ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author offers Barney Glaser's approach to grounded theory as a suitable social scientific method that permits research participants to get their word in first. His methodology allows concepts to 'emerge' from data, that is, directly from within the interviews given by respondents, without 'forcing' their words into pre-selected categories. This freer type of analysis, demanding rigorous attention to all the words of all participants, inevitably leads to exponential growth in data that requires good systematic handling. The author proposes NVivo software as a suitable aid for the analysis of these masses of data. Glaserian grounded theory, with the aid of NVivo, helped the author to produce an integrated study that addressed the real issues of survivors, not concerns that are merely academic or imposed. Allocating accurate conceptual codes at the beginning of analysis, right the way through to discovering a 'core category', is painstaking, but crucial.
