Researching Beneath the Surface, Psycho-social Research Methods in Practice

RESEARCHING BENEATH

THE SURFACE

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Explorations in Psycho-Social Studies SeriesPublished and distributed by Karnac Books

Other titles in the Series

Object Relations and Social Relations: The Implications of the Relational Turn in Psychoanalysis

Edited by Simon Clarke, Herbert Hahn, and Paul Hoggett

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RESEARCHING BENEATH

THE SURFACEPsycho-Social Research

Methods in Practice

edited by

Simon Clarke and Paul Hoggett

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First published in 2009 byKarnac Books Ltd118 Finchley Road, London NW3 5HT

Copyright © 2009 Simon Clarke and Paul Hoggett for the edited collection,and to the individual authors for their contributions.

The right of contributors to be identified as the authors of this work hasbeen asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design andPatents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, storedin a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without theprior written permission of the publisher.

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A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85575 618 2

Edited, designed and produced by The Studio Publishing Services Ltdwww.publishingservicesuk.co.uke-mail: [email protected]

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS ix

CHAPTER ONEResearching beneath the surface: a psycho-social 1approach to research practice and method


PART I: WAYS OF KNOWING 27

CHAPTER TWOExperiencing knowledge: the vicissitudes of a 29research journey

Haralan Alexandrov

CHAPTER THREEHow to live and learn: learning, duration, and the virtual 51

Lita Crociani-Windland

CHAPTER FOURWhen words are not enough 79

Julian Manley

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PART II: THE DYNAMICS OF THE 99RESEARCH ENCOUNTER

CHAPTER FIVECharting the clear waters and the murky depths 101

Phoebe Beedell

CHAPTER SIXFear––and psycho-social interviewing 121

Rosie Gilmour

CHAPTER SEVENThe use of self as a research tool 145

Sue Jervis

PART III: METHODS OF INQUIRY AND ANALYSIS 167

CHAPTER EIGHTSeeing ↔ believing, dreaming ↔ thinking: 169some methodological mapping of view points

Lindsey Nicholls

CHAPTER NINEAutobiography as a psycho-social research method 193

Rumen Petrov

CHAPTER TENManaging self in role: using multiple methodologies 215to explore self construction and self governance

Linda Watts

CHAPTER ELEVENAnalysing discourse psycho-socially 241

Leslie Boydell

INDEX 267

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to acknowledge the Economic and Social ResearchCouncil (ESRC) for the funding provided to do the research onwhich two of the chapters in this book are based. Phoebe Beedell’schapter contains material from two ESRC funded projects:“Negotiating Ethical Dilemma’s in Contested Communities” (RES-000-23-0127) and “Identities, Educational Choice and the WhiteUrban Middle Classes” (RES-148-25-0023). Rosie Gilmour’s chapteris based on work done for the ESRC funded project: “Mobility andUnsettlement: New Identity Construction in ContemporaryBritain” (RES-148-25-003). Much of the research in this book hasbeen produced within the vibrant setting of the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at the University of the West of England and wewould like to thank our colleagues for their support; in particular,we would like to thank Glynis Morrish for her hard work andpatience in supporting the team.

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ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Haralan Alexandrov works as researcher and consultant in theBulgarian Institute of Human Relations and as assistant professorin the New Bulgarian University. He holds a Masters in Bulgarianphilology and a PhD in social anthropology. His academic interestsare in the fields of education, social policy, and organizational theory.He is involved in various community development projects, apply-ing participatory approaches such as action research, reflectivepractice, co-operative inquiry, etc. Currently, he is working on aPhD dissertation in the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies, Universityof the West of England, Bristol, titled “Identity, continuity andchange: the dynamics of reconstructing the organizational cultureof an educational institution”.

Phoebe Beedell: Before joining the University of the West ofEngland’s Centre for Psycho-Social Studies, Phoebe Beedell workedextensively in Southern Africa as a development communicationsspecialist focusing on the promotion of reproductive health. Phoebecontinues to maintain links with psycho-social research networksand is currently employed by an independent community develop-ment practice based in Bristol, UK.

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Leslie Boydell is Associate Medical Director of the Belfast Healthand Social Care Trust and Honorary Lecturer with the Departmentof Public Health and Epidemiology, Queen’s University, Belfast.Her main research interests are in cross-sectoral partnerships andcollaboration, with a particular focus on psychosocial aspects, suchas motivation to engage, and measuring impact. She has leadresponsibility for public involvement and community developmentfor the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.

Simon Clarke is Director of The Centre for Psycho-Social Studies atthe University of the West of England. His research interests includethe interface between sociological and psychoanalytic theory;method; emotions; racism and other hatreds; and the social ap-plication of psychoanalytic theory and practice. He has publishednumerous articles, essays, and reviews on racism, hatred, and ethnicconflict. He is author of several books including: Social Theory,Psychoanalysis and Racism (2003, Palgrave); From Enlightenment toRisk: Social Theory and Contemporary Society (2005, Palgrave);Emotion, Politics and Society (with Hoggett and Thompson, 2006,Palgrave); Object Relations and Social Relations (with Hahn andHoggett, 2008, Karnac); and White Identities: A Critical SociologicalApproach (with Garner, 2009, Pluto Press). Simon is ConsultingEditor of Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society (Palgrave MacmillanJournals)

Lita Crociani-Windland is a senior lecturer in Sociology and Fellowof the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at the University of the Westof England. Her professional background includes consultancywithin the fields of group relations and special needs education.

