Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast. As always, a big thank you to those of you supporting the podcast via Patreon – really takes the edge of the cost of producing these two-weekly episodes, so thank you.The line-up for the upcoming clinical reasoning series is being finalise, covering topics such as ethics or disease, values based-practice and reasoning, thinking narratively, embodied reasoning plus cognitive perspectives such as hypothetic-deductive reasoning, pattern recognition and knowledge schema. I’ve got some wonderful guests planned, some have appeared on the podcast before while others have not and I’m super excited to talk with them all and hopefully create a rich, insightful and hopefully useful resource for clinicians and students.A final note, Episode 21: Saying the unsayable and thinking the unthinkable - a critical look forward with Prof. David Nicholls seems to be having a resurgence over a year after it was recorded, and I’m frequently receiving messages from you saying how much the episode resonated. I’m not quite sure the reasons for this or what to make of it. As radical as Dave’s view might be i.e. to reboot physiotherapy and osteopathy and start again (see Dave's books here, here and his new one here), the idea at least seems to speak to the crises of existentialism, lack of belonging, identity and the general discomfort or dissatisfaction of where we currently find ourselves with respect to our clinical practice and profession. Anyhow, I’ll keep digging in this topic I’m with Dave again and others too and see where we arrive at and what the solutions might be. Listen to our second brilliant episode here.So, on to your questions of which there were lots, and as usual I’ve tried to select a good spread of topics.I really enjoyed the qualitative research series, I was wondering how do you integrate qualitative research findings into clinical practice? See my chat with Matt Low here and Roger Kerry here for the CauseHealth Series (here).What was your journey from positivist research to constructionist? See here for essential social constructionism reading Ken Gergen here, Kathy Charmaz here, Berger and Luckman and Bury’s social construction of medical knowledge and see a rebuttal paper here. Plus my recent chat with Prof. Martin Kusch on Relativism here.What is the best paper you have read or authored? My favourite papers as a clinician here and here, as a researcher here and here and here and as an author here and here.In qualitative research are themes constructed or are discovered?Why do osteopaths and other MSK practitioners prefer guru experts over solid fundamental evidence? See recent episodes with Dr Carlo Martini on expertise here and here.Do you think there is anything unique about osteopathy that distinguishes it form other similar MSK professions?Also, as a clinician who is also a researcher, academic. Did you ever struggle with the transition? Also feeling lonely and not know how or where you fit in ? Any tips?As a practicing MSK clinician what is the most useful MSc/PhD?Support the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.Once again, a huge thank you to those you that support the show via Patreon – every pledge helps, so a big warm thank you.The response to the recent episodes and the qualitative research series has been immense – it seems like the podcast is rippling through the lives of more and more people.I think we’re approaching 60,000 downloads since the podcast started 18 months ago or so. Coming up on the podcast I have series on clinical reasoning and critical physiotherapy, plus more AMAs (see previous AMAs here, here and here).So on this episode I’m speaking with Dr Marianne Lea and Prof Bjørn Hofmann about their recent paper Dediagnosing – a novel framework for making people less ill (see paper here).Marianne holds a Postdoc position in clinical pharmacy at the University of Oslo. She obtain her PhD in clinical pharmacy in 2019 and her research focuses mainly on multimorbid patients and how we can optimize the health care provided to them.She also works as at the Hospital Pharmacies Enterprise, South-Eastern Norway and has over ten years of experience as a clinical pharmacist in the hospital setting, conducting tasks like medicine reconciliation, medicine reviews and deprescribing.Bjørn is a scholar in philosophy of medicine and bioethics with a special interest in the relationship between epistemology and ethics. He is affiliated with the Department of Health Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the Centre for Medical Ethics at the University of Oslo. Bjørn originally trained in the natural sciences (electrical engineering and biomedical technology) and is now interested history of ideas, and philosophy.His main fields of interests are basic concepts for health care including disease, causality, (over)diagnosis, medicalization and severity. He’s also interested in the norms of knowledge including  knowledge generation, evidence production, norms of science and forms of rationality. See more about Bjørn on Wikipedia here. So in this episode we speak about:What a diagnosis is, both from a social constructionist view but also the biological components which seek to categorise such diagnostic labels.The primary role that diagnoses and the process of diagnosis plays in healthcare and how they structure healthcare systems, economics and clinical specialisms.Bjørn and Marianne outline the problem of too much medicine and too much diagnosing.The process of de-diagnosis- That is, the removal of diagnoses that do not contribute to reducing the person’s suffering.Diagnostic creep and expansion and about the increase in diagnosis and disease screening.The powerful implications of a diagnosis including stigmatization, discrimination and guilt.The psycho-behavioural effects of embodying or living with a