Ｒｅｇｇｉｅ Ｐａｗｌｅ，Ｐｈ．Ｄ．
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
(California #MFC35774 and Hawaii #75)
Research project information
Currently I am working on a project examining crisis times – hard times – in intercultural marriages. The focus is on how did these crises occur and how people got through these crises.
Here is more detailed information about this project. The part has information on the procedures of this project – the focus, the purpose, the goal, the method used, format of the interviews, how the interviews will be used, procedures for interview participants to review the written report before publication, confidentiality, and the use of the final report. The second part has questions that will be asked in the interviews and various factors in intercultural crisis situations for the participants to consider prior to their interview.
If you are a member of an Asian-Western relationship and are willing to be interviewed about how you made it through a crisis time in your relationship, please contact me.
Crisis in Intercultural Marriages in Japan: How People Got Through
Basic Questions:
1) What kinds of situations led to a crisis or hard time?
2) What kinds of factors and processes occurred during the dealing with the crisis?
3) How did people get through the crisis or hard time and what kind of resolution did they have?
Focus: How people have gotten through crises and hard times in intercultural marriages in Japan.
Purpose: To identify some of the crises that have occurred in intercultural marriages, what were the factors, processes, and experiences that occurred during these hard times, and how did people get through these hard times.
Goal of project: To produce a written report on crises in the intercultural marriage life of Japanese and non-Japanese partners, what were the process, the factors, and the experiences during these hard times, and how did people resolve and get through these hard times. It is hoped that the results of this project will contribute to understanding the dynamics of intercultural marriages in Japan and will contribute to society having a better understanding of the life of intercultural marriages of Japanese and non-Japanese.
Method: Interviews of members of intercultural marriages with Japanese and non-Japanese partners. Interviews may be done individually or together. One member of a couple can choose participate, while the other member can choose not to participate. Interviews will be recorded. Interviews may be conducted in person or on an internet format such as Skype. Interviews will be conducted basically in English, with use of Japanese as is needed for communication purposes. Interviews will be about 1 hour.
Format of interviews: Semi-structured interviews of members of Japanese and non-Japanese intercultural marriages. Semi-structured means discussing the same questions with each participant plus discussing whatever each participant thinks is important to answer the two basic questions of this project. Prior to interviews participants will be given information about the project and a list of questions to be asked in the interviews for their consideration. During the interview they will discuss this list of questions with the interviewer and they will be invited to discuss any other aspects that they consider significant for growth in their marriage relationship that resulted from a crisis/crises occurring in their marriage life together.
Confidentiality: All interviews and their contents will be kept confidential. The recordings of these interviews will only be heard by Reggie Pawle, the interviewer.
The foreigner community is a small world. As much as possible the identity, personal information, and personal story of the participants will try to be protected. However, complete confidentiality cannot be guaranteed. In the final report the focus will be on psychological processes and factors, not on the personal details and stories of the participants. Still, someone who knows a particular participant may possibly recognize this participant through familiarity with this participant. Participants should consider this. At the beginning of each interview how to protect confidentiality will be discussed with each participant and each participant’s wishes will be adhered to. The basic approach to protecting confidentiality in the final report is the following: All personal identifying information will be removed from the final report. Fictitiousness names, incorrect number of children, wrong nationalities, and changing of specific event and story information will all be used. As stated, the final report will focus on psychological factors and processes, not on the stories or personal information of the participants.
Use of interviews: The interviews will be examined by Reggie Pawle for themes, patterns, and meaningful events regarding the answers to the two basic questions of this project. The results of this examination will be discussed with psychology colleagues with whom Reggie Pawle consults. During all of these discussions, confidentiality will be strictly observed, following the same guidelines that are detailed in the previous “Confidentiality” section.
The preliminary results of this examination will be available to any participants who wish to read it. If there is anything that any participant believes misrepresents what they said and/or intended, then these parts will be changed so that an accurate representation will be expressed in the final report.
Final Report: The final report will be published in a professional psychology journal, presented at a small number of psychology conferences, and shared with people who want to read it. A summary report will be made available to the public media and put online on Reggie Pawle’s website: www.reggiepawle.net.
Consent: All of this information will be discussed with each participant at the beginning of each interview. It is necessary for each participant to agree to be interviewed according to the information detailed in this description of this project. If a participant is not ready to participate according to this information, then their interview will be either postponed or cancelled.
Questions for Interviewees
Statement:
The focus of this project is on crisis – hard times that have occurred in intercultural marriages of Japanese and non-Japanese couples living in Japan – and how the members of these marriages have gotten through and resolved these hard times. The purpose is to learn about the lived experience of these couples – what was their psychological experience, their subjective experience. The intention is hear from the voices of the people themselves.
