title: An Auto-Ethnographic Study of the Disembodied Experience of a Novice Researcher Doing Qualitative Cancer Research.
abstract: Qualitative health researchers who explore individuals' experiences of illness are exposed to an emotionally demanding work environment. After doing 49 interviews with cancer patients living alone, I was confronted with serious emotional distress that kept me from my work for almost 6 months. Because there is a need for discussion within academia about the emotional risks encountered by researchers, I used auto-ethnography to explore what I call the "three disembodied experiences" I encountered during the research: disembodiment linked with suppression of emotions, disembodiment linked with distal traumatization, and disembodiment linked with overidentification with the participant. I illustrate these concepts with personal stories of doing research with cancer patients living alone. I conclude that writing down experiences of doing qualitative research in an embodied and reflexive way holds two advantages: It can protect the researcher and enhance the quality of research.
authors.affiliation: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium cbenoot@vub.ac.be.
authors.forename: Charlotte
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Benoot
authors.affiliation: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bilsen
keywords: Belgium; auto-ethnography; bodily experiences; burnout; cancer; embodiment; emotion work; emotions; empathy; qualitative; reflexivity