Anthony Arcuri

My awareness of qualitative research began in 2000, when I signed up quite unknowingly during my fourth-year psychology studies to conduct a qualitative analysis of people's experiences of having ceased amphetamine use without the assistance of formal treatments. Although in hindsight I now have some doubts about just how purely 'qualitative' this study was (given the numerous structures we imposed upon it), I remember being fascinated by these people's stories and the ways in which they blended to form an explanation of experience that strictly quantitative research (which was all I had been exposed to until then) could not get near.

Following my completion of this project, my career trajectory took me away from qualitative analysis and back toward the world of numbers. I worked for some years as a quantitative researcher, using survey methods to analyse trends in young people's drug use and associated difficulties, and to evaluate their response to residential treatment.

When I returned to university to complete my doctoral studies in counselling psychology, for the first time I had the complete freedom to choose the kind of research I would engage in. And, having been exposed to both quantitative and qualitative research, I went with the latter and conducted under Doris's supervision (and encouragement) the project we describe here.

In the year and a half since completing this study, I have worked in cannabis research, utilising a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to gain a better understanding of people's cannabis use, related problems, and treatment. Additionally, I have taught a seminar series on 'Taboo Desires' in Doris's undergraduate Personality subject, and taught and provided external supervision to some of Doris's qualitative research students. And, throughout all this, I have work part-time as a psychotherapist.

Contact details: Mailing address: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
URL: http://www.psy.mq.edu.au/staff/dmcilwain/arcuri_collab.html