Which Articles/Books Inspired You Most?

Sometimes you read an article or a book that blows you away, in terms of showing you the way to go with your own research, inspiring you to use a particular method, beaking what you thought were rules about presenting material or causing you to refelct on your own endeavors......Id be keen to hear from you about your own favourite papers...here are my top five.

1. Philosophy and Social Hope by Richard Rorty

Not a qual book but a book on epistomology . This was my first real introduction to social constructionism and the liberating idea that pragmatism (what works) can be a guide for practice, rather than what is "true".....Rorty liberated me from thinking that one method was better than another, that qual was bettter than quant: which is the most useful for the task at hand is the question.

2. The Reflecting Team in Action Collaborative Practice in Family Therapy Friedman


Again, not a qual book but one where i first came across the idea of 'insider knoweldge' as opposed to expert knowledge. Goven qual reserch priveleges the knowledge of participants it was formative and directly inspired my PhD.


3. Chiovitti, Rosalina F. and Piran, Niva (2003) Rigour and grounded theory research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 44(4): 427–435

A very formative paper where I cemented the view that qual research needs as much rigour built in an quant....trustworthiness is the key to being recognised and valued alongside quant research

4. Hunter, S (2010) Evolving Narratives About Childhood Sexual Abuse: Challenging the dominance of the victim survivor paradigm. ANZJournal of Family Therapy


First time Id seen a narrative inquiry paper, and a great one that had proper higher order themes, typologies that inspired.


5. Rober, P., Elliott, R., Buysse, A., Loots, G. & De Corte, K. (2008). What's on the therapist's mind? A grounded theory analysis of family therapist reflections during individual therapy sessions. Psychotherapy Research, 18 (1), 48-57.

First exposure to Interpersonal Process Recall and a paper that really captures the excitement and discovery of qual research...

Lets hear from you about your faves?