Chapter 11: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Virginia Eatough & Jonathan A. Smith

Interpretative phenomenological analysis Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is concerned with the detailed examination of individual lived experience and how individuals make sense of that experience. These two commitments point to IPA's joint theoretical underpinnings in phenomenology and hermeneutics. An exploration of these theoretical approaches and IPA's particular relationship to them forms the first part of this chapter. After that we will consider the distinctive features of IPA by examining it in comparison with Giorgi's empirical phenomenological psychology and highlighting the importance of idiography and cognition to IPA. The chapter will discuss the particular reading it has of these two constructs and then consider IPA's connection with two other important contemporary concerns: social constructionism and narrative. We hope thereby to make clear the distinctive theoretical perspective IPA is offering. The chapter will then move to a review of work that has been done using IPA, pointing to patterns emerging in how ...

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