There are three parts of this crisis experience to be explored:
Part 1) What kinds of situations led to a crisis or hard time?
Part 2) What kinds of factors and processes occurred during the dealing with the crisis?
Part 3) How did people get through the crisis or hard time and what kind of resolution did they have?
Questions for each interviewee to consider:
Answer the questions that were important for you and your spouse in dealing with a crisis(es) and what facilitated getting through this/these hard times.
Regarding Part 1:
What kinds of situations led to a crisis(es) or hard time?
How do you define “crisis” in your marriage?
What kinds of situations lead to a crisis?
What contributed to the crisis occurring?
Are there qualities that you feel are necessary components of a crisis that provide the fertile ground through which relationship growth can occur?
Were any of the following part of what instigated the crisis:
Stress in life or the relationship? Ways of handling stress?
Lack of marital satisfaction?
Communication difficulties?
Lack of expression of affection? Romantic/sexual difficulties?
Family difficulties – raising bicultural children or in-laws?
Personal career/life difficulties?
Acculturation difficulties? Loneliness?
Ongoing crises? Unfulfilled expectations?
Money and financial matters?
Anything else significant?
Regarding Part 2:
What kinds of factors and processes occurred during the dealing with the crisis?
How did you deal with the crisis? Was this similar or not to your spouse’s way of dealing with the crisis?
How did this particular crisis that you describe result in relationship growth?
What was the process(es) that occurred in this experience that facilitated relationship growth?
What were specific factors that helped facilitate this crisis lead to relationship growth?
Did you seek support from each other in the relationship? Did you seek support from other people?
Did love help get you through the crisis? Commitment? Sincerity? Security of attachment to each other? Attention to practical matters?
Was social face maintenance important?
Did you become interdependent while dealing with this crisis? Did you become more independent while dealing with this crisis?
Was there any parental involvement in the handling of this crisis?
How important was communication? Which was more important – words or behavior? Nonverbal vs verbal?
Was acceptance or choice in some way part of the way of dealing with the crisis?
Role of “it can’t be helped” – 仕方がない(shikata ga nai)?
Let it resolve naturally?
Self-sacrifice? Consensuality? “Keeping the peace?”
Choosing something
Were shared interests and ways of doing things a part of this process?
Was trying to maintain harmony part of this process?
Was trying to do things for each other without asking first (思いやり(omoiyari)) a part of this process?
How would you rate the degree of warmth, sensitivity, and hostility during the crisis by each partner?
Were difficult emotions part of the process? – anger, frustration, irritation, anxiety, avoidance, psychological aggression, others?
Were positive emotions part of the process? – trust, romantic attachment, sense of connection, sharing, sincerity, others?
Anything else significant?
Regarding Part 3:
How did people get through the crisis or hard time and what kind of resolution did they have?
How do you understand how you got through this crisis?
What kind of resolution did you have?
What kind of long-term effect did this crisis/hard time have on your marriage?
Did your relationship improve or get worse as a result of this crisis? In what ways?
Has your handling of crisis situations changed over the time of your marriage?
In retrospect, what would you say is your style of dealing with crisis? Your spouse’s?
For each of you, was the style any of these: direct, indirect, refraining from conflict, postponing conflict, employing persuasion, trying to ignore, trying to integrate, compromising, appealing to third-party assistance, self-assertion, or giving priority to the other person.
Did you become more intimate with your spouse? In what ways?
Overall, what have you personally learned from this experience?
Have any of the factors that instigated the crisis changed, and how?
Stress in life or the relationship? Ways of handling stress?
Marital satisfaction?
Communication difficulties?
Lack of expression of affection? Romantic/sexual difficulties?
Family difficulties – raising bicultural children or in-laws?
Personal career/life difficulties?
Acculturation difficulties?
Ongoing crises?
Unfulfilled expectations?
Money and financial matters?
Do you have any advice to other intercultural couples who are experiencing similar crises?
Anything else significant?
THANK YOU
Publications and Other Events
New publications and events will be posted as they occur. Events include workshops, lectures, and other cross-cultural activities.
East-West Psychology Service serves the goals of increasing international understanding and cooperation, improving relationship between people, helping people deal with the psychological challenges of living in a cross-cultural milieu, understanding the indigeneous psychology of Japan through resarching the psychology of Zen Buddhism, and broadening psychology so that psychotherapy can be of service to more diverse and larger numbers of people aournd the world.