diagnosis plus the socialisation of it which can remain imprinted on the person.The positive and negative consequences of a diagnosis.And finally we talk about the relationship between de-prescribing and de-diagnosing.So this was such a fun conversation – it drew together so many great topics which I’ve covered on the podcast. Many of us have a Spidey sense of the problem of overdiagnosis but we may unable to structure a solution to it – well fortunately Marianne and Bjørn have offered a compelling way to start to undo the harms of overdiagnosis.As you’ll hear Bjørn offered to come back on the show and dive even deeper into the topics of medicalisation and overdiagnosis, to which I bit his hand off – so stay tuned.Support the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.So this is part 2 of my conversation with philosopher and epistemologist Dr Carlo Martini, discussion the nature of expertise and how we recognise the associated attributes of an expert. If you haven’t listened to the first part of our conversation, go back and listen to that first so that this episode makes more sense.So in this episode we speak about:The two dimensions to medical communication and we distinguish between scientific misinformation and disinformation.We talk about how the we recognise expertise while standing in the shoes of the layperson?We talk about who should be tasked with recognizing expertiseAnd we talk about public perception of expertise and unsurprisingly we use the current pandemic as an exemplar of when experts disagree as well as as the propagation of medical misinformation and in some cases disinformation.So I hope you enjoy this second part of my chat with Carlo, it’s been great to have him share his own expertise on the subject of expertise. Find Carlo on Twitter @MartiniCarloSupport the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.Once again, I want to start by thanking everyone that supports the podcast via Patreon – your contribution makes a huge difference to the quality and regularity of the episodes.So if you want to pledge a pound, euro or dollar to each episode please visit The Words Matter Podcast Patreon page; if not that’s fine – please enjoy the episodes and share far and wide.In this episode I’m speaking with Dr Carlo Martini. Carlo is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Science in the Faculty of Philosophy at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (UniSR) in Milan and Visiting Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Philosophy of Social Science (https://tint.helsinki.fi) at the University of Helsinki.His primary research interests are in philosophy of the social sciences, social epistemology and science communication. Carlo works on the role of expertise in knowledge transfer from science to policy, on scientific disinformation and public trust in scientific experts. See Carlo's work on the epistemology of expertise here.Carlo is currently leader of the work package Behavioral Tools for Building Trust in the H2020 Project Peritia (Policy Expertise and Trust). We speak about Carlo’s work on the Peritia project in part 2.So in this episode we speak about:The nature of expertise and the different conceptions of it.We distinguish between genuine and bogus or pseudo expertise.We talk about some of the attributes of expertise and that expertise is more than just knowledge acquisition or hours of practice or years of experience in a particular field.We talk about the purpose and function of expertise, and if experts don’t get better outcomes, then what’s the point?We talk about the role of tacit knowledge and distinguish between knowing that and knowing how.We talk about how we recognise expertise, how it is perceived and whether or not expertise is just in the eye of the beholder?Expert judgement and models of decision-making (see paper by Emanuel and Emanuel here), and we situate this in the context of evidence based practice (see Carlo's work on EBP here and here).We talk about Carlo’s collaboration with the CauseHealth project and he links expertise with the adoption of person-centred care and we allude situations when more practitioner-led care might be the more person-centred approach to take. And now is a good time to point you towards the phenomenal CauseHealth Series of 16 episodes involving conversations with the author of each chapter of the excellent CauseHealth book. Finally we question the notion of ‘patient as expert’ and we both reflect on a paper written by the colleague of mine Prof. Stephen Tyreman who wrote a paper also critically evaluating the notion of patient as expert (see paper here). It deserves to be restated that the CauseHealth Series was dedicated in memory of Stephen owing to the significant contribution and impact he had on CauseHealth and colleagues and students alike.This was a brilliant conversation with Carlo, which brought together several areas which the podcast has explored  (eg EBM, CauseHealth, Knowledge and philosophy in practice) to get a handle on what expertise is and the implications for the conceptions that we arrive at. In part 2 we talk about the public perception and confidence in expertise. Find Carlo on Twitter @MartiniCarloSupport the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.As usual, I want to start by thanking everyone that supports the show via Patreon and for those of you that share the podcast. The growth of the podcast over the past 6 months has been incredible, and I’m frequently getting messages from people across the globe and professional and academic landscape saying how much they’ve enjoyed the conversations – so a sincere thank you.Like many of you, I’ve had a bit of a break over the summer and hopefully you have caught up on the incredible qualitative research series, so perfectly finished off by my chat with Prof. Dave Nichiolls.And on this episode