic helps to explain
why someone may be able to interpret others’ experience and/or
4
Making an inference to the best explanation is also known as abduction
(Sklar, 1999).
392 RENNIE
action better than they can themselves: The interpreter can be
clarifying because she or he comes from the same culture as the
others. It also helps to explain why, when others find such an
articulation illuminating, they are moved by it (Gendlin, 1997;
Taylor, 1971). Moreover, once persons take on an understanding,
they may generalize it regardless of the interpreter’s intention.
Although not traced to their hermeneutic source as I am doing
here, these dynamics have been addressed in observations that
returns from qualitative research are picked up and used when they
ring true, or resonate within the person (Glaser & Strauss, 1967;
Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Stiles, 1993).
The same dynamics can be seen to apply to practitioners such as
counselors and psychotherapists who are inclined to draw on
intuitive theories and case studies more than on results from
conventional, objective/externalizing research (Morrow-Bradley
& Elliott, 1986).
In terms of Aristotle’s two modes of demonstrative rhetoric,
qualitative researchers typically use examples rather than the en-
thymeme. As seen, this work involves noticing something in a text;
educing the meaning of what has caught attention; conceptualizing
it whether as a category, theme, or structure, and so forth; treating
the conceptualization as a modified abduction; and testing the
abduction through the theorematic deduction and ensuing induc-
tion that the abduction in turn modifies. The latter moment of the
cycle involves the utilization of examples bearing in one way or
other on the conceptualization. As result of the cycling, the re-
searcher’s understanding is grounded in evidence. Moreover, in
virtue of the double hermeneutic, the grounding increases the
likelihood that the understanding will resonate and be persuasive.
There is one more element of the methodology: The demonstra-
tive rhetoric is also enhanced by researchers’ reflexive disclosure
of the perspective they bring to their interpretations.
Proposition 4: The Demonstrative Rhetoric of
Qualitative Research Is Enhanced by Disclosed
Reflexivity
It is helpful when qualitative researchers do what they can to
disclose (within reasonable limits) their perspective on the topic
they address. This is so because human science is a subject–subject
science involving the double hermeneutic, and because qualitative
research methods express this human science.5 It is impossible for
a researcher to be completely objective, like a God or titan ob-
serving objects from a position of pure detachment (Putnam,
1990), and so it helps the reader to objectify the researcher if the
latter discloses the perspective he or she brought to the topic of the
research: The disclosure helps the reader to understand the re-
searcher’s understanding.
Granted, there is a need to be discriminating. McLeod and
Balamoutsou (2006) have observed that it is difficult within the
space allowable in most publication venues to disclose the full
range of the perspective brought to a study. Nevertheless, I suggest
that this constraint does not prevent revelation of what is highly
relevant. Hence, if, say, a study is conducted on the experience of
becoming a mother for the first time and how it is managed, it
helps the reader to position the author when she indicates whether
she is an insider or an outsider. Moreover, when making the
disclosure the author wins either way: If an insider, she is given
authority; if an outsider, she is respected for her honesty.
This final proposition goes against the grain of the subject-
object dualism prized in conventional research methodology. But
it is an important part of the methodical hermeneutic methodology.
It increases rather than decreases persuasiveness.
General Applicability of the Methodology
Hermeneutics is rather like an elephant in the room that even
qualitative researchers resist seeing, especially in methodical
terms. And when it is seen by them in this way, typically it is only
glimpsed and integrated into some other method (e.g., Addison,
1989; Wilson & Hutchinson, 1991). Meanwhile, advocates of the
relevance of hermeneutics for psychology (e.g., Martin & Sugar-
man, 2001; Messer, Sass, & Woolfolk, 1988; Polkinghorne, 2000;
F. C. Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999; Sandage et al., 2008)
have not carried it into methodology, although a partial exception
is Martin Packer. In his initial work (Packer, 1985; Packer &
Addison, 1989a, 1989b), Packer attempted to fashion a hermeneu-
tic method out of Heidegger’s (1927/1996) hermeneutic phenom-
enology, to do with ontology or the nature of being. Recently,
Packer (2011) has also drawn on writings by Merleau-Ponty,
Habermas, and Foucault (among others) when deepening his ar-
gument that how people are constituted is best explained herme-
neutically in terms of their embodied engagement with the world.
This perspective has taken him to action and so has inclined him
toward the discursive kind of qualitative research; however, he has
yet to work out the details of method as he has observed (Packer,
2011).
In the present day, in virtue of the influential impact of Gad-
amer’s (1960/1992) philosophical hermeneutics, the term herme-
neutics is often thought to be about interpretations embedded in
culture and history that imposes a limitation on its application.
Insufficiently taken into account is the generalization of the mean-
ing of the term text, given above. Although this generalization
does not exclude the application of culture and history to herme-
neutics, it does not require it either.
