The DOI matches its Crossref record; 34 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Giving voice and making sense in interpretative phenomenological analysis
Abstract
In this paper, we discuss two complementary commitments of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA): the phenomenological requirement to understand and ‘give voice’ to the concerns of participants; and the interpretative requirement to contextualize and ‘make sense’ of these claims and concerns from a psychological perspective. The methodological and conceptual bases for the relationship between these phenomenological and interpretative aspects of IPA appear to be underdeveloped in the literature. We, therefore, offer some thoughts on the basis of this relationship, and on its context within qualitative psychology. We discuss the epistemological range of IPA's interpretative focus, and its relationship to the more descriptive features of phenomenological analysis. In order to situate our conclusions within a contextualist position, we draw upon concepts from Heideggerian phenomenology. The argument is illustrated by excerpts from our own research on relationship break-up. We conclude by encouraging IPA researchers to embrace the interpretative opportunities that are offered by this approach.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1982) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9780203981139 · Cited by 9,841
(1987) · Open Research Online - ORO (The Open University) · Cited by 4,513
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
(2020) · SAGE Research Methods Foundations · doi:10.4135/9781526421036813346 · Cited by 4,040
Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology
Willig, C. (2001) · Cited by 3,012
MANSER, A. R. (1963) · Philosophical Books · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0149.1963.tb00795.x · Cited by 2,884
Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue With Nature
Earley, J. E. (1985) · Process Studies · doi:10.2307/44798209 · Cited by 2,413
Order out of chaos : man's new dialogue with nature.
Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1984) · Cited by 2,391
Smith, J. A. (1996) · Psychology & Health · doi:10.1080/08870449608400256 · Cited by 2,380 · cited 5×
“Because of this, IPA researchers can make cautious inferences about discursive, affective and cognitive phenomena (Smith, 1996).”
BackgroundInfluentialSmith, J. A. (2008) · BIROn (Birkbeck, University of London) · doi:10.1191/1478088704qp004oa · Cited by 2,172
Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour
BOWERS, J. (1988) · British Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8309.1988.tb00818.x · Cited by 2,049
Cited by
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021) · Counselling and Psychotherapy Research · doi:10.1002/capr.12360 · Cited by 3,198
Developing an Interpretative Phenomenological Approach to Focus Group Data
Palmer, M., Larkin, M., de Visser, R., & Fadden, G. (2010) · Qualitative Research in Psychology · doi:10.1080/14780880802513194 · Cited by 373
Self-citationShame and Guilt in Men Exposed to Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Qualitative Investigation
Dorahy, M. J., & Clearwater, K. (2012) · Journal of Child Sexual Abuse · doi:10.1080/10538712.2012.659803 · Cited by 181
Punton, G., Dodd, A. L., & McNeill, A. (2022) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0265542 · Cited by 167
Women’s experiences of postnatal distress: a qualitative study
Coates, R., Ayers, S., & de Visser, R. (2014) · BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth · doi:10.1186/1471-2393-14-359 · Cited by 144
Metadata
- Authors
- Larkin, M., Watts, S., & Clifton, E.
- Venue
- Qualitative Research in Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2006-01
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 102-120
- ISSN
- 1478-0887 (ISSN-L)
- 1478-0895
- OpenAlex
- W2082194182
- Cited by
- 1,912
- References
- 34
- FWCI
- 16.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Giving voice and making sense in interpretative phenomenological analysis. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1191/1478088706qp062oa
- The paper
- Larkin, M., Watts, S., & Clifton, E. (2006). Giving voice and making sense in interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative Research in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp062oa
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
