Finding my voice: Telling stories with heuristic self-search inquiry

It has been argued that qualitative research can be valuable in providing a forum for the voices of those who may usually be excluded from academic discourse and that it is therefore well suited to exploring individuals' experiences of illness. This article is informed by the authors' research into how people diagnosed with 'schizophrenia' experience their personal therapy. It focuses upon the usefulness of phenomenological research methods for investigating personal experience whilst at the same time considering how these methods might enable the researcher to hear the experience of others. It is proposed that personal stories can be seen as being closer to literature and so something of their essence can be killed off by having to shape them through systematic approaches to research. Therefore, the aim here is to explore whether it is possible or indeed desirable to take a systematic approach to personal experience when conducting psychotherapeutic research and how this might be beneficial or detrimental to researcher and participants.