Reading a (very rare) study of bereavement reactions in twins for the forthcoming book, I found a description of the kind of research that lay behind this study, and in every respect it echoes the methods of my Womb Twin research project.
At last I have a name for the kind of research I am doing!
It's a new paradigm, in fact it's known as a "critical interpretive research" paradigm.
This is how I am working: I am doing "qualitative work in an interpretive paradigm. " And all the time those sceptics (and myself) thought I was going about it the wrong way!
Obviously, I can't quantify people's reactions, beyond their own subjective assessment of levels of severity of those statements. I can't find "representative samples" or a "control group" for a situation that is largely unknown - even to some of the people involved.
Instead, I am exploring personal meanings at an individual level, that may be especially valuable to other researchers in fields of human experience like personal development or bereavement.
Critical interpretive research applies particularly in areas where there has been limited empirical research, where the use of questionnaires with fixed responses may limit findings or where a particular theory (in this case psychoanalytic theory) has dominated thinking and new ideas are beginning to emerge.
A design involving open-ended interviews by email, enables new or revised conceptualisations. These play a crucial role in identifying the dimensions of interest for further research. The design of my research, using the questionnaire based on the statements made in the stories, and using the stories to create the questionnaire, is a perfect example of this kind of research - what a relief.
More from Martin packer's logic of enquiry:
Here is a quote: This framework distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative techniques of data-collection and analysis, on the one hand, and empirical-analytic and interpretive paradigms of inquiry, on the other.
Generally speaking, empirical-analytic inquiry seeks objective metric or categorical descriptions of phenomena, and aims to provide causal explanations of their interrelationship in the form of formal laws tested through statistical measures of association among variables.
Interpretive inquiry aims to characterize how people experience the world, the ways they interact together, and the settings in which these interactions take place.
By and large empirical-analytic inquiry employs quantitative techniques and interpretive inquiry employs qualitative techniques, but the exceptions to this rule of thumb are illuminating.
See also GROUNDED THEORY (that's almost exactly how I have been doing this! )
Quote: It is a research method that operates almost in a reverse fashion from traditional research and at first may appear to be in contradiction of the scientific method. Rather than beginning by researching and developing a hypothesis, the first step is data collection, through a variety of methods. From the data collected, the key points are marked with a series of codes, which are extracted from the text. The codes are grouped into similar concepts in order to make them more workable. From these concepts, categories are formed, which are the basis for the creation of a theory, or a reverse engineered hypothesis. This contradicts the traditional model of research, where the researcher chooses a theoretical framework, and only then applies this model to the studied phenomenon.
I dont do the coding thing, I'm too busy writing and developing the project, but I have always noticed when people say the same things again and again, often in almost exactly the same way. One day when I have time I will code the thousands of emails - then I may come up with something really excellent that the sceptics will actually believe!
So I have always been on the right track! Keep sending those emails and completing those questionnaires! Thanks!
When a twin dies before birth, the sole survivor needs help and understanding. Womb twin survivors are the sole survivors of a twin or multiple pregnancy. This group, 1 in 10 of the population, includes survivors of a stillbirth, miscarriage, abortion and a "vanishing twin" pregnancy. It is a story of a twin bond broken by death, leaving a lonely survivor.
Showing posts with label sceptics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sceptics. Show all posts
Friday, May 07, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Womb twin stories
After the maelstrom of last week, being accused of being a "fraud" and promoting some kind of "delusion" or " fantasy" to people who are "mentally fragile and easily manipulated" etc etc. by a bunch of so-called "skeptics" on their own special forum for being sceptical about everything (except being sceptical) I returned home from holiday to find a load of emails, including this story. This lady has agreed to having her story made public.
A few months ago, my mother was talking to me about my personality and traits that I have. I am a quiet, shy person until you get to know me. I always think of others before I think of myself. I never understood why others aren't like me. I always thought it was because I was raised in a christian home and was told to think of others before you think of yourself. But if I hear that someone has been hurt, for instance, I put myself in their shoes and actually feel the feelings for them. I also do not stand up for myself- a characteristic that I do not personally like, but I feel as if I am doing wrong if I speak my mind, so it stays bottled up. I think about death a lot. This is not necessarily a negative or positive thing for me. There have been thoughts of suicide in my life, as of now, I am a mother of 2, and a wife. I have other people to think about than me leaving this world.
My mom told me she didn't understand why I'm that way. Then I started thinking, well my biggest fear in my life is to be left alone. And I started thinking about it, and everytime I turn around, someone is leaving me. When I was born December 3, my mother had me at 26 weeks pregnant. I was a twin and the doctors thought my placenta was infected, so they induced the delivery. My mother had other complications trying to get pregnant, and when she was pregnant. I survived, my brother was crushed by my mothers uterus during delivery. While my mother was planning a funeral for her new son, I was in NICU fighting for my life. I stayed in the intensive care unit with nurses watching me around the clock. I weighed 1 lb. 10 oz at birth. My skin was transparent, and I still hadnt developed features, such as fingernails. I stayed in the hospital through Christmas and Easter that year. I was allowed to go home in March. Beyond belief of nurses and doctors, I had survived! All the prayers and blessings kept me alive!