To establish the claim that we indeed have here an all-
encompassing methodology of qualitative research will require
detailed analyses of the procedures constituting each of its many
methods. Up to now, the initial formulation of the methodology
has been applied to the grounded theory method (Rennie, 1998,
2000; Rennie & Fergus, 2006), theory-building case-study re-
search (cf. Rennie, 2009; Stiles, 2009), an application of the
psychoanalytic case-study (Frommer & Langenbach, 2006), and
task analysis (Greenberg, 2007). It is of course not possible to
provide this detail in the present article, but, as an installment, in
this section I sketch what seems to me to be the applicability of the
methodology to the most challenging member of the experiential
kind of qualitative research, namely the descriptive phenomeno-
logical psychological method. It is challenging because the meth-
od’s originator, Amedeo Giorgi, has maintained that the result of
its application is description, not an interpreted understanding. I
5
Coming from a postmodern position, Cunliffe (2011) has argued that
the single versus double hermeneutic and corresponding natural science-
human science duality are out of date, and that any quest for a unifying
qualitative research methodology is misplaced. Instead, methodical plural-
ism should be embraced because qualitative research is a craft, not the
practice of science. I disagree.
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS METHODICAL HERMENEUTICS
follow this sketch with a look at conversation analysis as an
example of the discursive kind of methods. This kind is also
challenging because its users are inclined to promote methodolog-
ical diversity, not unity (see Madill & Gough, 2008; on a related
note, cf. Elliott, Fischer, & Rennie, 1999, 2000; Reicher, 2000).
After that, I end with thematic analysis as an example of it the
experiential/discursive kind of method.
The Descriptive Phenomenological Psychological
Method
Although at times Giorgi has granted that interpretation is
involved in his method of descriptive phenomenological psycho-
logical research, he has maintained that the result is description
nevertheless (Giorgi, 1992). Although not carved in stone, the
procedures constituting the method are basically the following
(Giorgi, 1975, 1985, 2009). (a) Participants are asked to describe
a given experience, such as learning something new; the result is
a text whether a written description or an oral description that is
transcribed. (b) The researcher reads the entire description to get
an overall sense of it. (c) The researcher repeats the reading, this
time extracting passages that specifically address the experience of
interest, to make the analysis more manageable; these passages are
called “meaning units” (Giorgi, 1979, p. 83).6 (d) The meaning
units are rewritten in pithier language. (e) To make the study
relevant for psychology, the researcher rewrites the meaning units
yet again, this time reading into them, where appropriate, generic
psychological concepts such as motivation and values. (f) For each
participant, the transformed meaning units are synthesized into a
description of the structure of the participant’s experience. (g)
When achieving this structure, the researcher supplements the
empirical evidence of the phenomenon with imaginative variation
of facets of it to determine the invariant meanings making up the
structure. (h) When descriptions are provided by more than one
person, the individual structures are synthesized into a general
structure. Finally, (i) throughout the development of a structure, it
is checked repeatedly against the text and refined until it stabilizes.
Giorgi has drawn on Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy
(e.g., Husserl, 1913/1931), as rendered especially by Merleau-
Ponty (1962). Husserl held that pure, foundational description of a
phenomenon (which he defined as what is present to conscious-
ness) is possible when presuppositions about it are bracketed (put
aside) and when empirical evidence of it is supplemented by
imaginative variation of all facets of it, to determine its essence.
These claims have been contested. It has been argued that pure
description is impossible because description always involves in-
terpretation (Heidegger, 1927/1996; Kockelmans, 1967; Ricoeur,
1981; Warnke, 1987). It has also been maintained by Merleau-
Ponty (1962) that imaginative variation cannot encompass the
myriad of aspects of any given phenomenon and hence collapses
into induction.
Thus, his laudable and in many ways pioneering attempt to
develop a qualitative research method suitable for psychology
notwithstanding, when adapting Husserl’s philosophical phenom-
enology to develop a phenomenological method suitable for psy-
chology, Giorgi has been standing on shaky ground when holding
out for description. After all, changing the original text into pithier
language and transforming that rewriting into psychological lan-
guage are patently interpretive moves (for related arguments, see
393
Klein & Westcott, 1994; Osborne, 1994). As for imaginative
variation, Giorgi (2009) has agreed with Merleau-Ponty when
recommending that, when nomothetic as opposed idiographic
claims are to be made, at least three participants should be studied
because to rely exclusively on imaginative variation imposes too
great a burden on the researcher.
Taking all this into account, it would seem that Proposition 1
above (“methodical hermeneutics”) can be seen in the method,
and that Proposition 2 (“logical operations”) is evident in the
use of the text to validate a conceptualized structure. Regarding
the fourth proposition, on disclosed reflexivity, Giorgi (1970)
has recommended that users of his method be open about their
subjective involvement in their studies. This leaves Proposition
3 (demonstrative rhetoric): Giorgi has not specifically ascribed
rhetoric to the method, but his view that all ways of doing
human science are matters of approach (Giorgi, 1970) is con-
sistent with it.
