Page 32 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes
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Analysis
Five art therapists who worked with diverse client populations in adult mental health care were interviewed in step 1. These interviews were fully transcribed. The interviews were conscientiously read and open coded after the first interview. Text fragments that were conceptually similar were assigned the same code. Text fragments that did not fit into existing codes as the interviews proceeded were transcribed and assigned a new code. Text fragments were coded using the actual words of the art therapists themselves as much as possible to stay as close as possible to the data. This method is called ‘in Vivo Codes’ (Corbin & Straus, 2008), and examples are “outside-inside”, “need for control”, “tension”, “shaping the art work”, “function of the art product” or “dynamics and movement”. This constant data comparison produced a code tree.
Open coding transformed into axial coding in step 2. The goal in this step was to cluster similar codes into categories. For example the codes “holding on to familiar patterns of behavior”, “fixed patterns”, “being bogged down by old patterns” and “openness for new ways” were grouped into the category “amount of flexibility”. These categories were further developed for properties and dimensions, and several main categories and subcategories emerged. Two additional interviews were performed to examine whether therapists with a different educational background who worked with different client populations would add variety to these categorical conceptualizations. This process is called variational sampling, which is a form of theoretical sampling (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). This process allows the categories to relate to each other.
No new participants were included in step 3 because no new codes emerged, and no new content was added to the conceptualization of primary and subcategories.
Two art therapists were re-interviewed to verify and deepen the analyses. This method is called discriminate sampling, which is a form of theoretical sampling (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The art therapists in these interviews were invited to elaborate on the possible relationship between the way in which clients used the art materials, the art materials properties and the type of information these factors provided the therapists about the client’s mental health. The main categories were integrated and refined into a theory using selective coding. This theory was grouped around one core category to which all other categories were linked.
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