I’m continuing to explore the philosophical and conceptual side of the social world by speaking about relativism with Prof. Martin Kusch.Martin is professor for applied philosophy of science and epistemology at the University of Vienna, and previously he was Professor of Philosophy and Sociology of science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University.Martin has published widely on the philosophy of social science, social epistemology, the sociology of knowledge and the history of psychology. He also has a long-standing interest in everything to do with relativism and has published extensively in the area, including the books The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Relativism, Social Epistemology and Relativism, The Emergence of Relativism and Relativism in the philosophy of science. So on this episode we talk about:Relativism as a spectrum concept, with many different views of the doctrine ranging from radical to the more subtle.The many different domains of relativism, such as aesthetic value, taste, morality or epistemic justification.Martin sets out his five key ingredients of relativism, regardless of view or form of relativism. These principles are: Standards dependence, plurality, conflict, convergence and symmetry.How the commitment to equal validity, aka the ‘anything goes’ form of relativism is often by critics to define relativism in the most implausible way in order to attack it, and therefore can avoid engaging in the more nuanced, sensible and interesting versions of relativism.Why our sense taste is often used as a ‘test case’ for the plausibility or implausibility of relativism.We talk about the main opponent of relativism, namely absolutism.How relativism provides us with a sense of epistemic humility, but importantly this does automatically assume a position of epistemic tolerance.How methodological relativism has been used to good effect in the social sciences such as anthropology, ethnography and many of the qualitative research approaches which I've discussed on this podcast before.Finally, Martin offers his views about the different ways that we might access a reality, and what relativism has to say about notions of a single objective reality.So it was a complete privilege speaking with Martin – I’d been dreaming of wanting to explore relativism on the podcast for a long time and had been hovering over the direct message button on Martin’s Twitter profile for many months – his friendliness and enthusiasm to share his knowledge and expertise podcast was just brilliant.He really is one of the foremost thinkers and writers of relativism, and here are some of his excellent talks and videos, including an excellent TedX talk he gave in 2019 titled Scientific expertise in the age of post-truth.Find Martin on Twitter @MartinKuschSupport the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Episode.As usual I want to start by thanking all of you that are supporting the podcast via Patreon, your contributions all add up and make these conversations possible. If you’d like to contribute you can visit Patreon.com/thewordsmatterpodcast – every little helps.So, we’re at the closing ceremony of The Qualitative Research Series. I hope you’ve enjoyed the episodes. I want to thank all my guests, that were incredibly generous with their time, knowledge and experience;  each one did a phenomenal job of communicating their qualitative expertise in an immensely engaging and passionate way.They’ve been part of what I hope will be an incredibly valuable resource on qualitative research. If you haven’t listened to all the episodes, please do. And if you have listened to them all, go back and listened again from time to time as just like re-watching Game of Thrones, there are hidden nuggets, gems and insights which only become apparent on a second run.So on this final episode of the qualitative research series, I’m speaking with Prof. Dave Nicholls in a special ‘Ask Us Anything’. I first spoke with Dave way back in episode 21 last year, in a hugely popular episode covering a range of topics related to the direction towards the end of professional healthcare practice, so if you haven’t listened to that episode, and want to hear more of Dave go back and have a listen (here).Dave is a Professor in the School of Clinical Sciences at AUT University in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a physiotherapist, lecturer, researcher and writer, with a passion for critical thinking in and around the physical therapies.He is the founder of the Critical Physiotherapy Network, an organisation that promotes the use of cultural studies, education, history, philosophy, sociology, and a range of other disciplines in the study of the profession’s past, present and future.So in this episode we talk about:How the nature and form that research education takes shapes the thinking and practice of healthcare professionals.The problem with the lack of sociological theories featuring in qualitative research and the absence of these theories in healthcare education.The continued dominance of the biomedical model in healthcare and how this relates to the sorts of knowledge, evidence and research that clinicians and students value; which is largely propositional, measurable and quantitative in nature.The problem of placing methods first, and that this process focussed research constitutes what he calls ‘quant lite’ rather than qualitative research. Dave has written a fair bit on qualitative research, see his CPN blogs here, here and here.Dave outlines his view on the problem of much of the current qual research and that many of the current batch of qualitative offerings is not fit for purpose and he outlines how post-qual provides a new way of thinking about and doing qualitative research (see paper here on the possibilities of post qual research).How healthcare is moving