Rosie Gilmour: Rosie’s background is multi-disciplinary with aninitial degree in French with Russian, which took her into teachinglanguages both in Britain and abroad. She then did a PostgraduateDiploma in Marketing and worked in market research, bothnational and international for several years, specializing in qualita-tive research. She completed an MA in Social Anthropology inSOAS in 2004 with a special interest in the Middle East. Her MAdissertation focused on the unveiling of Muslim schoolgirls inFrance. She worked as the research associate on the ESRC project

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entitled “Mobility and Unsettlement: New Identity Construction inContemporary Britain” and is now Project Manager in the Centrefor Intercultural Communication in the University of the West ofEngland.

Paul Hoggett is Professor of Politics and Director of the Centre forPsycho-Social Studies at the University of the West of England,Bristol. His research focuses on identity and conflict dynamics,climate change denial, the political vicissitudes of loss and grief, andthe nature of human resilience. His books include Partisans in anUncertain World (1992, Free Association Books); Emotional Life and thePolitics of Welfare (2000, Macmillan); The Dilemmas of DevelopmentWork (2008, Policy Press); and Politics, Identity and Emotion (ParadigmPublishers, 2009). He is also a psychoanalytic psychotherapist.

Sue Jervis is a former civil servant who changed careers after train-ing to become a psychodynamic counsellor while working in staffwelfare and personnel management posts. She subsequently workedas a counselling service manager, supervisor, and as an indepen-dent practitioner at various locations within Britain. Sue has pre-sented several papers on the emotional experiences of servicemen’swives. A related publication is: “Moving experiences: responses torelocation among British military wives” (Coles & Fechter, 2007[Eds.], Gender and Family Among Transnational Professionals, NewYork: Routledge). Sue is an affiliate of the Centre for Psycho-SocialStudies at the University of the West of England and an indepen-dent researcher.

Julian Manley, MA, DipHE, MSc, is Managing Director ofEcowaves, a company providing consultancy and training to orga-nizations in Spain. He shares consultancy work with his research atthe University of the West of England, where he is currently regis-tered for a PhD that takes social dreaming as its principal focus ofinvestigation. His main research interests are centred around thedevelopment of holistic approaches to psycho-social situations andcombining theory with experiential practice. He has recently spenttime at Schumacher College, Devon, where he was dedicated tointegrating ecological reflection into his current research. He is nowbased in northern Spain.

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Lindsey Nicholls is a lecturer in the School for Health Sciences and Social Care at Brunel University, London, UK. She has an MAfrom the Tavistock/University East London on “Psychoanalyticapproaches to organisations” and has worked as a clinical occupa-tional therapist (OT) and academic in Cape Town (South Africa)and London (UK). Her PhD research was a psychoanalyticallyinformed ethnographic study of OTs’ social defences in acute caresettings in Cape Town and London.

Rumen Petrov is a certified psychiatrist and psychotherapist.Currently, he lectures in conflict mediation for students of publicadministration and is also conducting self-experience groups forstudents of clinical social work and family therapy at the NewBulgarian University, Sofia. Rumen is a PhD student at the Centrefor Psycho-social Studies, University of the West of England,Bristol. His research is a case study about the hidden dimensions ofhis own and of some of his colleagues’ culture and attitudestowards community development and the humanization of com-munal life in Bulgaria. In the current year (2009), Rumen’s mainprofessional challenges are two PHARE-sponsored projects whichare introducing him into the field of business education for bothregular students at the New Bulgarian University and for unem-ployed citizens. As a Bulgarian citizen, Rumen is very interested in(and is trying to study systematically) the origins of his past in atotalitarian environment and intends to continue his engagementwith the study and development of civil society in Bulgaria.

Linda Watts works in local government in the UK. She holds aMasters in Management Development and Social Responsibilityand a PhD that focused on a critical approach to her organizationalrole in local government. She is a Visiting Fellow at the BristolBusiness School, University of the West of England. Her academicinterests are in the fields of self governance and organizationalbehaviour in the macro political context, and research methods asapplied to those fields. Currently, she is working on an explorationof “being a researcher–manager”.

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CHAPTER ONE

Researching beneath the surface: a psycho-social approach to research practice and method


Introduction: psycho-social studies

Since the 1990s, partly due to the impact of feminism, thesocial sciences have begun to change. Traditional models ofhuman rationality, which opposed reason to passion, are

being challenged. The preoccupation with language and cognitionhas started to give way to an equal interest in emotion and affect.The familiar split between “individual” and “society”, psychologyand sociology, is now recognized as unhelpful to the study of both,and, as ways have been sought to overcome such splits, psycho-analysis has increasingly appeared in the breach.

Drawing also on some aspects of discourse psychology, conti-nental philosophy, and anthropological and neuro-scientific under-standings of the emotions, “psycho-social studies” has emerged asan embryonic new paradigm in the human sciences in the UK.Psycho-social studies uses psychoanalytic concepts and principlesto illuminate core issues within the social sciences. These haverecently included the role of loss and mourning in the constitutionof community; the nature of identities such as “girl”, “white”, or“mother”; the experiences of rapid social change, particularly the

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experiences of the powerless; the negotiation of ethical dilemmasby public service professionals. Moreover, it has applied theseconcepts and principles in empirical research as well as theorybuilding.

