Becoming a Practitioner Researcher – Introduction

This text is designed to help you ‘think’ and ‘act’ in the manner of a qualitative researcher and will attempt to brainstorm you with options and challenges in a Zen-like way towards fresh insight. Indeed, Zen, ‘holistic research’ and Gestalt all encourage you to expand and raise your awareness, attend to everything, dismiss nothing and to establish a robust and intimate dialogue with what is unfolding in their immediate environment – right now. In this way, similar to a student of Zen you will also be encouraged to bracket-off belief and disbelief, to cultivate an open mind and to experientially inquire into what is before you. But first, I offer you a working definition of ‘Gestalt’ as a researching method…