into a post-world; a postqualitative world, a postprofessional world and a posthumanist world.How his sociological and interest in Foucault motivates him to asks questions of the structures that guide practice and the discourses which precede us and define who we are.His view that the field of qualitative health research is replete with work examining the patient experience and that there are other, possibly more consequential sociological areas which need examining beyond this safe space for qualitative researchers. Dave talks about ‘bracketing out’ the patient experience from qualitative research…for a while at least.And with that we talk about the prominence of phenomenological qualitative research and how the possible rise of this particular methodology has been influenced by the deeper understanding of pain from a scientific perspective.And finally we discuss the incredible potential of qualitative research to give people other ways to see, to be and to experience the world.So while this episode is badged as an AUA, it doesn’t meet this particular category or follow this particular style . This was part deliberate and part accidental. As rather than responding to your questions directly, we used them to create topics and themes of conversations which we hoped that by moving through, we would address some of the excellent questions that you sent in. The accidental part was that in all honesty we got carried away, and lost in conversation (which is easy to do when talking with Dave give the breadth, depth and pointedness of his views).So if you were expecting a back and forth Q and A, this isn’t it. But we cover some extremely interesting and important topics related to qualitative research, healthcare practice and education. Dave has promised to come back for a ‘proper AMA’ and another time in the future, and we are planning a full blown Critical Physiotherapy Series, with him and his colleagues appearing on the podcast to really explore their critical reflections and challenges to healthcare practice and research so stay tuned.Find Dave on Twitter @DaveNicholls3 and @CriticalPhysioYou can support the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.As usual I want to start by thanking all of you that are supporting the show via Patreon, it really makes a difference - so thanks again.So after seven episodes exploring qualitative research and the value of it’s methodologies and methods, it’s now time to dismantle all of that and talk about everything that’s wrong with qualitative research and why we should move beyond it!I’m only half joking….because on this episode of the Qualitative Research Series I’m speaking with Dr jenny Setchell about a counter movement against qualitative research in the form of Post qualitative research.Jenny is an NHMRC Research Fellow in Physiotherapy at the University of Queensland Australia. Her research interests include post-structuralist critical perspectives on healthcare and she has been published extensively across health journals (see Jenny's research here).Her PhD was in psychology and focussed on weight stigma in physiotherapy. Jenny is experienced in a range of qualitative and post-qualitative research methodologies and she is a founding member, and co-chairs the executive committee of the international Critical Physiotherapy Network. She is also a member of the International Society for Critical Health Psychology. So on this episode we speak aboutPost-qual research as a way of re-thinking the reasoning and thinking which has underpinned the practice of qualitative research (see key paper here on post-qual by Simone Fullagar).How Post-qual challenges the humanist tradition of qualitative research (see here for seminal paper on post-qual here by Elizabeth St. Pierre)The idea of thinking with theory which post-qual strongly advocates (see book here in the same name by Alecia Jackson)How post-qual draws inspiration from critical post-humanist debates around how humanness has been taught around dualistic ways of thinking.How post-qual strongly rejects any theory–method divide that reduces qualitative methodology to a matter of technique (see paper here by Jenny's former PhD student Tim Barlott on the dissident interview which had a post-qual tone).How post qual is concerned with contravening what has become normal, routine and expected in qualitative research so that the approaches to research inquiry align with post-theories.What post qual has to say about data, methods, analysis.What can qualitative researchers take away from post qualitative research and whether we need to take ‘all of it’ and jump ship completely or that there are some useful way of reflecting on perhaps changing the way that we think about and practice qualitative research.I absolutely loved talking to Jenny. She’s had such an interesting and diverse career, and this comes through in the cool, gentle yet confident way she talks about post qualitative research; who’s arguments could shake the most dedicated qualitative researcher. But there was nothing fanatical about Jenny; her balanced view of post-qual and how she feels that it can sit alongside more traditional qualitative and quantitative research approaches was just brilliant.Find Jenny on Twitter @JenSetchellYou can support the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.Thanks again to all of you that are supporting the podcast via Patreon – your support is making these episodes and this qualitative research series possible. And you can visit the Patreon here if you’d like to support the show.So, we’re up to episode seven of this qualitative research series, and today I’m speaking with Dr Anna Rajala about critical theory.Anna originally trained as a Physiotherapist (Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences in Finland), and then pursued Master of Art’s in Philosophy, Politics and Economics