Psycho-social studies is an emergent perspective, the exact con-tours of which necessarily remain indeterminate at present (Clarke,2006; Hollway, 2004). Frosh’s recent review of the field concludes,

the idea of the psycho-social subject as a meeting point of inner andouter forces, something constructed and yet constructing, a power-using subject which is also subject to power, is a difficult subject totheorize, and no one has yet worked it out. [Frosh, 2003, p. 1564,original emphases]

Psycho-social studies is also informing the development of newmethodologies in the social sciences, including the use of free asso-ciation and biographical interview methods, the application ofinfant observation methodologies to social observation, the devel-opment of psychoanalytic ethnography/fieldwork and attention totransference–countertransference dynamics in the research process.

This book examines some of these methodological develop-ments and draws upon the experiences of a group of researchersand doctoral students based around the Centre for Psycho-SocialStudies at the University of the West of England. In this firstintroductory chapter, we explore the emergence of psycho-socialresearch in the human sciences, its origins, aims, and, in particular,the innovations that have been made in methods of data generationand data analysis and the implications these have for the ethics ofqualitative research. As we have agued in the previous volume inthis series (Clarke, Hahn, & Hoggett, 2008) there is something quitedistinct about a psycho-social approach towards social research; itis more an attitude, or position towards the subject(s) of studyrather than just another methodology, something that contributorsto this book, such as Haralan Alexandrov and Lita Crociani-Windland, will demonstrate. We argue, therefore, that psycho-social research can be seen as a cluster of methodologies whichpoint towards a distinct position, that of researching beneath thesurface and beyond the purely discursive. In other words, to con-sider the unconscious communications, dynamics, and defences

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2 RESEARCHING BENEATH THE SURFACE


that exist in the research environment. This may entail the analysisof group dynamics, observation, and the co-construction of theresearch environment, by researcher and researched: we are allparticipants in the process. From this we derive the idea of thereflexive researcher, where we are engaged in sustained self-reflec-tion on our methods and practice, on our emotional involvement inthe research, and on the affective relationship between ourselvesand the researched.

The origins and aims of psycho-social research

Psycho-social research methods have emerged over the last tenyears or so. Previously, with just a few notable exceptions, there hadbeen little fieldwork that used psychoanalysis as a tool for under-standing societal phenomena. Hunt (1989) argues that fieldworkersshared an assumption that “there was one reality that existed inde-pendently of the researcher’s conscious mental activity” (p. 17). Inother words there existed an objective separation between observerand observed. Researcher subjectivity, emotional and participatoryinvolvement in the world of the researched, was seen as ahindrance to scientific study. Hunt refers to the Chicago school as aparticularly good example of this type of ethnography, asHammersley (1992) notes: “Chicago sociologists came to see the cityas a kind of natural laboratory in which the diversity and processesof change characteristic of human behaviour could be studied”(Hammersley, 1992, p. 3). Fieldwork was somewhat paradoxical inthat researchers were encouraged to immerse themselves in the“natural” setting of the research subject, but not to the extent wherethey would lose their objective focus, succumbing to affect.

In contrast, Hunt (1989) suggests that subjectivity and self-understanding are critical to well executed fieldwork, suggesting a synthesis of ethnographic methods which incorporate psycho-analytic tools of interpretation. Psychoanalytic practice in fieldworkis important in that it contributes to our understanding of howsociological data is both structured and constructed. There are twomain areas in which psychoanalytic ethnography differs from con-ventional fieldwork (see also Crociani-Windland, in this volume).First, there is the notion that the unconscious plays a role in the

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RESEARCHING BENEATH THE SURFACE: A PSYCHO-SOCIAL APPROACH 3


construction of our reality and the way in which we perceive others.This is the theoretical framework on which we base the analysis ofour research findings. Second, the unconscious plays a significantpart in both the generation of research data and the construction ofthe research environment, thus recognizing and using ethnographyas a social activity. Hunt (ibid.) explains:

The psychoanalytic examination of fieldwork is important becauseit contributes to our understanding of the structuring of socialscience data. For example the unconscious communications whichare negotiated in the research encounter affect empathy andrapport. They therefore play a role in the materials that subjectsreveal and researchers grasp. [p. 27]

Hunt identifies a number of areas where unconscious forcesmay affect research. In the first instance, the choice of researchsubject and setting may reflect an “inner dynamic”. For example, adeep interest in racism may arise from certain incidents or eventsin a researcher’s past, the impact of which become disguised ascuriosity and professional interest. Once the research is under way,unconscious forces mediate encounters between researcher andresearched: “the subject’s behaviour and unconscious transferencestoward the researcher may generate the development of reciprocalreactions and transferences” (ibid., p. 33). An important point thatHunt highlights, which is rarely discussed in methodological liter-ature, is the discomfort and guilt that may accompany the collec-tion of data, the feeling of being a “spy” or “voyeur”. Huntdiscusses at length the concepts of transference and countertrans-ference within the fieldwork environment. This is where most of theunconscious interplay between researcher and respondent takesplace:

The term transference will be used to refer to researchers’ uncon-scious reactions to subjects and some aspects of their world.Transference will also be used to describe the unconscious archaicimages that the subject imposes onto the person of the researcher.Counter-transference, in contrast, will be used to refer to theresearcher’s unconscious reaction to the subject’s transference.[ibid., p. 58]