Conversation Analysis
In terms of the discursive kind of qualitative research methods,
under the rubric of what he calls “discourse studies,” Sanders
(2005) has listed these methods in alphabetical order as “applied
linguistics and sociolinguistics, argumentation studies, conversa-
tion analysis, discourse analysis, discursive psychology, ethnogra-
phy of communication, language pragmatics, rhetorical communi-
cation and semiotics” (p. 57). As mentioned, the users of these
methods notice keenly how conversationalists interact with each
other, and how they along with writers and public speakers vary
their discourse depending on context. Such interaction and vari-
ability is seen to be organized, however. Hence, Drew (1995) has
described conversation analysis as an inductive undertaking di-
rected to sequential organization of patterns structuring verbal
conduct in action, which is demonstrated through collections of
cases wherein properties of the patterns are discerned. Similarly,
Ten Have (1999) has observed that a number of writers including
Silverman (1985) and Heritage (1995) have adopted analytic in-
duction (Znaniecki, 1934) to describe conversation analysts’ gen-
eral approach to data. Ten Have has also suggested that, apart from
induction, there may be currency in Ragin’s (1994) endorsement of
retroduction; as indicated above, Peirce used retroduction as a
synonym of abduction.
The ascription of induction to conversation analysis and the
consideration of a role for abduction in it as well would appear to
bring the method into the region of Proposition 2 (“logical oper-
ations”). Meanwhile, if we assume that what conversation analysts
study is text, and that their descriptions of patterns of it involve
interpretation, then Proposition 1 (“methodical hermeneutics”) can
be made to apply as well. The third proposition (“demonstrative
rhetoric”) is highly compatible with conversation analysis. Indeed,
6
My group has taken up Giorgi’s term, meaning unit, to describe the
given passage we break out of a transcript (Rennie, 2006; Rennie et al.,
1988). Our definition and use of it differ from his, however. He defines it
as a constituent of the targeted phenomenon, whereas we define it as a
passage of text that is interpreted to be basically about a main topic.
Procedurally, he may cluster his meaning units, whereas we maintain the
position of our meaning units in the text as a whole to preserve their
contexts and cluster their condensations.
394 RENNIE
rhetoric is often brought into the picture explicitly and sometimes
forcefully (e.g., Billig, 1987; Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984).
This leaves the fourth proposition (disclosed reflexivity). Here,
I must say, there appears to be less applicability. The postmodern
position taken up by most conversation analysts goes with an
upward reduction of the self into language and culture. As Wiley
(1994, p. 28) has observed, this reduced self is “lacking any sui
generis reality and therefore any rights.” This relativism ap-
plied to the self may help to explain why conversation analysts
typically disclose little about themselves. Accordingly, the
fourth proposition is more a prescription of what conversation
analysts might consider doing than a description of what they
are inclined to do.
Thematic Analysis
The method of thematic analysis has been characterized by
Braun and Clarke (2006) as entailing six phases: (a) Familiariza-
tion with the data by reading and re-reading them, noting down
initial ideas. (b) Attending to interesting features of the data that
are coded in a systematic fashion across the entire data set, and
collating the data pertinent to each code. (c) Searching for themes,
wherein codes are collated into potential themes and data are
gathered relevant to each theme. (d) Reviewing the themes,
involving checking to see if they work in terms of the codes
given to parts of the data as well as the entire set of data,
leading to generation of a thematic map of the analysis. (e)
Defining and naming themes, accompanied by ongoing analysis
to refine the specifics of each theme and the overall story that
the analysis tells; and so generate clear definitions and names
for each theme. And (f), Producing the report, which provides
final opportunity for analysis involving the selection and anal-
ysis of compelling extracts from the data; then final analysis of
the extracts, which relates them back to the research question
and literature.
The language used by Braun and Clarke (2006) differs some-
what from mine, especially when they talk of data instead of
evidence and of searching for themes instead of my educing
meanings and articulating them into concepts in the form of, in this
case, themes. On the other hand, there is much in their depiction of
thematic analysis that seems compatible with the methodical her-
meneutic methodology. They see thematic analysis to be interpre-
tive. The hermeneutic circle method and the mix of creativity and
logical operations that I ascribe to its application are apparent in
their six phases. Elsewhere in their article they write about the
rhetoric of presentation, and they encourage openness about one’s
subjective involvement in one’s research. Thus, all four proposi-
tions of the methodology seem to apply.
Conclusion
Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, psychology responded
to threats to its credibility by making itself into a behavioral
science supported by positivism (Danziger, 1979). Now, a century
later, disappointment in what the resulting objectivist methodology
has delivered has led some psychologists to turn to qualitative
research in search of a better way. In choosing this path, they have
used extant methods and have developed new ones. When these
methods depart dramatically from conventional research method-
ology, in exchange for emancipation from it there is a danger of
qualitative research becoming a ghetto in the world of knowledge
production. Alternatively, if the methods conform too much to
conventional methodology, there is risk of throwing the baby out
with the bathwater. As observed by Kvale (1999), qualitative
researchers are like Odysseus sailing the hazardous strait between
“a no-method Charybdis and an all-method Scylla” (p. 88). The
foregoing methodology is my attempt to navigate safe passage
through that strait. Although the cursory application of the meth-
odology to a representative of each of the three kinds of qualitative
research looks promising, detailed analyses of the procedures of all
its main methods is required to fulfill that promise. In the interim,
I invite qualitative researchers to apply the methodology to what
they do to see how well it fits. Should they and quantitative
researchers alike grant merit to the methodology, psychology’s
mainstream gatekeepers might be more accommodating of quali-
tative research.
