Daphna Patai - Response

Daphna Patai - Response

Patai’s chapter in which she talked about artificial intimacy that is created in qualitative research got me thinking about how this correlates with counseling. As counselors we witness people’s pain, empathize with them, and see them grow and change. Patai’s chapter suggested to me that there was a lot of cross over, as researchers also seem to hold a similar equation with their interviewees. People come and unburden themselves, let us into deep aspects of their private lives (one way traffic of sharing) and then we proceed analyze it (their lives/situations) and churn out some kind of data and/or theory to understand where they are coming from and almost to justify what they have said.

Patai advocates that qualitative research is conducted to achieve ‘social transformation’ and empower people.  This connects to counseling where the aim is to help others help themselves. However, maybe counselors provide an atmosphere and/or environment that help people act/change on what they have spoken about. Whereas qualitative researchers act more like a sounding board where people come to unburden themselves and then leave with out really analyzing or internalizing what they have said. Do they feel shortchanged? Betrayed? Breach of privacy? Because it is one thing to go and talk to someone about something personal and have a(n) (‘artificial’) connection with the interviewer, but then once that information gets published how do they feel?