Almost confessional: managing emotions when research breaks your heart

Social scientists have increasingly shown how qualitative research can be an emotional experience for researchers. Literature on this subject has tended to focus on the emotionally upsetting impact of data collection, often framing this as a form of emotional labour which can be managed by researchers adopting confessional style narratives throughout the research process. But what about the potentially life-affirming impacts of emotions in research? And what happens when confessional style narratives create, rather than dilute, emotional trauma? We use our experiences of conducting qualitative research on two very emotive topics – baby loss and sibling bereavement – to explore the role of emotions in research. We go beyond the predominant focus on doing research to shed light on emotions in the wider research process (from recruitment to impact). We will highlight the dual-edged nature of emotions in research, emphasising some of the more beneficial impacts. Drawing on the Weberian concept of Verstehen which focuses on the importance of understanding, we will also develop a more nuanced form of emotion management in this context. In doing so, we offer an original contribution to methodological discussions in this field, as well as to more conceptual debates on emotional labour.