References
Addison, R. B. (1989). Grounded interpretive research: An investigation of
physician socialization. In M. C. Packer & R. B. Addison (Eds.),
Entering the circle: Hermeneutic investigation in psychology (pp. 39 –
57). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Angus, L. E., & Rennie, D. L. (1988). Therapist participation in metaphor
generation: Collaborative and noncollaborative styles. Psychotherapy:
Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 25, 552–560. doi:10.1037/
h0085381
Bakan, D. (1966). The test of significance in psychological research.
Psychological Bulletin, 66, 423– 437. doi:10.1037/h0020412
Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping written knowledge: The genre and activity
of the experimental article in science. Madison, WI: University of
Wisconsin Press.
Bernstein, R. (1983). Beyond objectivism and relativism. Philadelphia, PA:
University of Philadelphia Press.
Betti, E. (1980). Hermeneutics as the general method of the Geisteswis-
senshaften. In J. Bleicher (Ed. & Trans.), Contemporary hermeneutics:
Hermeneutics as method, philosophy and critique (pp. 51–94). London,
England: Routledge. (Original work published 1962)
Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social
psychology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Bleicher, J. (Ed. & Trans.). (1980). Contemporary hermeneutics: Herme-
neutics as method, philosophy and critique. London, England: Rout-
ledge. (Original work published 1962)
Boh, I. (1999). Enthymeme. In R. Audi (Ed.), The Cambridge dictionary of
philosophy (2nd ed., p. 267). New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology.
Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77–101. doi:10:1191/
1478088706qp063oa
Brent, J. (1998). Charles Sanders Peirce: A life (Rev. & enlarged ed.).
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Bryant, D. C. (1974). Rhetoric: Its functions and scope “rediviva.” In W. R.
Fischer (Ed.), Rhetoric: A tradition in transition: In honor of Donald C.
Brant with a reprinting of his “Rhetoric, its functions and scope,” and
“Rhetoric, its functions and scope ‘rediva’” (pp. 231–248). East Lan-
sing, MI: Michigan State University Press.
Cunliffe, A. L. (2011). Crafting qualitative research: Morgan and Smircich
30 years on. Organizational Research Methods, 14, 647– 673. doi:
10.1177/1094428110373658
Curd, M. V. (1980). The logic of discovery: An analysis of three ap-
proaches. In T. Nickles (Ed.), Scientific discovery, logic and rationality.
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS METHODICAL HERMENEUTICS
Vol. 56 of Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science (pp. 201–219).
Boston, MA: D. Reidel.
Danziger, K. (1979). The positivist repudiation of Wundt. Journal of the
History of the Behavioral Sciences, 15, 205–230. doi:10.1002/1520-
6696(197907)15:3⬍205::AID-JHBS2300150303⬎3.0.CO;2-P
Dilthey, W. (1996a). Hermeneutics and its history. In R. A. Makkreel & F.
Rodi (Eds. & Trans.), Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected works: Vol. 4: Herme-
neutics and the study of history (pp. 33–258). Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Dilthey, W. (1996b). Schleiermacher’s hermeneutic system in relation to
earlier Protestant hermeneutics. In R. A. Makkreel & F. Rodi (Eds. &
Trans.), Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected works: Vol. 4: Hermeneutics and the
study of history (pp. 33–327). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Drew, P. (1995). Conversation analysis. In J. A. Smith, R. Harré, & L. Van
Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking methods in psychology (pp. 64 –79).
London, England: Sage.
Eden, K. (1987). Hermeneutics and the ancient rhetorical tradition. Rhe-
torica, 5, 59 – 86. doi:10.1525/rh.1987.5.1.59
Elliott, R. (1986). Interpersonal process recall (IPR) as a psychotherapy
process research method. In L. G. Greenberg & W. Pinsof (Eds.), The
psychotherapy process: A research handbook (pp. 503–527). New York,
NY: Guilford Press.
Elliott, R. (2002). Hermeneutic single-case efficacy design. Psychotherapy
Research, 12, 1–21. doi:10.1080/713869614
Elliott, R., Fischer, C. T., & Rennie, D. L. (1999). Evolving guidelines for
publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related
fields. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38, 215–229. doi:
10.1348/014466599162782
Elliott, R., Fischer, C. T., & Rennie, D. L. (2000). Also against methodola-
try: A reply to Reicher. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 39, 7–10.
doi:10.1348/014466500163068
Field, S. D., Barkham, M., Shapiro, D. A., & Stiles, W. B. (1994).
Assessment of assimilation in psychotherapy: A quantitative case study
of problematic experiences with a significant other. Journal of Coun-
seling Psychology, 41, 397– 406. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.41.3.397
Fischer, C. T. (1977). Historical relations of psychology as an object
science and a subject science: Toward psychology as a human science.
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 13, 369 –378. doi:
10.1002/1520-6696(197710)13:4⬍369::AID-JHBS2300130409⬎3.0.CO;
2-Z
Frommer, J., & Langenbach, M. (2006). The psychoanalytic case study as
a source of epistemic knowledge. In J. Frommer & D. Rennie (Eds.),
Qualitative psychotherapy research: Methods and methodology (2nd
ed., pp. 50 – 68). Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Science.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1992). Truth and method (2nd Rev. ed.). New York, NY:
Crossroad. (Original work published 1960)
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Gendlin, E. T. (1962). Experiencing and the creation of meaning. New
York, NY: Macmillan.
