The aim of this training session is to explore the role of the researcher and more specifically, the researcher's emotions within the process of qualitative research. Emotions are a fundamental part of how we live in and experience the world around us, and both, researchers and participants have emotions and feel emotional responses throughout the research process, even if they are sometimes difficult to acknowledge, express, capture and process (that is recognise, name, accept and then potentially act on).

This training event draws on embodied and creative techniques to focus on the presence of emotions in research and to present practical strategies for practising reflexivity – how we can attend to and become aware of them in ourselves as researchers and in our participants, how we can hold emotional space for ourselves and our participants to express emotions safely, how we can capture the emotional resonance created in research, again in ourselves and in our participants, and how we can process the emotions we feel directly, and as a result of our participants’ experiences.

The session will be delivered as a combination of group discussions, creative tasks using materials participants will have available at home and short presentations from the course leader.