Qualitative Research in Psychology, 9:1–4, 2012 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1478-0887 print/1478-0895 online DOI: 10.1080/14780887.2012.630622 Introduction to the Special Issue on Qualitative Research and Clinical Psychology SARA WILLOTT 1 AND MICHAEL LARKIN 2 1 Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK 2 University of Birmingham, School of Psychology, Birmingham, UK The relationship between qualitative research and clinical psychology has at times been uneasy, but it is increasingly rich and reciprocal. Clinical psychologists appear to be mak- ing increased use of qualitative methods in their research, as Dave Harper’s survey in this special issue demonstrates. Certainly this is the case for the UK training arena, where doc- toral researchers are more frequently employing qualitative methods, and where, by 2006, all doctoral programmes were providing teaching on qualitative methods (compared to 81% in 1992). Harper also notes that by 2006 the number of trainees drawing on qualita- tive methods in their thesis was 42.8%. Doctoral theses are a major source of research for clinical psychology (Cooper & Turpin 2007; Thomas, Turpin & Meyer 2002). The rising number of trainees who employ qualitative approaches is testament to the importance of nonnumerical data collection and analysis in the profession. Conceptually and practically, clinical psychology should be fertile ground for qual- itative research. This is apparent partly in the promise of real-life application because qualitative work can provide powerful insights into the meaning, context, and allevia- tion of psychological distress. As we shall see, the importance of “change” for clinical psychologists is crucial to their use of qualitative methods. Such methods, however, are also appealing because of the ethical, personal and procedural issues involved. Reflective dialogue around these issues enhances theory-practice links within and across various qualitative methods, as a number of our contributors demonstrate. We are mindful that in editing this special issue, we are in many ways draw- ing a distinction between qualitative and quantitative methods that is often spurious. It could be argued that differences within these approaches are at least as large as the differences between them. As Cromby notes in this issue, the basic feature distinguish- ing qualitative from quantitative approaches is the use of meanings (usually text-based) rather than measurements (numerical) as data. Despite the difficulty of marking out other definitive distinctions between different qualitative approaches, a range of ethical and epistemological dialogues do loosely define the territory of “qualitative methods.” A wide range of approaches and techniques inhabits this territory. Those which have most often been used to explore questions in clinical psychology are listed elsewhere (see, e.g., Harper 2008). While editing the contributions to this special issue, we have been prompted to identify a series of questions that we hope will serve to contextualise the papers that follow and offer springboards for further dialogue. First, to what extent does Correspondence: Michael Larkin, University of Birmingham, School of Psychology, Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom. E-mail: m.larkin@bham.ac.uk 1