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In his contribution to this volume, Haralan Alexandrov exam-ines the way that the psychoanalytic method accepts the hermeneu-tic interpretive approach while recognizing in addition thatunconscious and conscious forces mediate the researcher’s inter-pretation of the subject’s world. While both psychoanalysis andhermeneutics assume an “internal” world, hermeneutics assumesthat much of this world is accessible to the “confessor” of it. Inpsychoanalytic ethnography this world is often hidden, and thetransference and countertransference between respondent andresearcher thus becomes a way in which the hidden inner worldreveals itself. The nature of ethnographic fieldwork is described notin terms of one or many pictures, rather, in terms of a voyage, inwhich researcher and researched are engaged. Sherwood (1980), inThe Psychodynamics of Race, uses a series of unstructured life historyinterviews to explore the “inner” and “outer” worlds of multi-racialareas:

Since the aim of this study is a complex one and is about inner andouter worlds and social contexts in relation to race, to pursue theaim it is necessary to disclose the inner reality which each personexperiences. It is basic to our approach therefore that the focus beon the whole individual . . . [ibid., p. 12]

The subjects, all from different ethnic backgrounds, areresearched in a cultural, social, and historical context, yieldinginformation on a conscious surface level to provide insights intounconscious “motivations and defences” (ibid., p. 13). This method-ology considers psychological, sociological, and cultural aspects ofour lives as interdependent, and, as such, each has an influence onthe other in the way in which we construct social life through rela-tionships, feelings, and action. It is interesting to note that an earlycritique of Sherwood’s work counterposed this approach to a“scientific” stance; Manyoni (1982) wrote,

A basic cannon of scientific inquiry demands that the analyticalvalidity of theoretical or explanatory conclusions reached on thebasis of an inductive study of this sort should rest squarely on thesoundness of the methodology adopted for the execution of theproject. . . . The pitfalls posed by the individual life history methodof psycho-sociological analysis are numerous. The reliability of the

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raw data from which particular conclusions are drawn has a directbearing on the scientific validity and soundness of the analysismade. [ibid., p. 236]

Manyoni goes on to talk about the reliance of the research on thereports and life histories of the subjects as if the individual respon-dents were not to be trusted with their own feelings, a sure sign thatemotion does not fit into the scientific paradigm of researchdesigns. Innis (1998) also reflects on the usefulness of psycho-analytic concepts as a social worker involved in a mental healthafter-care hostel:

These accounts enable me to think of racist and other responses tothe experience of difference as originating not only in historical,political and social reality but also in the unconscious internalconflicts of the individual. [Innes, 1998, p. 187]

Similarly, Joffe (1996) proposes a psychodynamic extension tosocial representational theory, using empirically derived researchdata to demonstrate the explanatory power of psychoanalyticconcepts such as splitting and projection. The emphasis is thereforeon hermeneutic interpretive methods, which recognize bothconscious and unconscious cultural meanings. The interpretive ismediated by the minds of both researcher and researched, addinganother explanatory dimension in the field of ethnography. Thus,we have a threefold argument for the synthesis of methodologies.First, structural explanation is able to explain how, but not why,certain social phenomena occur. Psychoanalysis addresses this defi-ciency by recognizing the role of the unconscious mind in theconstruction of social realities, with its suggestion that feelings andemotions shape our perception and motivation, constructing theway in which we perceive others. Second, the psychoanalyticmethod recognizes the role of the researcher in the interpretation ofrealities and the way in which unconscious forces shape theresearch environment. Finally, there is an integration of social,cultural, and historical factors at a conscious level, which yieldsinformation about unconscious motivations and defences.

This basic outline of the importance or recognition of the inter-play between internal and external worlds has been developed

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substantially over the past ten years into the discipline we callpsycho-social studies, whose contribution we will examine ingreater detail in the following sections of this chapter. This can beseen by example in Hollway and Jefferson’s (2000) work on fear ofcrime, in the work of Stephen Frosh and his colleagues (2002, 2003)on young masculinities and the work of Walkerdine and hercolleagues on young femininities (Walkerdine, Lucey, and Melody,2001; Lucey, Melody, & Walkerdine, 2003). Chamberlayne, Bornat,and Wengraf (2000) have focused on biographical narrative meth-ods and the application of these to social policies and professionalpractice (Chamberlayne, Rustin, & Wengraf, 2002), while Hinshel-wood and Skogstad (2000) use psychoanalytically informed obser-vation to study anxiety within institutions (see also Clarke, 2002,2006). More recently, Hoggett, Beedell, Jimenez, Mayo, and Miller(2006) have used a psycho-social narrative method to understandthe nature of personal identifications, for example, class andgender, that underpin the commitment of welfare workers to theirjobs. Those involved in psycho-social research come from varyingacademic disciplines which include psychology, critical psychology,sociology, social policy, and political studies. Together, these contri-butions represent both the application of psychoanalytic methodsand concepts to social research, and deepening of existingapproaches to qualitative research.

If we look at the aims of psycho-social research, then at the heartof the project is the reflexive practitioner. As we mentioned in theintroduction to this chapter, the idea of the reflexive practitionerinvolves sustained and critical self-reflection on our methods andpractice, to recognize our emotional involvement in the project,whether conscious or unconscious. So, for example, we could askourselves at set of questions, as Linda Watts and Rumen Petrov do in their contributions to this book. Why are we interested in our research project; why choose this area and not some other?What is our investment in it and how will this affect the way we go about the research? Importantly, how will the above affect usand our relationship to the subject(s) of our study. To answer suchquestions requires an exploration of the intersections betweenpersonal biography and discourse, in other words, to examine theunique ways individuals “live” in social formations. This enablesthe researcher to do two things: first, to deepen our understanding

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of social formations, and second, to restore the focus on humanagency (both conscious and unconscious) that is often lost indiscourse.