Gendlin, E. T. (1978/1979). Befindlichkeit [Situatedness]. Review of Ex-
istential Psychology and Psychiatry, 16(1–3), 43–71.
Gendlin, E. T. (1991). Thinking beyond patterns: Body, language and
situations. In B. Den Ouden & M. Moen (Eds.), The presence of feeling
in thought (pp. 21–51). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Gendlin, E. T. (1997). How philosophy cannot appeal to experience, and
how it can. In D. M. Levin (Ed.), Language beyond postmodernism:
Saying and thinking in Gendlin’s philosophy (pp. 3– 41). Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press.
Giddens, A. (1976). New rules of sociological method: A positive critique
of interpretative sociologies. London, England: Hutchinson.
Gilbert, G. N., & Mulkay, M. (1984). Opening Pandora’s box: A socio-
logical analysis of scientists’ discourse. Cambridge, England: Cam-
bridge University Press.
395
Giorgi, A. (1970). Psychology as human science: A phenomenologically
based approach. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Giorgi, A. (1975). An application of the phenomenological method in
psychology. In A. Giorgi, C. Fischer, & E. Murray (Eds.), Duquesne
studies in phenomenological psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 82–103). Pitts-
burgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
Giorgi, A. (1979). The relationships among level, type, and structure and
their importance for social science theorizing: A dialogue with Schütz.
In A. Giorgi, W. F. Fischer, & R. Von Eckartsberg (Eds.), Duquesne
studies in phenomenological psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 81–96). Pittsburgh,
PA: Duquesne University Press.
Giorgi, A. (1985). Sketch of a psychological phenomenological method. In
A. Giorgi (Ed.), Phenomenology and psychological research (pp. 8 –22).
Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
Giorgi, A. (1992). Description versus interpretation: Competing alternative
strategies for qualitative research. Journal of Phenomenological Psy-
chology, 23, 119 –135. doi:10.1163/156916292X00090
Giorgi, A. (2009). The descriptive phenomenological method in psychol-
ogy: A modified Husserlian approach. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne Uni-
versity Press.
Glaser, B. G. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity: Advances in the methodology
of grounded theory. Mill Valley, CA: The Sociology Press.
Glaser, B. G. (1992). Emergence vs. forcing: The basics of grounded
theory analysis. Mill Valley, CA: The Sociology Press.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory:
Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Greenberg, L. S. (2007). A guide to conducting a task analysis of psycho-
therapy change. Psychotherapy Research, 17, 15–30. doi:10.1080/
10503300600720390
Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and human interests (J. J. Shapiro,
Trans.). Boston, MA: Beacon. (Original work published 1968)
Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action, Vols. 1 and 2 (T.
McCarthy, Trans.). Boston, MA: Beacon. (Original work published
1981)
Hahn, L. E. (Ed.). (1995). The philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Chicago, IL:
Open Court.
Haig, B. (2005a). An abductive theory of scientific method. Psychological
Methods, 10, 371–388. doi:10.1037/1082-989X10.4.371
Haig, B. (2005b). Exploratory factor analysis, theory generation and sci-
entific method. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 40, 303–329. doi:
10.1027/s15327906mbr4003_2
Haig, B. (2008a). On the permissiveness of the abductive theory of method.
Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64, 1037–1045. doi:10.1002/jclp.20507
Haig, B. (2008b). Scientific method, abduction, and clinical reasoning.
Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64, 1013–1018. doi:10.1002/jclp.20505
Heidegger, M. (1996). Being and time (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press. (Original work published 1927)
Heritage, J. (1995). Conversation analysis: Methodological aspects. In
U. M. Quasthoff (Ed.), Aspects of oral communication (pp. 391– 418).
Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.
Hernadi, P. (1987). Literary interpretation and the rhetoric of the human
sciences. In J. S. Nelson, A. Megill, & D. N. McCloskey (Eds.), The
rhetoric of the human sciences: Language and argument in scholarship
and public affairs (pp. 263–275). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin
Press.
Hill, C. E., Thompson, B. J., & Williams, E. N. (1997). A guide to
conducting consensual qualitative research. The Counseling Psycholo-
gist, 25, 517–572. doi:10.1177/0011000097254005
Hirsch, E. D. (1967). Validity in interpretation. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Hobbes, T. (1968). Leviathan (C. B. MacPherson, Ed.). Hammondsworth,
United Kingdom: Penguin. (Original work published 1651)
Husserl, E. (1931). Ideas: General introduction to phenomenology (W. R.
396 RENNIE
Boyce Gibson, Trans.). London, England: Allen & Unwin. (Original
work published 1913)
Ibanez, T., & Iniguez, L. (Eds.). (1997). Critical social psychology. Lon-
don, England: Sage.
Josselson, R., & Lieblich, A. (Eds.). (1993). The narrative study of lives
(Vol. 1). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Kagan, N. (1984). Interpersonal process recall: Basic methods and recent
research. In D. Larson (Ed.), Teaching psychological skills (pp. 229 –
244). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Kelle, U. (1995). Theories as heuristic tools in qualitative research. In I.
