Book Review: Being Barney Glaser

Paul Dowling, University of London Grounded Theory: the philosophy, method, and work of Barney Glaser. Vivian B. Martin & Astrid Gynnild (Eds). 2011. Boca Raton. BrownWalker Press. I was a little taken aback when Astrid Gynnild asked me to review this work for Grounded Theory Review. As I explained, I have been impressed by a lot of what Glaser and Strauss and Glaser writing alone have said to me about sociological research, I teach methodology at masters and doctoral levels and always recommend these works to my students, encouraging them, where appropriate, to adopt some of the more familiar strategies of this approach—let the data speak, theoretically sample, write memos, conceptualise, in particular. I will, however, not allow them to say that what they are doing is grounded theory and nor do I claim that that is what I do; I may have been impressed, even inspired by Glaser’s work, but what I do is other than it. So I’m not sure that I am qualified to review the book. Nevertheless, I agreed, only to be disconcerted by the announcement of audience in the introduction by Gynnild & Martin: It is our hope that grounded theorists at all stages of competence will find something useful to incorporate into their grounded theory practice. Much is said here about the desire to get good information into the hands of minus mentors, but the book is also for the many skilled GT researchers around the globe who are searching for more insights, inspiration, and ideas to move on with their own GT projects (p. 11). It would appear that I am not even included as a reader, yet I am now asked to address people who certainly are. Well, here goes. Firstly, I think Gynnild and Martin have left me out in error. There is a great deal in this collection for the non-specialist in grounded theory starting with the discussion and illustration of mentoring in the introduction and in the first section of the book, “Teaching grounded theory,” in particular. Indeed, the editors have deployed a grounded theory approach to the analysis of their own collection. In their introduction, Gynnild and Martin present the outcome of this analysis, revealing that the main concern in this book is “mentoring a method” — the title of the introduction—“through cultivating competence of grounded theory networks over extended periods of time” (p. 3). If a practice—any practice—is to have coherence in its practical application, then that coherence will, in part, at least, be characterised by what I (Dowling, 2009) call “low discursive saturation,” whereby its principles are not available within language, cannot be validly codified in books, though we may try. As Guthrie and Lowe put it in their chapter giving advice to students and their supervisors: Have you ever read a book which aims to teach you how to ski, surf, ride a horse? None, no matter how well written, can mimic what it is really like to feel the full range of these real experiences as they are lived (p. 154). Neither do you learn to ride a horse or do research—at least, not well—without a mentor. This is an important lesson for all educators and, in particular, for the supervisors of dissertations to take mentoring seriously, whatever their approach to research. Of course, mentoring is not the only responsibility that a supervisor has in respect of their students, particularly where the students are drawing productively on the supervisor’s own work. Examiners will...

Deciphering Unwritten Rules

Anna Sandgren, Jönköping University Abstract The aim of this study was to develop a classic grounded theory of patients, relatives and nurses in palliative cancer care. Data from three earlier studies conducted in palliative care were analyzed. “Deciphering unwritten rules” emerged as the pattern of behavior through which patients, relatives and nurses are dealing with the uncertainty of how to act and behave in palliative cancer care. Deciphering means finding out what the rules mean and trying to interpret them and this can be done consciously or unnoticed. Deciphering unwritten rules involves the strategies figuring out, deliberating, maneuvering and evaluating. This theory demonstrates the complexities of palliative care and the importance of knowledge, counseling and resources for all involved. Introduction Palliative care is a caring philosophy with the goal to achieve the best possible quality of life for both patients and relatives when facing problems related to life-threatening illness (World Health Organization, 2003). The adjustment and transition to palliative care takes time for patients and relatives, and involves shifting the care goals from curing to caring (Duggleby & Berry, 2005). In the 1960’s it was common for patients not to be informed of their impending death; so the awareness of dying among patients and relatives was mostly a closed awareness (Glaser & Strauss, 1965). The pendulum has shifted during the last decades towards open awareness, where those involved talk more about death than they have in the past (Andrews & Nathaniel, 2009). Powerlessness and helplessness is common in dying patients (Sand, Strang, & Milberg, 2008) who often oscillate between different feelings such as hopelessness and hope (Melin-Johansson, Odling, Axelsson, & Danielson, 2008). So even if patients have a lower quality of life in many dimensions during their last months of life, they can still experience happiness and satisfaction (Sahlberg-Blom, Ternestedt, & Johansson, 2001). For the relatives, the situation is new and they need to make adjustments, although they want to keep on living as normally as possible (Appelin, Broback, & Bertero, 2005; Sandgren, Thulesius, Petersson, & Fridlund, 2010), yet having a twofold role; as caregivers and as relatives suffering anxiety and physical exhaustion (Broback & Bertero, 2003). Both patients and relatives can be hypersensitive to what happens during the dying trajectory and this hypersensitivity is energy draining (Sandgren et al., 2010). It has been shown that adequate information and support from the health professionals early in the disease trajectory decrease relatives’ needs throughout the dying trajectory and increases their trust and confidence towards the health professionals (Kristjanson & White, 2002; Wenrich et al., 2003). Caring for cancer patients can be both challenging and rewarding for nurses (Corner, 2002; Penson, Dignan, Canellos, Picard, & Lynch, 2000) who often want to go beyond the diagnostic concept of cancer and care for the whole person (Bertero, 1999). A balance between being close to the patients and distancing themselves is needed to avoid the risk of being emotionally overloaded (Sandgren, Thulesius, Fridlund, & Petersson, 2006). Palliative care can also be seen as a balancing act, where health professionals need to balance the needs for care with the resources to give care (Thulesius, Hakansson, & Petersson, 2003). There can be a tension or a gap between nurses’ caregiving ideals and the reality of daily work. Nurses can be aware of their ideal of how to give good palliative care, but the possibilities to realize these are often small (Tishelman et al., 2004). To give high quality palliative care, health professionals need to know what...