To do this, we have to develop methods of researching the affec-tive, and here we can note in passing what some people havereferred to as the “emotional turn” in the human sciences: giventhat there is increased interest in the role of the emotions, whatmethods are required to research them? This we address in the nexttwo sections of this chapter. Psycho-social methods aim to addressa growing dissatisfaction with interview based and other methodsof qualitative research which appeared to be happy to stay at thediscursive level, as if respondents were fully knowledgeable actorswith no unconscious or defences which make it difficult for them to think/talk about things. Finally, psycho-social methodology aimsto complement the increasing interest in reflexivity in the socialsciences, including the reflexivity of the researcher (somethingstrongly held to by feminist researchers): what better discipline to deepen our understanding of reflexivity than psychoanalysis? In the next section of this chapter, we look at some new and in-novative methods of data generation and, in particular, at the freeassociation narrative interview and the biographical narrativeinterview method while exploring issues around projective identi-fication and countertransference in both the “defended” subject andinterviewer.

Innovations in psycho-social methodology

New approaches to biographical narrative interviewing

A psycho-social approach to research has brought about someground-breaking innovations in the way that we generate data. Thestarting point here are the psycho-social approaches to biographicalnarrative interviews developed by Hollway and Jefferson (2000),and Wengraf (2001), and Chamberlayne (Wengraf & Chamberlayne,2006). Hollway and Jefferson argue that using a psycho-socialperspective in research practice necessarily involves conceptualiz-ing both researcher and respondent as co-producers of meanings.There is an emphasis in their work on the unconscious dynamics

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between researcher and researched and the use of free associationthrough narrative interviews. Hollway and Jefferson (2000) use the“free association narrative interview” (FANI), which can besummarized in terms of four principles, each designed to facilitatethe production of the interviewee’s “meaning frame” (Hollway &Jefferson, 2000, p. 34). The first is to use open ended questions. So, forexample, in a recent research project on notions of home, identity,and the construction of “whiteness” in contemporary Britain (seeClarke & Garner, 2005), we would simply ask the respondent whatthe notion of “home” meant to them rather than use a fairly closedor leading question which may have evoked either a yes/no answeror made the respondent feel that they had to think of a particularincident. This question was designed to get the respondent to talkabout the meaning and quality of experience of notions of home,identity, and community; in other words, how it related to their life.The second principle of the free association narrative method is thatof eliciting a story. Again, a question such as “Tell me somethingabout your background” is more likely to elicit a story, a narrative,than, for example, “Where were you born?” As Hollway andJefferson note, story-telling shares many things in common with thepsychoanalytic method of free association.

The particular story told, the manner and detail of its telling, thepoints emphasised, the morals drawn, all represent choices madeby the story-teller. Such choices are revealing, often more so thanthe teller suspects. [Hollway & Jefferson, 2000, p. 35]

This principle also allows the researcher to look at various formsof unconscious communication, of transference, countertransfer-ence, and projective identifications that are present in the interviewrelationship. Why do people tell certain parts of certain stories?Why are they telling them? What form of response are they tryingto elicit from the interviewer? It is often the case that the respon-dent will say at the end of an interview “Did I give you the ‘right’answers?”

The third principle is to try to avoid using “why” questions.Hollway and Jefferson note that this may seem counter-intuitive, aspeople’s own explanations of their actions are useful in under-standing them. The problem with a “why” question, however, is

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that you often get a sociological or clichéd answer. This is a moredifficult area in fieldwork because the “why” question tempts anexplanation, something we are all looking for. If we ask why some-one moved to a particular community, then a respondent will oftencouch answers in terms of school availability, transport links, orproximity to shops and services. These are all very important, butdo not necessarily help us to understand what community meansto the respondent. If, instead, we couch the question in terms suchas “How do you feel about living in this particular area?”, then theresponse is more likely to be in form of a story or narrative, wherethe respondent attaches meaning to experience.

The final principle is that of using respondents’ ordering and phras-ing. This involves careful listening in order to be able to ask follow-up questions using the respondent’s own words and phraseswithout offering our own interpretations. As Hollway and Jeffersonnote, although appearing to be a relatively simple task, “it requireddiscipline and practice to transform ourselves from a highly visibleasker of questions, to the almost invisible, facilitating catalyst totheir stories” (Hollway and Jefferson, 2000, p. 36). This does notimply the stance of an objective observer; rather, it means trying notto impose a structure on the narrative. The importance of thepsychoanalytic technique of free association cannot be overstressedin this method. By allowing the respondent to structure the inter-view and talk of what they “feel” like talking about, we are able togain some indication of unconscious feelings and motivation, some-thing which is not possible with traditional research methods. AsHollway and Jefferson argue: “By eliciting a narrative structuredaccording to the principles of free association, therefore, we secureaccess to a person’s concerns which would probably not be visibleusing a more traditional method” (ibid., p. 37).

This method uses biography and life history interviews(Chamberlayne, Bornat, & Wengraf, 2000; Hollway & Jefferson,2000) to situate processes of identification within the subject’s lifehistory. In the case of our own recent research, these identificationsinclude affective attachments to notions of community, nation, andbelonging. Tracing such identifications will uncover the more subtlepsychological dynamics behind identity formation within thecontext of the in-depth interview. This method is both biographicaland systematic, and crucially addresses the construction of the

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research environment and data by both researcher and respondent.In the previous volume in this series, we discussed at length theseco-constructions and the implications they have for data analysis(see Clarke, 2008).

