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One of us (VC) was having a conversation with a student recently about the origins and history of thematic analysis (TA). The student had read Qualitative Research in Counselling and Psychotherapy (McLeod, 2011), a text which presents TA as a variant of grounded theory. Victoria commented that she thought that TA evolved from content analysis, and therefore predated grounded theory, and discussed her recent discovery of the use of a variant of TA in psychotherapy research in the 1930s–1950s. The student let out a heavy sigh and slumped in her chair, bemoaning her ability to ever fully grasp qualitative research in all its complexity. This reaction is not uncommon. Students learning and implementing qualitative research at times find it bewildering and challenging; simple models of ‘how to do things’ can appear to offer reassuring certainty. But simplified models, especially if based in confidently-presented-yet …