of Health (UCL in London).She recently completed her PhD in Humanities, at the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics, at the University of Brighton, UK. Her thesis analysed the relationship between theory and practice of the critical theorist Theodor Adorno’s  philosophy and her work re-reads the relationship in the context of ethical theories and concepts used in physiotherapy.Anna is currently working as a Researcher in the Academy of Finland funded project Assembling Postcapitalist International Political Economy at Tampere University in Finland, in which she is analysing global physiotherapy discourses on dementia, politics, and economics. She is Co-chair of Critical Physiotherapy Network, co-Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal of the Finnish Death Studies Association, and co-founder of a mental health physiotherapy webpage. Read more about Anna's work in her blog hereAnna’s research interests include German and French philosophy, medical humanities, ethics, politics of affect, and philosophy and global political economy of dementia, mental health, incontinence, and rehabilitation.She has published on the embodied value of long-term care and critical physiotherapy ethics, and she is currently preparing both single- and co-authored publications on Critical Discourse Analysis and diverse economies of dementia rehabilitation, deconstructive readings of incontinence-related political economy, and a critical reading of Shakespeare’s character Richard III.So she perfectly qualified to walk us through critical theory.In this episode we speak about:Critical theory as a framework for pursing qualitative research (see book here by Jerry Willis that we mention in our chat).The reach of critical theory into political, social and economic life.How qualitative research which is situated in critical theory looks to challenge the taken for granted assumptions, social norms and practices and the understanding of discourses and power inequalities.How critical theory is also critical of itself and has gone some way to evolving away from its Marxist roots.How critical research tries to go beyond merely describing the social world and its problems but has a moral focus on change, action and emancipation as a result of the knowledge it generates.Finally Anna shares some of her own research using her critical theory lens and offers advice for those wanting to begin to explore and think with critical theory (see here).So this was such an interesting and enlightening conversation with Anna. As you’ll hear, I was somewhat daunted by the theoretical, social and political weight and breadth of critical theory and I was concerned I would feel like a child lost in an amusement park when trying to convey its history and relevance to qualitative work – but fortunately Anna held my hand firmly and skilfully guided me through the conversation.While we didn’t dive deep into critical theory, as we would have never likely never surfaced – I think that we covered sufficient ground to introduce some of its major premises and positions and hope it provide an entrance point for those wanting to learn more – I know it certainly did for me.Find Anna on Twitter @AnnaIlonaRajala  You can support the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.Again, I want to start by thanking all of you that are supporting the podcast via Patreon – its hugely appreciated and keeps the episodes flowing.So we have reached episode 6 of the qualitative series, flying high above the different methodologies and occasionally landing to get a deeper sense of their philosophies, theories and methods.Today I am excited to speak with not just one, but two phenomenologists to give us a really rich view of  phenomenology and its application to qualitative research.Kathleen Galvin is Professor of Nursing Practice at the University of Brighton in the UK. Her research spans phenomenology, philosophy, qualitative research, the arts and humanities in health and action research. Her current research programme explores peoples’ experiences of a range of health issues, and using phenomenological-oriented philosophy develop novel theoretical framework for caring practices. This includes contributions to new theoretical perspectives on well-being, suffering and humanising approaches to human services.Dr Pirjo Vuoskoski is a Senior Lecturer in Health Sciences (Physiotherapy Teacher Education) at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. She teaches and conducts research in the intersecting areas of qualitative research and phenomenology, and physiotherapy. Pirijo is particularly interested in experiential phenomena and phenomenological contributions in regard to learning, teaching and assessment, in physiotherapy, educational and healthcare contexts. Methodologically, her particular interest is applied Husserlian (descriptive, pre-transcendental) phenomenology. She is currently working on phenomenological research that attends to the lived experiences of peer learning and mentoring, and practice-based assessment.Alongside Prof. Kathleen Galvin and Dr Kitty Suddick, Pirjo will shortly be co-editing a special edition in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods that draws upon and honours the foundational contribution of philosophical thinking to a range of diverse phenomenological research perspectives.So in this episode we speak about:Phenomenology as both a philosophical theory, method and also a qualitative research methodology.About the farther of phenomenology Edmund Husserl and distinguish between his epistemological project and the ontological approach offered by his student Martin Heidegger.Kate and Pirijo share their views on the different respective phenomenological qualitative research approaches, namely hermeneutic and descriptive; using Dr Kitty Suddick's PhD research as an example