The other major contribution to biographical interviewing hasbeen made by Tom Wengraf and Prue Chamberlayne. Like FANI,the biographic narrative–interpretive method (BNIM) gives priorityto eliciting narratives concerning people’s biographies in an unin-terrupted way, but it offers a particular approach to both inter-viewing and analysis. It has also advocated the use of the researchpanel to “force” a greater degree of objectivity into the process ofdata analysis. Wengraf and Chamberlayne make a useful distinc-tion between what they call the “told story” and the “lived life”.They suggest that a “Real Author” exists beyond that which ispresented in the interview, an author who can be approachedthrough analysis of the told story. They also make an interestingdistinction between psychodynamics and socio-dynamics, and insome of their later research on organizations they combine narra-tive interview with observational methods to explore the way inwhich the “unsaid” of the organization may find expression both inthe narratives of organizational actors and in the dialogues of theresearch team (Chamberlayne, 2005).

Exploring the dynamics of the research encounter

Social research has always been aware of the dynamic nature of the relationship between the researcher and the researched, butthese dynamics have been construed in sociological terms, such asGoffman’s dramaturgical perspective on the presentation of self(Goffman, 1959) or, later, in terms of power and identity, Warren(1988). Psycho-social approaches seek to extend and deepen suchapproaches by examining the “psycho-logic” of this unique rela-tionship. There are several aspects to this.

First, there is the recognition that the research encounter is onefull of different kinds of affect: anxiety, fear, boredom, excitement,melancholy, and so on. These affects may be a product of the rela-tionship, that is, co-produced, or brought to the relationship by oneof the players. The novice researcher might be anxious about his or her status, for example, or the research might focus on the

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experiences of a group, such as those who have recently experi-enced loss, in which particular kinds of affective experience arelikely to be prominent. In the present volume, Rosie Gilmourprovides an extensive exploration of the dynamics of fear in thecontext of interviews which touch on questions of race, whereastowards the end of her contribution, Phoebe Beedell examines theopposite kind of feelings, where an affectionate identification devel-ops between researcher and research subject.

How such feelings are dealt with during the research is crucialto its success. Contemporary sociology talks of this in terms of the“emotion work” involved in research, a concept that originates inthe pioneering work of Hochschild (1983). Traditionally, psycho-analysis examined this issue via the concept of the defence mecha-nism, that is, that there might be certain thoughts and feelings thatwere so threatening to the subject that they responded withdefences such as repression or denial. As Hollway and Jefferson(2000) noted, the research interview may stir up such uncomfort-able material for both those being interviewed and those doing theinterview, producing both the “defended subject” and the “defen-ded researcher”. More recently, psychoanalysis has adopted Bion’sconcept of “containment” (Bion, 1962) as a way of exploring howaffect is managed in human relations. For Bion, containment refersto our capacity to hold on to a feeling without getting rid of it, usingthe energy of the feeling in order to think about what the feelingcommunicates. It can refer to the capacity to contain one’s own feel-ings as well as the feelings of others. Lindsey Nicholls explores theconcept in her contribution to this volume. While, typically, wethink of containment in terms of a person’s capacity to be emotion-ally receptive to the other, how this receptivity is demonstrated willvary according to the feeling that has been unleashed (for example,it may require strength and courage to “receive” someone’s anger,to survive it without crumpling or slinging it back).

The affective dynamics of the research encounter are also influ-enced by what each person brings to it, some of which will not beaccessible to conscious thought. Irrespective of whether this issimply tacit and preconscious, or part of the dynamic unconsciousto the extent that it cannot be thought, it will be communicatedaffectively. Such affective and non-discursive communications havebeen conceptualized by psychoanalysis in terms of the transference

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and countertransference. As psychoanalysis has become increas-ingly relational, so it has tended to consider the transference–coutertransference relationally as a co-produced dynamic process(i.e., no transference without countertransference). These conceptshave been adopted by psycho-social researchers to examine someof the “affective ways of knowing” that may be available to theresearcher (Lucey, Melody, & Walkerdine, 2003; Walkerdine, 1997,pp. 66–75). In this volume, Sue Jervis provides a detailed examina-tion of these forms of communication in relation to her ownresearch on loss.

There are also many areas of confluence between sociologicaland psychoanalytic analyses of interactional dynamics. One impor-tant overlap occurs between the concept of “subject positions” indiscourse theory and “projective identification” in psychoanalysis(Wetherell, 2003). The former refers to the positions a subject canadopt in relation to a discourse such as class; they can, for example,be subject(ed) to it by identifying with it, they can dis-identify withit, resist it, pervert it, “pass” it, and so on (Skeggs, 1997). In a paral-lel way, psychoanalysis has become preoccupied with the positionsthat analyst and patient take up in the micro discourse of ananalytic session, with who is speaking to whom in what voice andfrom what position (Bollas, 1987). In particular, the concept of“projective identification” has illuminated the subtle but powerfulways in which a subject can be nudged, seduced, or coerced intooccupying a particular position in relation to the other. The idea of“positioning” therefore opens up the space for a range of possibleresearch dynamics beyond that of the defended subject orresearcher and Phoebe Beedell, in this volume, explores some ofthese psycho-social dynamics as they occurred in the course of twoESRC funded research projects.

Psychoanalytic observation

The concept of the clinician’s or the researcher’s countertransfer-ence has been essential to the development of psychoanalyticallyinformed observation studies. These have taken two directions:infant observation and organizational observation. Infant observa-tion is a core component of psychoanalytic clinical training (Miller,Shuttleworth, Rustin, & Rustin, 1989). Through regular, one-hour

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visits over a period extending for up to two years, the observerbecomes practised in picking up on the communication betweenthe infant and its family, even though the infant is, for almost halfof this time, “without words”. In a pioneering recent study,Hollway and her colleagues have adopted the method of infantobservation to generate data about maternal identities (Urwin,2007).

