The very first life history interview that I had scheduled turned out to
be the most memorable—and the most problematic. Sabine was a quiet,
reserved, African American woman in her mid-40s. As I was setting up the
tape recorder, I thanked her for her willingness to be part of the study; she
expressed surprise that anyone would be interested in her life, that it was all
about hurt and pain. I assured her that her life experience was very valuable
and that I was grateful that she was willing to share it with me. I have to say
that I liked her immediately—there was a simplicity about her and a strong
sense of authenticity that drew me in. The interview began slowly. She kept
wanting me to ask her specific questions and was uncertain how to proceed
when I told her I wanted her to tell me about her life any way she chose.
Gradually, she warmed up, and the stories began to flow. Early on, she told
me what her conviction was. It involved harm to a child, a crime that puts
a prisoner at risk of harm from other inmates, so before she was incarcerated,
she had been advised by the prison authorities not to talk about it
openly and even to make up a different story about her conviction. She had
taken that advice, so telling me the truth was a significant disclosure. Had
she not been my first informant in this study, I think I would have realized
more quickly how vulnerable she was making herself to me. In telling me
the story, she also told me that she wasn’t guilty of that charge, and I
believed her. Liking her, believing her story and being genuinely interested in her life created a situation in which she felt comfortable and safe with
me, a stranger about whom she knew little and with whom she had so little
in common. That sense of safety is a profoundly uncommon experience for
any inmate, but at that point, I didn’t know that. In a real sense, both of us
were entering unknown territory. The trust between us grew, her stories
became more personal, until suddenly she was telling me a story she had
never told anyone else before. It was a story of personal violation, horrendous
and devastating in its details. Afterward, she had fallen into a serious
depression, had made a suicide attempt, and had been hospitalized at her
mother’s insistence. She liked the psychiatrist who treated her, but she
refused to tell him what had happened, and she never told either of her
parents or, later on, her husband. But she told me. I am certain that when
she first walked into that room for this interview that she had no intention
of telling me this story. I suspect she was in the middle of the telling before
she knew what she was doing. I believe that she confided in me without
thinking, that in a real sense, it was a result of finding herself being listened
to by a stranger who was truly interested, who expressed care and concern,
and who wasn’t judging her. She was seduced by the caring interview, and
I was the unwitting seducer. The interview had created an intimacy that led
her to reveal more than she had ever intended. How could I have let this
happen? What could I do with the information she had given me?