of hermeneutic and Pirijo's PhD work as an example of descriptive phenomenological qualitative research. The idea of the ‘lifeworld’ in relation to phenomenological research (see paper on lifeworld research by Karen Dalhberg here and her paper on the phenomenon of loneliness here).What makes phenomenological research phenomenological (see paper here).How phenomenology, when used a as a framework for qualitative enquiry informs the methods such as data generation, sampling and data analysis.The concept and practice of ‘bracketing’ in phenomenological qualitative research.Finally, Kate and Pirijo offer some helpful advice about both embarking on phenomenological research but also incorporating phenomenology into practice (Kate recommends a book by Fred Wertz 'Five ways of doing qualitative analysis here)So this was an absolute treat. To witness two experienced interlocutors share their deep knowledge of phenomenology was such an experience. The conversation begins by digging quite deep into some of the rich philosophy of phenomenology, but surfaces again mid way to locate these important ideas to the practice of qualitative research.Find Pirijo on Twitter @h_pirjo You can support the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of The Words Matter Podcast.I’ll again start by thanking all of you that support the show via Patreon – it really makes these conversations possible, and it's fantastic to see a growing community of researchers, students and practitioners support the show and find value in the episodes.If you’d like to show your support for the podcast, you can pledge as little as £1 per episode by visiting Patreon here.So, we're half way into the Qualitative Research Series, and to bring you up to date:Episode 1 eased us in to qualitative research with Perri Tutleman. In Episode 2 we explored grounded theory with Prof. Jane Mills and Prof. Melanie Birks. In Episode 3 I spoke about Ethnography with Dr Fiona Webster. And in the last episode I spoke with Dr Victoria Clarke about Thematic Analysis.If you haven’t listened to all them, I strongly urge you go back and catch up, as they’re fantastic entrances to their respective topics and there is also a little cross referencing to previous and future episodes - which will give you a rounded view of the series as it unfolds.The series is shaping up really nicely, and I hope it will become a useful resource for those wanting to orientate themselves with qualitative research theories, methodologies and methods.In this episode, I’m speaking with Dr Charlotte Albury about conversation analysis. Charlotte is a qualitative researcher that holds a Mildred Baxter fellowship from the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness, and a Fulford Junior Research fellowship at Somerville College, at University of Oxford.She has held multiple grants including grants from the NIHR school for primary care research, and the British heart foundation. Charlotte is course director for Oxford Qualitative Courses, which are expert-led practical short courses in qualitative methods, including conversation analysis, but also a range of other qualitative approaches.She has led several research projects which use conversation analysis to identify how to optimise clinical communication including her current work  using conversation analysis to investigate COVID risk communication (see Charlotte's work using conversation analysis here, here and here).So in this episode we speak about:Conversation analysis (CA) as a qualitative method to uncover the machinery and mechanics of social interaction.The history of CA and its emergence from the US sociology science in the 1960s.CA as a chimeric research methodology, with features and assumption which seems to align with quantitative or positivist research (such as notions of discovery of truth, the somewhat detached-objectivity of the researcher and 'quantifying' aspects of the data (such frequency counts); but also features which are familiar to qualitative research such as the analysis of textual data such as transcripts and the study of social interaction and phenomena). A fascinating hybrid.The the sorts of research questions that CA seeks to address.How Charlotte has used CA to understand communication between patients and clinicians to uncover the different strategies and outcomes of talk (see here for Charlotte’s PhD thesis and work here). The Jeffersonian system of transcription in CA, which is very particular to CA, and the methods of data analysis once the transcriptions are generated.And finally Charlotte offers some advice for those considering embarking on a CA study or just want to find out more about the method.So this was such an insightful conversation about an area of qualitative research which was quite unfamiliar to me. Charlotte describes the purpose and methods of CA incredibly clearly, providing a real insight into how conversation analysis proceeds.The granular, almost reductionist detail of data analysis and the somewhat realist-objectivist notions of CA may initially not be your cup of tea, if you’re an interpretivist or social constructionist - but hold your horses! The forensic attention that conversation analysis gives to the specific words, language and talk offers something valuable to all qualitative researchers interested in understanding and portraying human interactions and social processes. I certainly learnt a great deal which I will take with me into my current and future qualitative projects.Find Charlotte on Twitter @AlburyCharlotteYou can support the show and contribute via Patreon hereIf you liked the podcast, you'll love The Words Matter online course and mentoring to develop your clinical expertise  - ideal for all MSK therapists.Follow Words Matter on:Instagram @Wordsmatter_education @TheWordsMatterPodcastTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★