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Thematic analysis (TA) is a method for identifying, analyzing, and interpreting patterns of meaning (‘themes’) within qualitative data. TA is unusual in the canon of qualitative analytic approaches, because it offers a method–a tool or technique, unbounded by theoretical commitments–rather than a methodology (a theoretically informed, and confined, framework for research). This does not mean that TA is atheoretical, or, as is often assumed, realist, or essentialist. Rather, TA can be applied across a range of theoretical frameworks and indeed research paradigms. There are versions of TA developed for use within (post) positivist frameworks that foreground the importance of coding reliability (eg Boyatzis, 1998; Guest, MacQueen, & Namey, 2012), and given the emphasis on positivism in positive psychology (Friedman, 2008), it is unsurprising that such approaches are often favored by qualitative researchers in this …