Maso, P. A. Atkinson, S. Delamont, & J. C. Verhoeven (Eds.), Openness
in research: The tension between self and other (pp. 33–50). Assen, the
Netherlands: Van Gorcum.
Kidd, S. A. (2002). The role of qualitative research in psychological
journals. Psychological Methods, 7, 126 –138. doi:10.1037/1082-
989X.7.1.126
Klein, P., & Westcott, M. R. (1994). The changing character of phenom-
enological psychology. Canadian Psychology, 35, 133–158. doi:
10.1037/0708-5991.35.2.133
Kockelmans, J. (1967). Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological psychology:
A historico-critical study. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
Kvale, S. (1999). The psychoanalytic interview as qualitative research.
Qualitative Inquiry, 5, 87–113.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied
mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York, NY: Basic
Books.
Lanigan, R. L. (1995). A good rhetoric is possible: Ricoeur’s philosophy of
language as a phenomenology of discourse in the human sciences. In
L. E. Hahn (Ed.), The philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (pp. 309 –326).
Chicago, IL: Open Court.
Madill, A. (2006). Exploring psychotherapy with discourse analysis: Chip-
ping away at the mortar. In C. T. Fischer (Ed.), Qualitative research
methods for psychologists: Introduction through empirical studies (pp.
23–57). Boston, MA: Elsevier.
Madill, A., & Barkham, M. (1997). Discourse analysis of a theme in one
successful case of brief psychodynamic-interpersonal psychotherapy.
Journal of Counseling Psychology, 44, 232–244. doi:10.1037/0022-
0167.44.2.232
Madill, A., & Gough, B. (2008). Qualitative research and its place in
psychological science. Psychological Methods, 13, 254 –271. doi:
10.1037/a0013220
Maki, U. (1988). How to combine rhetoric and realism in the methodology
of economics. Economics and Philosophy, 4, 89 –109.
Marchel, C., & Owens, S. (2007). Qualitative research in psychology:
Could William James get a job? History of Psychology, 10, 301–324.
doi:10.1037/1093-4510.10.4.301
Martin, J., & Sugarman, J. (2001). Interpreting human kinds: Beginnings of
a hermeneutic psychology. Theory & Psychology, 11, 193–207. doi:
10.1177/0959354301112003
McLeod, J. (2010). Case study research in counselling and psychotherapy.
London, England: Sage.
McLeod, J., & Balamoutsou, S. (1996). Representing narrative process in
therapy: Qualitative analysis of a single case. Counselling Psychology
Quarterly, 9, 61–76. doi:10.1080/09515079608256353
McLeod, J., & Balamoutsou, S. (2006). A method for qualitative narrative
analysis of psychotherapy transcripts. In J. Frommer & D. L. Rennie
(Eds.), Qualitative psychotherapy research: Methods and methodology
(2nd ed., pp. 128 –152). Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Science.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith,
Trans.). London, England: Routledge.
Messer, S. B., Sass, L. A., & Woolfolk, R. L. (Eds.). (1988). Hermeneutics
and psychological theory: Interpretive perspectives on personality, psy-
chotherapy, and psychopathology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Uni-
versity Press.
Michell, J. (2004). The place of qualitative research in psychology. Qualitative
Research in Psychology, 1, 307–319. doi:10.1191/1478088704qp020oa
Morrow-Bradley, C., & Elliott, R. (1986). Utilization of psychotherapy
research by practicing psychotherapists. American Psychologist, 41,
188 –197. doi:10.1037/0003-066X41.2.188
Moustakas, C. (1990). Heuristic research: Design, methodology, and ap-
plications. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Muhr, T. (2004). ATLAS.ti user’s guide: Software for qualitative data
analysis, management, and model building. Retrieved from http://
www.atlasti.com/uploads/media/atlman_02.pdf
Munley, P. H., Anderson, M. Z., Briggs, D., Devries, M. R., Forshee, W. J.,
& Whisner, E. A. (2002). Methodological diversity of research pub-
lished in selected psychology journals in 1999. Psychological Reports,
91, 411– 420. doi:10.2466/PR0.91.6.411-420
Nelson, J. S., Megill, A., & McCloskey, D. N. (Eds.). (1987). The rhetoric
of the human sciences: Language and argument in scholarship and
public affairs. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Osborne, J. W. (1994). Some similarities and differences among phenom-
enological and other methods of psychological qualitative research.
Canadian Psychology, 35, 167–189. doi:10.1037/0708-5991.35.2.167
Oxford English dictionary (Compact ed.). (1971). Oxford, England: Ox-
ford University Press.
Oxford shorter dictionary (3rd ed.). (1987). Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press.
Packer, M. J. (1985). Hermeneutic inquiry in the study of human conduct.
American Psychologist, 40, 1081–1093. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.40
.10.1081
Packer, M. J. (2011). The science of qualitative research. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Packer, M. J., & Addison, R. B. (1989a). Evaluating an interpretive
account. In M. J. Packer & R. B. Addison (Eds.), Entering the circle:
Hermeneutic investigation in psychology (pp. 275–292). Albany, NY:
SUNY Press.
