Table of Contents

Section One: Venturing forth! Doing reflexive thematic analysis
Chapter One: It’s almost time to depart: Getting ready for your thematic analysis adventure
Before analysis: A brief design interlude
Chapter Two: Taking an initial lay of the land: Introducing our worked example dataset and doing familiarisation
Chapter Three: Exploring this world in detail: Doing coding
Chapter Four: Finding, losing, then finding your way again: Developing your themes
Chapter Five: Arriving home and telling a story about your adventure: Writing your thematic analysis report
Section Two: Going deeper for tip-top reflexive thematic analysis: Theory, interpretation, and quality matters
Chapter Six: A not-so-scary theory chapter: Conceptually locating reflexive thematic analysis
Chapter Seven: So what? The importance of interpretation in reflexive thematic analysis
Chapter Eight: One big happy family? Understanding similarities and differences between reflexive TA and its methodological siblings and cousins
Chapter Nine: Getting your own house in order: Understanding what makes good reflexive thematic analysis to ensure quality

About the Author

Virginia Braun is a Professor in the School of Psychology at The University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a feminist and critical (health) psychologist and teaches around gender and psychology and critical health psychology at undergraduate and graduate levels. When she gets time for it, her research (sometimes in collaboration with Victoria Clarke) explores the intersecting areas of gender, bodies, sex/sexuality, health, and (now) food. She is on Twitter @ginnybraun, where sometimes her tweets about qualitative research, usually in that case a retweet of an awesome thread by Victoria. Victoria Clarke is an Associate Professor in Qualitative and Critical Psychology in the Department of Health and Social Sciences at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, where she teaches about qualitative methods, and gender and sexuality, and supervises student research, on a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. When she′s not busy collaborating with Virginia Braun, she has conducted research in the intersecting areas of gender and sexuality, family and relationships, and appearance and embodiment. She is also active on Twitter – mainly tweeting about thematic analysis and qualitative research @drvicclarke.

Reviews

Braun and Clarke are extremely engaging, interesting, accessible writers, and would you believe, fun to read. I can′t recommend Thematic Analysis: a Practical Guide enough!
*Richard Devine*

I feel like you’ve passed me a head torch and a shovel when I was previously just in the bottom of a mine not sure how to get out!
*Amy Partington*

Braun and Clarke write in an invitational style, welcoming and accommodating a wide readership including those who are neurodivergent (...) I believe their highly accessible style of writing and their ability to unpack complex ideas and communicate them clearly and succinctly has played a large role in building their notable profiles within qualitative research circles.

Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide is set to become a classic within qualitative research and is an essential addition to the evaluator’s toolkit.
*Evaluation Journal of Australasia*

Whether you are just departing, circling back, or well into your thematic analysis journey, you will find this textbook a rich resource. [...] With the use of numerous examples, you see reflexive thematic analysis come to life, bringing the practical application of the method to the forefront. This book provides the scaffolding to guide and support you on your journey, while also provoking further questions and reflection on reflexive thematic analysis. 
*Lisa Trainor*

This book is a must-have for anyone thinking about or undertaking thematic analysis of data, more specifically, reflexive thematic analysis! A thoroughly useful and accessible practical guide. It contains clear definitions of terminology and explanations and makes good use of helpful boxes in each chapter to explain concepts or alert you to mistakes easily made in the process of analysing data using this method. 

 
*Book User*

First up, it’s a book that should be read by any qualitative researcher, not just those into thematic analysis. This is because it covers the foundations so well. Secondly, it′s an enjoyable read where, at times, you almost don’t realise you are taking things in because you are having fun. Finally, reading this book is (at the risk of extending their metaphor) like listening to two very experienced travellers when you are about to embark on your own. They don’t tell you where to go or precisely how to do it, but they fill you with confidence about your own ability to undertake what can seem like a daunting journey. 
*Eileen Joy*

We have about 60 students per year undertaking the Dissertation module and this text is high priority reading to help them plan out their research proposal in relation to data analysis. We also recommend the text to our researchers and higher research students. The text brings thematic analysis up to date and step by step explains the analytical process with extensive explanations and exemplars. An excellent and essential text, very well written with students and researchers in mind.
*Dr Jas Sangha*

The unanimous choice of this year’s [BPS Book Awards] panel. A core text for the future… As one of the panel noted, this is an extremely clear and comprehensive guide to the use of thematic analysis which achieves the notable goal of supporting users down to the level of novices without loss of detail or any hint of talking down.
*BPS Awards Presentation during the webinar ′Build good practice in reporting Thematic Analysis′ with Virginia Braun & Victoria Clarke*