Philadelphia, PA, January 10, 2011

Nancy Gerber, PhD will be conducting a workshop at the 7th Mixed Methods International Conference in Leeds, England in July 2011. The workshop is entitled Creating Images of the Mind: Qualitative and Quantitative Dimensions. The abstract for the workshop is below:

Imagination and the corresponding creation of personal images that express an individual's internal psychological experience is fundamental to understanding the cognitive and affective processes of meaning making in the human mind. The multi-dimensional nature of personal imagery incorporates the simultaneous expression of both subjective idiosyncratic as well as objective collective or universal data. Due to the inherent multi-dimensional and spatial nature of imagery it defies typical rules of physicality, logic, and generalizability demanded in dominant research perspectives. Therefore personal imagery and its meaning, when created and viewed within the context of the therapeutic relationship, is a form of knowledge and potential truth that requires a paradigmatic shift. The ontological and epistemological foundation and the systematic study of these data types creates challenges for researchers in the behavioral and social sciences. The properties of subjective imagery, with its personal and contextual meaning, requires innovative research paradigms in order to capture both the meaning of the subjective and intersubjective expression as well as to generate reliable and valid outcomes regarding the clinical application for these phenomena.

In this workshop, following an introductory review of epistemological, ontological and theoretical issues relative to these research challenges, the attendees will actively participate in identifying the intrinsic subjective and extrinsic objective phenomena inherent in creating an image and giving it meaning. The objective is to discuss and identify qualitative patterns of evidence and quantitative measurable variables for the design of a mixed methods research study.