Packer, M. J., & Addison, R. B. (1989b). Introduction. In M. J. Packer &
R. B. Addison (Eds.), Entering the circle: Hermeneutic investigation in
psychology (pp. 13–36). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Parker, I. (Ed.). (1998). Social constructionism, discourse and realism.
London, England: Sage.
Peirce, C. S. (1965). Pragmatism and abduction. In C. Hartshorne & P.
Weiss (Eds.), Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Vol. 5, pp.
112–131). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Peirce, C. S. (1966). On the logic of drawing history from ancient docu-
ments, especially from testimonies. In C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss (Eds.),
Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Vol. 7, pp. 89 –164).
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 8, 8 –25.
doi:10.1080/0951839950080103
Polkinghorne, D. E. (2000). Psychological inquiry and the pragmatic and
hermeneutic traditions. Theory & Psychology, 10, 453– 479. doi:
10.1177/0959354300104002
Ponterotto, J. G., Kuriakose, G., & Granovskaya, Y. (2007). A paradig-
matic and methodological content analysis of qualitative research
published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, the Journal of
Counseling and Development, and The Counseling Psychologist from
1995–2006: Evidence of paradigm shift in counseling research? Unpub-
lished manuscript, Fordham University, New York, NY.
Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology:
Beyond attitudes and behaviour. London, England: Sage.
Putnam, H. (1990). Realism with a human face (J. Conant, Ed.). Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Ragin, C. C. (1994). Constructing social research: The unity and diversity
of method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Reicher, S. (2000). Against methodolatry: Some comments on Elliott,
 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS METHODICAL HERMENEUTICS
Fischer and Rennie. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 39, 1– 6.
doi:10.1348/014466500163031
Rennie, D. L. (1990). Toward a representation of the client’s experience of
the psychotherapy hour. In G. Lietaer, J. Rombauts, & R. Van Balen
(Eds.), Client-centered and experiential therapy in the nineties (pp.
155–172). Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press.
Rennie, D. L. (1992). Qualitative analysis of the client’s experience of
psychotherapy: The unfolding of reflexivity. In S. Toukmanian & D.
Rennie (Eds.), Psychotherapy process research: Paradigmatic and nar-
rative approaches (pp. 211–233). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Rennie, D. L. (1994). Clients’ deference in psychotherapy. Journal of
Counseling Psychology, 41, 427– 437. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.41.427
Rennie, D. L. (1995a). On the rhetorics of social science: Let’s not conflate
natural science and human science. The Humanistic Psychologist, 23,
321–332. doi:10.1080/08873267.1995.9986833
Rennie, D. L. (1995b). Strategic choices in a qualitative approach to
psychotherapy research. In L. Hoshmand & J. Martin (Eds.), Research
as praxis: Lessons from programmatic research in therapeutic practice
(pp. 198 –220). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Rennie, D. L. (1998). Grounded theory methodology: The pressing need
for a coherent logic of justification. Theory & Psychology, 8, 101–119.
doi:10.1177/0959354398081006
Rennie, D. L. (1999). Qualitative research: A matter of hermeneutics and
the sociology of knowledge. In M. Kopala & L. Suzuki (Eds.), Using
qualitative methods in psychology (pp. 3–19). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Rennie, D. L. (2000). Grounded theory methodology as methodical herme-
neutics: Reconciling realism and relativism. Theory & Psychology, 10,
481–502. doi:10.1177/0959354300104003
Rennie, D. L. (2006). The grounded theory method: Application of a
variant of its procedure of constant comparative analysis to psychother-
apy research. In C. T. Fischer (Ed.), Qualitative research methods for
psychologists: Introduction through empirical studies (pp. 59 –78). Bos-
ton, MA: Elsevier.
Rennie, D. L. (2009). Logic, hermeneutics, or both? Commentary on
Logical Operations in Theory-Building Case Studies by William B.
Stiles. Available from Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy (http://
pcsp.libraries.rutgers.edu), Vol. 5, Module 3, Article 11, 126 –135.
Rennie, D. L., & Fergus, K. D. (2006). Embodied categorizing in the
grounded theory method: Methodical hermeneutics in action. Theory &
Psychology, 16, 483–503. doi:10.1177/0959354306066202
Rennie, D. L., & Frommer, J. (2001). Reflections. In J. Frommer & D.
Rennie (Eds.), Qualitative psychotherapy research: Methods and meth-
odology (1st ed., pp. 185–200). Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Science.
Rennie, D. L., & Frommer, J. (in press). Applications of qualitative and
mixed-method counseling and psychotherapy research. In O. Gelo, A.
Pritz, & B. Rieken (Eds.), Psychotherapy research: General issues,
outcome and process. Vienna, Austria: Springer.
