“I’m Like Tony Soprano -- You’re My Therapist”: Complexities of Research Interviews with Adolescent Black Boys

• In Event: 50658 - Whose Story and Whose Project?: Ethical Issues and Considerations in Research Collaborations

Abstract

This paper examines the potentially therapeutic impact of participating in an ethnography for Black adolescent boys who experience peer loss, and the ethical implications of that impact. Specifically, I explore the role of semi-structured interviews in the interviewees’ developing emotional lives and coping practices – how their experience of being interviewed relates to their perceptions of psychotherapy or other forms of counseling, the way they think about the value of their own life story, and the implications of this for the (non-clinical) research endeavor. I argue that 1) although the boys in my study were generally resistant to sharing their emotional vulnerabilities with others, they were in control and agentic in when and how they did share, 2) the research interview was almost always a positive experience for the research participants at the time and, for some, led them to revise their feelings about how much and in what contexts they wanted to share emotionally with others, and 3) the interview served as an affirmation of the value of their stories and lives and made some of them feel special or seen in new ways. Despite these seemingly positive outcomes, the ethical questions of whether and how non-clinically trained researchers (particularly when they are outsiders to the participants’ community) should initiate interviews that may lead participations to perceive therapeutic effects remains.

Author

• Nora Gross, Barnard College