1. WHO AM I? ISSUES OF IDENTITY AS RESEARCHER
Dr. Claire Asherson Bartram
My name

2. WHO AM I? Self identity as researcher for my thesis: Narratives of mothers in stepfamily situations
Who am I? Dimensions of identity – arising from the field What was I born into: gender, ethnicity, culture, class, country, family history What were my personal interests: music, hippy culture, meditation, gestalt Major life influences: marriage, having children, stepfamily situation, training Project: gestalt therapist, doctoral candidate Core: identities that connect to my research: woman, mother, stepmother.
Who am I? – there are layers of how I identify myself, some from birth, others I have acquired over the years.

3. HOW DO OTHERS SEE ME?
Participants: psychotherapist, academic, researcher, woman,
Peers:
Tutors:
Others perceptions don’t necessarily match my own.
In relational, heuristic, gestalt framed research, how I am perceived and how others perceive me is embedded in the data. The data being the narratives obtained through interviews.

4. Layers of identity which connect or seperate
researcher
Gestalt therapist
Stepmother
Woman and Mother
Human being

5. Woman, mother, stepmother
Layers of identity
Wish to do research
Inadequacy around academic ability
Scientific family
Creative and explorative
Wanting to do it my way (adolescent attitude)
Hippy/improvisation
Heuristic methodology – a methodology that connects and allows me to be included (concept of co-creation)
Trying to fit findings into a Gestalt model
Gestalt therapist
Connects me with the women I interviewed
Challenged to step back
Woman, mother, stepmother

6. Exercise Take some time to list some of your identifications
As you list them think what each draws you towards? Which type of research
What do you think you would you never do?
What connects you to your research participants, what distances you?
With a partner explore the hierarchy of your identifications, from core to surface
Choose one to be. Walk around the room
them with a partner. What does this feel like? What happens in your body?
Talk in group

7. Claire Asherson Bartram
Contact details
Claire Asherson Bartram