The Tavistock Group Relations tradition has sought to applypsychoanalytic concepts and methods to the study of organizationsand, in doing so, has extended the range of psychoanalysis from theindividual body to the body of the group and organization. Con-cepts such as the “social defence” (Menzies Lyth, 1960) are genu-inely psycho-social terms, occupying the space between theintrapsychic and the social. Understanding organizations in thisway enables us to grasp that affective communications might notjust be from individual to individual, but also from the group to theindividual, and thus from the organization to the consultant orresearcher. Psychoanalytically informed methods of organizationalobservation (Hinshelwood & Skogstad, 2000) have recentlyevolved, and in this volume Lindsey Nicholls discusses her appli-cation of some of these principles in her research on occupationaltherapy teams.

The use of imagery

What cannot be said may often be embodied in actions, images, anddreams. The use of imagery, particularly in work with children, hasbeen a central aspect of psychoanalytic work with young childrensince Melanie Klein’s pioneering endeavours before the SecondWorld War (Klein, 1998). Also, and almost since the inception of thediscipline, ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology has acknow-ledged the central value of imagery embodied in ritual, artefacts,and customs as a source of data. But, as Hunt (1989, p. 29) notes,“Psychoanalytic anthropologists accept the hermeneutic paradigmbut recognise that the ethnographic encounter involves uncon-scious as well as cultural dimensions”, which she suggests, “consti-tute the essential transformative dynamic”. In this volume, LitaCrociani-Windland develops this methodology into a psycho-analytic ethnography in her study of festivals in Italy.

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Organizational research has also been influenced by visualethnography, and a number of studies have recently made deliber-ate use of visualization techniques such as artwork and photog-raphy as methodologies of inquiry into the affective and non-discursive dimensions of organizational life (Broussine, 2008;Harrison, 2002; Riley & Manias, 2003; Seivers, 2008). Such visualmethodologies have increasingly become an accepted aspect ofsocial research (Banks, 2001; Harper, 1998), an approach facilitatedby technological developments which have led to the disposablecamera, and the integration of still and video cameras with mobilephones.

Poetry, psychodrama, and theatre are also methodologiesincreasingly deployed by social researchers seeking to get beyondthe discursive surface. These methodologies have the power toevoke, to summon forth (Louise in Broussine, forum theatre).

Dreams can also be an important source of data (Beradt, 1968;Miller, 2001) and, as Lindsey Nicholls’ contribution demonstrates,this can include both the dreams of the researcher and of thosebeing researched. The fascinating possibility that dreams can be thework of groups has been glimpsed in the recent work of Lawrence(1998) and the evolution of the methodology that has becomeknown as “social dreaming”. Dreams are, of course, a form ofreverie, a mode of experiencing that includes metaphor, mentalimagery, and other products of the mind which have been tradi-tionally accessed by psychoanalysis through the method of freeassociation.

Several contributions to this volume, in the spirit of the work ofthe psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, highlight the role of reverie in theproduction and analysis of data. In his contribution, Julian Manleydemonstrates the importance of this material, that is, forms ofknowing which precede discourse, and links it to the work of conti-nental philosophers such as Henri Bergson and Giles Deleuze.Leslie Boydell offers an extensive examination of metaphor, in thiscase the metaphors in use by members of a partnership for publichealth in Northern Ireland, and examines how a psycho-socialapproach can deepen the use of metaphor provided by discourseanalysis. Linda Watts provides further examples in her study of the use of metaphor by policy-makers and managers in localgovernment.

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Free association

As we have seen, free association has perhaps been the most centralmethodology in the psychoanalytic toolbox. For Freud, it wasthrough this method that the trains of mental connections weregenerated that facilitated access to unconscious material (Bollas,2002). Free association was not just a requirement of the analysand,but also of the analyst, a way of “attending” to the patient’s mate-rial “free of memory and desire”, in Bion’s famous phrase. Asseveral contributions to this volume suggest, the use of reverie and“negative capability” (French & Simpson, 2001), that is, the capa-city, as John Keats puts it, for “being in uncertainties, mysteries,doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” (Keats,1899, p. 217) are essential attributes, not just of the clinician, but ofthe psycho-social researcher. Such a stance provides one of theconditions for the formation of a particular kind of intersubjectivespace, one we might call, after Winnicott, “potential space”, that is,a space for emergence.

The use of free association has also become a distinctive featureof psychoanalytically informed approaches to working withgroups. Both the group analysis and group relations traditionsmake use of free association in the median group, in applicationgroups and consultation sets, and, more recently, the Listening Post,a methodology for tuning in to the affective undercurrents of soci-ety, has been developed which is effectively a method of socialresearch that, like social dreaming, originates outside academia(Dartington, 2001; Hoggett, 2006).

Autobiography

Feminist researchers were among the first to challenge the idea thatthe researcher was some neutral and dispassionate seeker of truth,and to insist on greater transparency in terms of the motives, iden-tities, and preconceptions that researchers brought to their work(Stanley & Wise, 1983). This soon led to an interest in the use of theresearcher’s autobiography as an integral part of the process ofinquiry (Stanley, 1992). For the psycho-social researcher, awarenessof what the researcher brings to the research process—her or hisvalues, prejudices, identifications and object relations—is a crucial

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aspect to understanding their countertransference. Without this it isimpossible for the researcher to know, for example, whether thefeeling that a research subject has evoked in them is the subject’s, isco-produced, or more properly belongs to the researcher. In hiscontribution to this volume, Rumen Petrov grapples with this veryquestion, and also explores other facets of the researcher’s identity,such as class and, in his case, provincialism.