I was always afraid that I would be left alone in this world one day. The thought of that shadowed my young life often. When others argued or fought, I would try to be peace maker and try to stop it. I thought that if I could do something for someone else, everyone would be happy and all would be fine. Well, needless to say, I have finally learned that you can't please everyone. You can't make others happy if they don't want to be. I am still trying to please others, but look after my own life too. I have just started researching twins, to see if there were any reasons that I am the way that I am to better understand myself. I really want healing in my life. And to stop these negative feelings and thoughts that run through my head. While researching, I found out that there really is no information on womb twin survivors. This has compelled me to want to know more. And if there are 1 in 10 in this world that are survivors, then we need to help each other and ourselves to understand the feelings and reasons why we are the way we are. I want to join Womb twin to be a part of this organization and to begin the healing process myself, and to help others in any way I can to better understand these thoughts and feelings for them to go on with their lives.
Now thats more like it! Lets forget scorn, derision and all the other forms of verbal abuse that some people like to throw at me, because they are so full of rage and hate and need a place to dump it.
Here is a story that inspires me and shows that womb twin survivors are indeed a neglected group and I for one will try and do something about it.
Onward! Chapter 9 will be about the history of twin research. The first chapter to address the Case of the Vanishing Twin. There will be 4 chapters in this part. More later.
Be well, my friends - here at least, Spring has arrived at last!
A few months ago, my mother was talking to me about my personality and traits that I have. I am a quiet, shy person until you get to know me. I always think of others before I think of myself. I never understood why others aren't like me. I always thought it was because I was raised in a christian home and was told to think of others before you think of yourself. But if I hear that someone has been hurt, for instance, I put myself in their shoes and actually feel the feelings for them. I also do not stand up for myself- a characteristic that I do not personally like, but I feel as if I am doing wrong if I speak my mind, so it stays bottled up. I think about death a lot. This is not necessarily a negative or positive thing for me. There have been thoughts of suicide in my life, as of now, I am a mother of 2, and a wife. I have other people to think about than me leaving this world.
My mom told me she didn't understand why I'm that way. Then I started thinking, well my biggest fear in my life is to be left alone. And I started thinking about it, and everytime I turn around, someone is leaving me. When I was born December 3, my mother had me at 26 weeks pregnant. I was a twin and the doctors thought my placenta was infected, so they induced the delivery. My mother had other complications trying to get pregnant, and when she was pregnant. I survived, my brother was crushed by my mothers uterus during delivery. While my mother was planning a funeral for her new son, I was in NICU fighting for my life. I stayed in the intensive care unit with nurses watching me around the clock. I weighed 1 lb. 10 oz at birth. My skin was transparent, and I still hadnt developed features, such as fingernails. I stayed in the hospital through Christmas and Easter that year. I was allowed to go home in March. Beyond belief of nurses and doctors, I had survived! All the prayers and blessings kept me alive!
I was always afraid that I would be left alone in this world one day. The thought of that shadowed my young life often. When others argued or fought, I would try to be peace maker and try to stop it. I thought that if I could do something for someone else, everyone would be happy and all would be fine. Well, needless to say, I have finally learned that you can't please everyone. You can't make others happy if they don't want to be. I am still trying to please others, but look after my own life too. I have just started researching twins, to see if there were any reasons that I am the way that I am to better understand myself. I really want healing in my life. And to stop these negative feelings and thoughts that run through my head. While researching, I found out that there really is no information on womb twin survivors. This has compelled me to want to know more. And if there are 1 in 10 in this world that are survivors, then we need to help each other and ourselves to understand the feelings and reasons why we are the way we are. I want to join Womb twin to be a part of this organization and to begin the healing process myself, and to help others in any way I can to better understand these thoughts and feelings for them to go on with their lives.
Now thats more like it! Lets forget scorn, derision and all the other forms of verbal abuse that some people like to throw at me, because they are so full of rage and hate and need a place to dump it.
Here is a story that inspires me and shows that womb twin survivors are indeed a neglected group and I for one will try and do something about it.
Onward! Chapter 9 will be about the history of twin research. The first chapter to address the Case of the Vanishing Twin. There will be 4 chapters in this part. More later.
Be well, my friends - here at least, Spring has arrived at last!
Friday, February 23, 2007
I have been posting recently on a sceptics' forum, talking about the "Untwinned anthology. " Am I a glutton for punishment?
