Auto/biographical narrative research that touches on 'sensitive' areas can elicit accounts that researchers may find distressing and threatening to their emotional and psychological health. In this paper we offer a 'confessional tale' through which we consider our experiences of investigating a sensitive and painful topic from the perspectives of…

This paper considers some of the decisions that researchers take and raises issues around researcher reflexivity, identity, values and ethics. It focuses attention on researchers and reflects on how the research they do, the topics they investigate, the methodologies they espouse, the methods they use and the writing/reporting styles they adopt,…