Autoethnography: A methodological chat with self.

Abstract

There is paucity of counselling psychology literature which explores the experience of people coming from a mixed cultural background. The literature available focuses on developmental theories and cultural competencies of practitioners but all too often fails to capture the peculiarities and particularities of the mixed experience. It also has a tendency to focus on ethnic, racial and cultural labels which are not always useful or helpful for people. This paper explores autoethnography as a methodology with which to research the mixed cultural experience. It aims to highlight the importance for the counselling psychology professions of reflexive and subjective research with regards to studying and understanding people’s experiences of mixed culture. It examines the methods and processes used by a researcher in the data gathering, analysis and explication of their own subjective research. It reveals some of the difficulties encountered and ethical decisions which had to be made during the research. In keeping with the ethnographic and creative approach it is written as a self diaologue and hopes to give the reader a sense of how the research was undertaken. It concludes that autoethnography can highlight the complexities of the experience of people operating between or on the edge of cultures and can bring greater understanding and awareness to counselling professionals who will then hopefully be better enabled to help people.