Here is my take on scepticism following this experience: Sceptics, like intellectuals generally, paradoxically display a high degree of confidence in their philosophical position, when in reality their self-esteem tends to be low. Some people are drawn to the philosophy of scepticism during their adolescent years as a result of feeling intellecually weak and helpless. By the age of 14, any intelligent person begins to recognise how little he or she can possibly know for sure. If an individual also has narcissistic tendencies, any feeling of being inferior to anyone else, in any sense whatever, is very uncomfortable. The only way to maintain a good self-esteem therefore, is to keep in mind one's own intellectual brillance and, in the absence of any other expertise, to become brilliant at debunking any theory, anywhere, just for the sake of it.
In pursuit of this ideal state, the fledgling sceptic finds somewhere firm to stand amid the chaos of infinite possibility that is life as it is. The safest place of course is not to believe anything, but to remain doubtful, watchful, cagey, defensive. To never offer an opinion unless it can be held as morally correct to say, and of course totally accepted by others as "purely one's own version of the truth." From these humble beginnings, sceptics learn to use their chosen philosophy for protection, creating a facade of intellectual invincibility.
Initially, this is tried out in endless circular arguments late at night with fellow teenagers, and later to forums on the Internet. As years pass, the characteristic demand for proof, certainly, replicability and endless dissection of ideas intensifies. To compensate for his insecurities, the sceptic escalates the rigor of doubt and constant questioning until he or she can appear more intimidating than the other, in a sort of vicious cycle.
It is a battle of minds, with each new creative idea a new challenge for destruction. Yet this is creative, for in the bloody arena of scepticism, where ideas like gladiators must slog it out and struggle to survive, only the strongest ideas will make it. Thus, in a paradoxical way, scepticism is protective of other less sceptical thinkers. Anyone naive enough to think that an idea can stand without much to substantiate it - except a deep intutive sense of the truth of it, backed up by a general ageement as to the probable truth - is welcomed to the sceptics arena, where the weapons of intellectual combat will be applied to hone and shape those ideas into something much stronger, which will either die or soon be robust enough to take out into the world, where it will stand firm.
As a result of this run-in with a bunch of sceptics on a forum, I feel as f I have been subjected to an essential training course in being robust, but VERY careful what I say and how I say it. I am grateful for that! I do tend towards being a bit ingenuous......
However because of this rather unpleasant experience - of being taken apart by some strangers who seemed to think they knew more about this subject than me and had the right to insult me, (yes, there were a few who were kind and that did help) I will not be posting again. I told them my book was properly referenced, and they complained because I didn't show them the references! I guess they thought I was lying. I haven't bothered to count them all, but there must be several hundred references. If they are that interested, let them buy the book, I say.
Rather than more of this, I have subscribed to a regular skeptic magazine podcast. They mentioned "missing pregnancies" and related this to alien abduction. YAWN!!! (This does not help my project one bit I must say! ) Now I can wander the footpaths of Hertfordshire with my ipod and listen more to their mind games and see if there is any more to be learned from this very odd but amazingly clever bunch of people, who are sounding more and more like indigo adults at every turn.
Here is my take on scepticism following this experience: Sceptics, like intellectuals generally, paradoxically display a high degree of confidence in their philosophical position, when in reality their self-esteem tends to be low. Some people are drawn to the philosophy of scepticism during their adolescent years as a result of feeling intellecually weak and helpless. By the age of 14, any intelligent person begins to recognise how little he or she can possibly know for sure. If an individual also has narcissistic tendencies, any feeling of being inferior to anyone else, in any sense whatever, is very uncomfortable. The only way to maintain a good self-esteem therefore, is to keep in mind one's own intellectual brillance and, in the absence of any other expertise, to become brilliant at debunking any theory, anywhere, just for the sake of it.
In pursuit of this ideal state, the fledgling sceptic finds somewhere firm to stand amid the chaos of infinite possibility that is life as it is. The safest place of course is not to believe anything, but to remain doubtful, watchful, cagey, defensive. To never offer an opinion unless it can be held as morally correct to say, and of course totally accepted by others as "purely one's own version of the truth." From these humble beginnings, sceptics learn to use their chosen philosophy for protection, creating a facade of intellectual invincibility.
Initially, this is tried out in endless circular arguments late at night with fellow teenagers, and later to forums on the Internet. As years pass, the characteristic demand for proof, certainly, replicability and endless dissection of ideas intensifies. To compensate for his insecurities, the sceptic escalates the rigor of doubt and constant questioning until he or she can appear more intimidating than the other, in a sort of vicious cycle.
