Interviewing families can be daunting but careful planning can produce outcomes that are satisfying for the researcher and the family that has shared its time and life, concludes Julie G Donalek

Family researchers enter a sacred space in which the most intimate, formative and sustaining processes of human existence take place. Shared, multi­generational family interviews have a strong potential to capture some part of those processes. Using my experience in research with families responding to a parent’s chronic illness, I will describe in this paper approaches to thorough preparation and successful implementation of family interviews, the management of data and the creation not only of insightful descriptions of family life but also of positive, nurturing encounters for these families.