Reflections on moral care when conducting qualitative research about suicide in the United States military

ABSTRACTCritical suicidology (White, Marsh, Kral, & Morris, 2016) offers a critique of positivism as the mainstream rhetoric of scientific research. In this article, the authors add a critique to the moral detachment of scientific inquiry (Wilkinson & Kleinman, 2016) in suicidology. They provide a discussion at the intersection of theory and research when considering moral care of all stakeholders in the implementation of suicide research toward the development of more humanitarian policies and program alternatives. The authors reflect upon their experience of conducting an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Finlay, 2011) on suicide in the U.S. military.