It is a battle of minds, with each new creative idea a new challenge for destruction. Yet this is creative, for in the bloody arena of scepticism, where ideas like gladiators must slog it out and struggle to survive, only the strongest ideas will make it. Thus, in a paradoxical way, scepticism is protective of other less sceptical thinkers. Anyone naive enough to think that an idea can stand without much to substantiate it - except a deep intutive sense of the truth of it, backed up by a general ageement as to the probable truth - is welcomed to the sceptics arena, where the weapons of intellectual combat will be applied to hone and shape those ideas into something much stronger, which will either die or soon be robust enough to take out into the world, where it will stand firm.
As a result of this run-in with a bunch of sceptics on a forum, I feel as f I have been subjected to an essential training course in being robust, but VERY careful what I say and how I say it. I am grateful for that! I do tend towards being a bit ingenuous......
However because of this rather unpleasant experience - of being taken apart by some strangers who seemed to think they knew more about this subject than me and had the right to insult me, (yes, there were a few who were kind and that did help) I will not be posting again. I told them my book was properly referenced, and they complained because I didn't show them the references! I guess they thought I was lying. I haven't bothered to count them all, but there must be several hundred references. If they are that interested, let them buy the book, I say.
Rather than more of this, I have subscribed to a regular skeptic magazine podcast. They mentioned "missing pregnancies" and related this to alien abduction. YAWN!!! (This does not help my project one bit I must say! ) Now I can wander the footpaths of Hertfordshire with my ipod and listen more to their mind games and see if there is any more to be learned from this very odd but amazingly clever bunch of people, who are sounding more and more like indigo adults at every turn.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Well! That was amazing. I got 20 secs on the midday news , the same in the evening and again early the following day. The result was a 1000 hit spike on the website and 25 forms completed that evening. In three days I have 47 new forms to look at. That brings the number of forms completed in this round (the fifth) to almost 200. This is good, the eventual data will be that much more compelling. And still the most characteristic response (98%) remains:
"Deep down, I feel alone, even among friends." That makes sense, in the circumstances.
There has also been some Google activity. My actual words (20 secs worth) have got onto a TV site, which is interesting! I've put a link in the links list to that.
I also spent some time on a site for sceptics: a VERY interesting, if a little bruising, experience! Sceptics seem to have a closed - minded, highly defensive approach to new knowledge. They seem to be very afraid of making fools of themselves , so they carp on and on about claims, post hoc thinking, evidence, double-blind studies, and peer review and all that stuff. They seem to want this all wrapped up, neat and tight, day one. They even got paranoid about why I was there at all, like I wanted an extra Google hit!! It was a real feeding frenzy. Fascinating. Not that I'm not doing all that scientific , of course. I've got to, in this terrified, cynical world.
I am slowly and reluctantly climbing on the scientific bandwagon, pushing paranoid sceptics to one side and trying to find highly respected individuals with a little clout to back up my story. I am creating a scholarly article (with 34 refs so far!) for a professional journal etc.etc. etc. So tedious when people everywhere are crying out for help and understanding.
Meanwhile, as I struggle on with this, 20 secs on ITN instantly calls forth 1000 hits and great cry for help from people who have always thought they once had a twin and here at last is someone who seems to believe them.
I wonder: are sceptics wombtwin survivors? That would be fun to explore! I know at least one, who at the very earliest stage (and knowing only a fraction of what I know) was happy to chuck the word "baloney" to me several times and seemed to want to fight me over it....I didn't. I don't play that game. Is this narcissism? I wonder. More later on that one!
"Deep down, I feel alone, even among friends." That makes sense, in the circumstances.
There has also been some Google activity. My actual words (20 secs worth) have got onto a TV site, which is interesting! I've put a link in the links list to that.
I also spent some time on a site for sceptics: a VERY interesting, if a little bruising, experience! Sceptics seem to have a closed - minded, highly defensive approach to new knowledge. They seem to be very afraid of making fools of themselves , so they carp on and on about claims, post hoc thinking, evidence, double-blind studies, and peer review and all that stuff. They seem to want this all wrapped up, neat and tight, day one. They even got paranoid about why I was there at all, like I wanted an extra Google hit!! It was a real feeding frenzy. Fascinating. Not that I'm not doing all that scientific , of course. I've got to, in this terrified, cynical world.
I am slowly and reluctantly climbing on the scientific bandwagon, pushing paranoid sceptics to one side and trying to find highly respected individuals with a little clout to back up my story. I am creating a scholarly article (with 34 refs so far!) for a professional journal etc.etc. etc. So tedious when people everywhere are crying out for help and understanding.
Meanwhile, as I struggle on with this, 20 secs on ITN instantly calls forth 1000 hits and great cry for help from people who have always thought they once had a twin and here at last is someone who seems to believe them.
I wonder: are sceptics wombtwin survivors? That would be fun to explore! I know at least one, who at the very earliest stage (and knowing only a fraction of what I know) was happy to chuck the word "baloney" to me several times and seemed to want to fight me over it....I didn't. I don't play that game. Is this narcissism? I wonder. More later on that one!
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