Stream of consciousness poetry as crystallized reflexivity: a journey from descriptive to interpretive analysis in IPA

This paper presents a methodological innovation that emerged from an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study of female carers of people with dementia. When conventional IPA produced descriptive rather than interpretative themes, the lead author began speaking aloud stream-of-consciousness responses as if speaking directly to participants. These were refined into poems and systematically verified against original transcripts. This process constituted a second complete iteration of IPA's analytical stages, conducted through a poetic medium rather than conventional themes. The double-iteration approach addressed persistent challenges in IPA methodology: how to make the double hermeneutic visible, how to transition from description to interpretation, and how to incorporate researcher reflexivity transparently. Through comparing both iterations, we demonstrate how poetry captured pre-reflective, embodied, and holistic dimensions of caregiving experience that thematic fragmentation obscured. The overarching theme of ‘carers’ transitional identities’, involving movement into the cared-for's world, losing and finding self, and relationship transformation, emerged only through poetic re-engagement. We propose ‘crystallised reflexivity’ as a concept for understanding how poetry preserves interpretative moments in textual form, making them available for scrutiny. This contribution extends IPA practice whilst demonstrating how poetic methods can maintain systematic rigour through evidential verification.