Trauma-informed narrative inquiry: A dual-role method for reflexive, relational research

Abstract

This article introduces and evaluates Trauma-Informed Narrative Inquiry (TINI), developed as a dual-role methodology combining narrative inquiry and trauma-informed psychotherapy. It examines how this approach supports identity reconstruction, transformation, and meaning-making in trauma-saturated contexts, that is settings where experiences of violence, loss or chronic threat are pervasive and ongoing, while maintaining ethical care and researcher reflexivity. The paper outlines the theoretical foundations and practical processes of TINI, illustrates its development through a case study and evaluates its methodological and ethical contributions to qualitative research. Developed through doctoral research with individuals disengaging from violent extremism, TINI addresses limitations in qualitative approaches that separate therapeutic care from analytic rigour and overlook the emotional and embodied dimensions of fieldwork. Building on recent reflexive and trauma-informed qualitative research, TINI reframes emotional attunement and relational safety as foundations for analytic insight. Rather than conflating research and therapy, it combines psychotherapy, reflexive ethics and narrative pacing within longitudinal inquiry. As a therapist–researcher, the author employed clinical and research supervision, staged consent and institutional oversight to safeguard participant and researcher wellbeing. By positioning narrative transformation as both an ethical and epistemic outcome, TINI advances trauma-informed and psychosocial research. It offers transferable tools such as co-constructed timelines, narrative revision and structured methods of emotional stabilisation, enabling participants to engage safely and meaningfully in emotionally attuned, relational and rigorous inquiry across trauma-affected contexts.