Shared Traumatic Pasts—Reflexivity,Remission,and the Emotional Labor of Interviewing Combat Veterans: A Research Note

Abstract

Harrowing testimonies from U.K. combat veterans—accounts of killing, sexual violence, and public grief—demand methods that are rigorous and trauma-informed. This research note addresses the problem of how insider researchers can ethically and analytically manage the emotional labor of trauma-focused interviewing. It asks: (1) how emotional and cognitive strain emerges for an insider interviewer and (2) what safeguards make such work sustainable. Based on a grounded theory study with 37 veterans and 14 mental health practitioners, the note outlines trauma-informed procedures—distress protocol, next-day check-ins, transcriber warnings, spacing, and transcripts-first analysis. Findings show that reflexivity, treated as an analytic discipline rather than disclosure, enables containment of projection while preserving empathy. The note concludes that explicit safeguards and structured self-monitoring enhance both participant safety and researcher well-being, offering a transferable model for ethics boards and qualitative teams working with traumatic material.