Overview
Interpretative phenomenological analysis, developed by Jonathan Smith and colleagues, draws on phenomenology, hermeneutics and idiography. It suits small, reasonably homogeneous samples and research questions about lived experience, such as living with a diagnosis, becoming a parent or leaving a profession. The researcher engages in a double hermeneutic: interpreting participants' own interpretations of their experience.
The second edition of Smith, Flowers and Larkin's textbook (2022) updated the terminology. Exploratory notes are developed into experiential statements; these are clustered into personal experiential themes (PETs) for each case; and cross-case analysis produces group experiential themes (GETs). Older studies use 'emergent themes', 'superordinate themes' and 'master themes' for similar steps. We help you use the current terms consistently, or explain clearly if your department still expects the older ones.
Our role is to support your interpretation, not replace it. We review your exploratory noting and experiential statements, ask whether your interpretations stay grounded in the text, and help you balance convergence and divergence across cases in your write-up.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- Counseling, clinical, health and educational psychology trainees completing an IPA thesis
- Nursing, midwifery and allied health researchers exploring patient or practitioner experience
- Doctoral researchers in education, social work and management using IPA
- Anyone told their IPA is 'too descriptive' or 'reads like thematic analysis'
Common problems we help with
- Your exploratory notes stay descriptive and never reach linguistic or conceptual comments
- You jumped to cross-case themes before completing each case in depth
- You are unsure whether to use PETs and GETs or the older superordinate theme language
- Your findings chapter loses individual voices in favor of group summaries
- You are not sure how to show that a theme is present across enough participants
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- Checking fit: research question, sample homogeneity and sample size for IPA
- Interview schedule review to elicit rich experiential accounts (optional, before data collection)
- Feedback on exploratory noting across descriptive, linguistic and conceptual comments
- Review of experiential statements and their clustering into personal experiential themes for each case
- Support for cross-case analysis into group experiential themes, including convergence, divergence and recurrence
- Help building theme tables that trace each GET back to PETs, participants and page/line references
- Feedback on your findings chapter's balance of interpretation and participant voice
- Reflexivity support: bracketing debates, positionality and the double hermeneutic in your methods section
Not included
- Analyzing your transcripts and producing themes for you
- Writing your findings or discussion chapter; we comment on drafts you write
- Recommending IPA for large or heterogeneous samples where another method fits better
What you receive
- Case analysis feedback
- Comments on your first full case — exploratory notes, experiential statements and PETs — so you have a model before analyzing the rest.
- Cross-case theme review
- Feedback on your GET table, highlighting themes that are thinly supported, overly broad or missing divergence.
- Terminology and methods check
- A review of your methods section for consistent IPA vocabulary, sampling rationale and reflexive positioning.
- Findings draft feedback
- Tracked comments on whether each theme shows interpretation, idiographic detail and well-chosen extracts.
How it works
Design fit
We check that your question and sample suit IPA and agree which edition's steps you will follow.
First case in depth
You analyze one transcript fully; we review it in detail and discuss how to deepen interpretation.
Remaining cases
You work case by case. We review selected cases to keep quality consistent.
Cross-case and write-up
You develop GETs and draft findings; we review the table and the chapter.
IPA steps and principles
- Reading and re-reading
- Immersion in one case, ideally with the audio, to enter the participant's world before analyzing.
- Exploratory noting
- Line-by-line comments at descriptive, linguistic (metaphor, pauses, pronouns) and conceptual levels.
- Experiential statements
- Concise statements that capture what was important in a section of the transcript, combining the participant's words and your interpretation.
- Personal experiential themes (PETs)
- Clusters of experiential statements for one case, organized through abstraction, subsumption, polarization, contextualization and function.
- Group experiential themes (GETs)
- Cross-case patterns showing shared and divergent qualities of experience, traced back to individual PETs.
- Idiography and the double hermeneutic
- Commitment to the particular case, and awareness that you are interpreting a participant's own interpretation.
Why IPA samples are small
IPA prioritizes depth and detail in each case. Smith and colleagues describe small samples as typical, with fewer participants for student projects and somewhat more for doctoral work, and a reasonably homogeneous sample so that shared experience can be examined. We help you justify your sample against your question rather than against a general qualitative rule of thumb.
Keeping the individual visible
A common weakness in IPA write-ups is that group themes swallow individual differences. Good IPA shows how a shared theme is lived differently by particular people. We help you structure findings so each GET includes convergence and divergence, and so readers meet participants as people rather than quotation sources.
- Use participant pseudonyms consistently and show who contributes to each theme
- Include at least one divergent account where it exists
- Interpret each extract; avoid strings of quotations with little commentary
- Keep a traceable path from GET to PET to experiential statement to transcript
Old and new vocabulary
If your supervisor trained with the 2009 edition, you may be asked for 'emergent' and 'superordinate' themes. The analytic process is similar. We help you choose one vocabulary, note the relationship between the two in your methods section and keep terms consistent throughout.
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
Illustrative feedback on exploratory notes
A fictional counseling psychology trainee interviewed six adults about returning to work after burnout. One short passage and the feedback on it are invented for illustration.
Extract and trainee's note
Participant: 'I walked in and it was like the building didn't know I'd been gone.' Trainee's note: 'Returning felt strange.'
Feedback
This note is descriptive. Consider the linguistic detail: the building, not colleagues, 'didn't know'. What might it mean that absence goes unnoticed by the organization? A possible experiential statement: 'Feeling erased by an institution that carried on without me.' Check whether this connects with her later comments about being 'replaceable'.
Illustrative example only. The participant, extract and feedback are invented to show the depth of feedback provided.
What you’ll need to provide
- Research question, interview schedule and sampling criteria
- Anonymized transcripts, starting with one complete case
- Your notes and theme tables in any format (Word, spreadsheet or CAQDAS)
- Guidance or templates from your program, including preferred IPA terminology
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Number and length of transcripts reviewed
- Whether feedback covers one model case or several
- Cross-case and write-up support in addition to case-level feedback
- Pre-data-collection design support such as interview schedule review
Turnaround depends on
- Time needed for you to analyze each case between reviews
- Transcript length and quality
- Submission deadlines and supervisor meeting schedules
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
How many participants should an IPA study have?
IPA uses small samples to allow depth. The right number depends on your level of study, question and program expectations. We help you set and justify a number, and we flag if a planned sample is too large or heterogeneous for IPA to work well.
Should I use PETs and GETs or superordinate themes?
The 2022 second edition of Smith, Flowers and Larkin uses experiential statements, PETs and GETs. Many programs now expect these, but some still use older terms. Follow your program's guidance and be consistent; we help you explain either choice.
Can I use NVivo for IPA?
Yes, although many IPA researchers prefer working on paper or in Word tables because the method is case-focused. If you use NVivo, ATLAS.ti or MAXQDA, we help set up a structure that keeps each case separate until cross-case analysis.
Do I need to bracket my assumptions?
IPA's hermeneutic stance accepts that complete bracketing is not possible. Researchers usually discuss reflexivity and how their preconceptions were examined rather than claiming to set them aside. We help you write this clearly.
Will you analyze my transcripts?
No. We review your analysis and model the process on a short extract, so that the interpretation, which is the core of IPA, stays yours.