ABSTRACT
In this chapter I discuss applying a psycho-social, interview-based methodology to military phenomena. In doing so, I aim to illustrate the intertwined nature of the research topic and the method used to study it, with the biographies of both the researcher and respondents. Thus, this will be a personal account of the research process and it will address the practicalities of undertaking such emotionally involved, reflexive research. The account will include a case study of one respondent, ‘Sonia’, illustrating the interactional context of the research method as well as the data and analysis it produces. In addition, the chapter describes my experience of some of the issues that are specific to doing psychoanalytically informed research in military environments, issues which other researchers might also encounter. I reflect on how my status as a researcher who was also a military wife may have affected gaining access to the military and its reception of the research findings. I reflect, too, on the problem of presenting qualitative data to the military. Finally, I suggest that the emotional responses of service families to the practical, everyday experience of military life require greater attention and further research.