Rennie, D. L., Phillips, J. R., & Quartaro, G. K. (1988). Grounded theory:
A promising approach to conceptualization in psychology? Canadian
Psychology, 29, 139 –150. doi:10.1037/h0079765
Rennie, D. L., Watson, K. D., & Monteiro, A. (2002). The rise of quali-
tative research in psychology. Canadian Psychology, 43, 179 –189.
doi:10.1037/h0086914
Richardson, F. C., Fowers, B. J., & Guignon, C. (1999). Renewing psy-
chology: Beyond scientism and constructionism. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Richardson, R., & Kramer, E. H. (2006). Abduction as the type of inference
that characterizes the development of grounded theory. Qualitative Re-
search, 6, 497–513. doi:10.1177/1468794106068019
Rickman, H. P. (1979). Dilthey: Pioneer of the human studies. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1981). Hermeneutics and the human sciences: Essays on
397
language, action and interpretation (J. B. Thompson, Ed. & Trans.).
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Riemann, G., & Schütze, F. (1991). “Trajectory” as a basic theoretical
concept for analyzing suffering and disorderly social process. In D. R.
Maines (Ed.), Social organization and social process: Essays in honor of
Anselm Strauss (pp. 333–357). New York, NY: De Gruyter.
Romeijn, J.-W. (2008). An all-too-flexible abductive method: ATOM’s
normative status. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64, 1023–1036. doi:
10.1002/jclp.20516
Sacks, H. (1972). An initial investigation of the usability of conversational
data for sociology. In D. N. Sudnow (Ed.), Studies in social interaction
(pp. 31–74). New York, NY: Free Press.
Sandage, S. J., Cook, K. V., Hill, P. C., Strawn, B. D., & Reimer, K. S.
(2008). Hermeneutics and psychology: A review and a dialectical model.
Review of General Psychology, 12, 344 –364. doi:10.1037/1089-
2680,12,4,344
Sanders, R. E. (2005). Validating “observations” in discourse studies: A
methodological reason for attention to cognition. In H. te Molder & J.
Potter (Eds.), Conversation and cognition (pp. 57–78). Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Schütze, F. (1983). Biographische Forschung und Narritives Interview
[Biographical research and narrative interview]. Neue Praxis, 3, 283–
293.
Shank, G. (1994). Shaping qualitative research in educational psychology.
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19, 340 –359. doi:10.1006/
ceps.1994.1025
Silverman, D. (1985). Qualitative methodology and sociology: Describing
the social world. Aldershot, England: Gower.
Silverman, D. (1998). Harvey Sacks: Social science and conversation
analysis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Sklar, L. (1999). Philosophy of science. In R. Audi (Ed.), The Cambridge
dictionary of philosophy (2nd ed., pp. 700 –704). New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Smith, J. A. (1996). Beyond the divide between cognition and discourse:
Using interpretative phenomenological analysis in health psychology.
Psychology and Health, 11, 161–271. doi:10.1080/08870449608400256
Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative phenome-
nological analysis: Theory, method and research. London, England:
Sage.
Stiles, W. B. (1993). Quality control in qualitative research. Clinical
Psychology Review, 13, 593– 618. doi:10.1016/0272-7358(93)90048-Q
Stiles, W. B. (2003). When is a case study scientific research? Psychotherapy
Bulletin, 38, 6 –11. Retrieved from http://www.divisionofpsychotherapy
.org/spring-2003/
Stiles, W. B. (2009). Logical operations in theory-building case studies.
Available from Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy (http://
pcsp.libraries.rutgers.edu), Vol. 5, Module 3, Article 2, 9 –22.
Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. New York,
NY: Cambridge University Press.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research:
Grounded theory procedures and techniques (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Suppe, F. (1999). Eduction. In R. Audi (Ed.), The Cambridge dictionary of
philosophy (2nd ed., p. 253). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University
Press.
Taylor, C. (1971). Interpretation and the sciences of man. Review of
Metaphysics, 25, 3–51. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/
20125928
Ten Have, P. (1999). Conversation analysis: A practical guide. London,
England: Sage.
Thompson, J. B. (1981). Critical hermeneutics: A study in the thought of
Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Turner, B. (1981). Some practical aspects of qualitative data analysis: One
398 RENNIE

way of organizing process associated with the generation of grounded
theory. Quality and Quantity, 15, 225–247.
Tursman, R. (1987). Peirce’s theory of scientific discovery: A system of
logic conceived as semiotic. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Vickers, B. (1989). In defence of rhetoric. Oxford, England: Clarendon.
Warnke, G. (1987). Gadamer: Hermeneutics, tradition and reason. Stan-
ford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Wiley, N. (1994). The semiotic self. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Willig, C., & Stainton-Rogers, W. (2008). Introduction. In C. Willig & W.
Stainton-Rogers (Eds.), The Sage handbook in qualitative research in
psychology (pp. 1–12). London, England: Sage.
Wilson, H. S., & Hutchinson, S. A. (1991). Triangulation of qualitative
methods: Heideggerian hermeneutics and grounded theory. Qualitative
Health Research, 1, 263–276. doi:10.1177/104973239100100206
Znaniecki, F. (1934). The method of sociology. New York, NY: Farrar &
Rinehart.
Received December 23, 2010
Revision received March 12, 2012
Accepted March 22, 2012 䡲

E-Mail Notification of Your Latest Issue Online!

Would you like to know when the next issue of your favorite APA journal will be available
online? This service is now available to you. Sign up at http://notify.apa.org/ and you will be
notified by e-mail when issues of interest to you become available!