Autobiographical research is as much about the researcher’scapacity for self-awareness in the here-and-now as it is about theirawareness of their personal history (their there-and-then). Suchhere-and-now awareness constitutes the psychoanalytic equivalentof what in social theory and research has become known as “reflex-ivity”: the capacity to be suspicious of one’s own presuppositions.Psychoanalysis and its group variants is, at its core, a methodologyfor enhancing psychic reflexivity, but psychoanalysis itself is not apsycho-social methodology and, despite its increasingly relationalturn, it remains relatively impervious to “social” dimensions ofpsychic experiences such as gender and class (Layton, Hollander, &Gutwill, 2006). For the psycho-social researcher, it is thereforeimportant to try and integrate psychical and social awareness,something in this volume that Sue Jervis explores in her attempt tounderstand her imperviousness to the suffering of Kayleigh, one ofher interviewees. For the researcher, this kind of reflexivity isenhanced by the use of others (peers, colleagues, supervisors) as asounding board, offering what, in psychoanalysis, is known as theperspective of the “third”. As the chapter by Linda Watts demon-strates, it is also facilitated when the researcher keeps a reflexivediary during the process of doing the research, a diary that includesfieldnotes and immediate post-interview reflections. However,perhaps large scale psycho-social research projects require morethan this. In her reflections on her involvement in two ESRC fundedresearch projects, Phoebe Beedell asks what other forms of supportshould be provided if researcher reflexivity is to be maximized.

Psycho-social approaches to data analysis

As we have seen, psycho-social methods place considerable empha-sis upon creating the conditions for the emergence of the subject—for example, by initially imposing as little structure as possible

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upon biographical interviews, or by the use of reverie and free asso-ciation—but where is the place of interpretation and analysis inthis? Initially, Hollway and Jefferson (2000, p. 77) argued that analy-sis comes later, and is separated from contact with the researchsubjects, but this view was questioned by other research teams,who argued that the researcher cannot help but make judgementsand interpretations during the research encounter, no matter hownon-intrusive they attempt to be (Miller, Hoggett, & Mayo, 2008).So, not all psycho-social researchers follow the relatively unstruc-tured approach implicit in models such as FANI and BNIM, andperhaps this is not surprising, for these methodologies haveevolved specifically in relation to life history research, and yet mostsocial research does not directly relate to people’s life histories, butis concerned with substantive issues ranging from recycling behav-iour to gang conflict.

In fact, there is a paradox at the heart of psycho-social method-ologies, because while, on the one hand, they stress the importanceof minimal structure, on the other hand, they emphasize whatmany conventional social researchers would regard as a gross intru-sion of the researcher’s subjectivity through techniques such as theuse of the researcher’s countertransference. The same issues arefaced during the phase of data analysis: if we do not take at facevalue what our respondents tell us, how do we know that our“findings” are not just an imposition of our own preconceptions(i.e., what Wetherell (2005) calls “top-down” data analysis)?Psycho-social research therefore needs to beware of “wild analysis”.

For some, this means that psycho-social approaches must alsobe participative and dialogic. Annie Stopford, a researcher who isalso a relational psychotherapist, argued thus,

in the research context, where we have extremely brief contact withresearch participants compared to the frequency and longevity ofthe psychoanalytical clinical process, it is arguably even moreimperative that psychoanalytically inclined researchers try todevise methods which facilitate our participants’ involvement inconstruction of interpretation. [Stopford, 2004, p. 18]

Such a dialogic approach can occur both “in” the here-and-now ofresearch encounter, outside the immediate encounter throughprocedures such as engaging participants in dialogue around

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emerging findings, sharing written drafts which feature respon-dents’ case material, or running inquiry groups and conferences forresearch participants during the later stages of the research (Miller,Hoggett, & Mayo, 2008).

While only a minority of psycho-social researchers would advo-cate such a strongly dialogic approach, there is, nevertheless, aconsensus that wild analysis must be guarded against by the gener-ation of a plurality of different perspectives regarding the data.BNIM advocates the use of research panels, and the developmentof the panel method of data analysis, in which researchers presentdata extracts to a group of colleagues, invited experts, etc., has nowbecome a common approach. For postgraduate researchers, the roleof supervisors is essential to this process, and for research teamsengaged in major projects, it is important that a diversity ofperspectives can be contained so that data can be perceived fromdifferent vantage points, but all this requires time. Psycho-socialapproaches to data analysis, if they are to stand the test of validity,are very labour intensive.

The labour intensiveness of psycho-social data analysis isheightened by the fact that there are always multiple sources ofdata: the researcher’s reflexive diary and fieldnotes, the live record-ing of the interview, the transcript of the interview, and so on.Because psycho-social research seeks to go beyond discourse, theinterview transcript is just one of several sources of data, and oftenthe live recording and the researcher’s account of their own here-and-now experience of the interview provide important insightsinto the circulation of affect, positioning dynamics, etc.

There are many other issues relating to data analysis whichcould be examined here, but perhaps the last one to highlight is thedifference between single case analysis and cross-case analysis.Most psycho-social researchers would agree that priority shouldfirst be given to a holistic analysis of individual cases, as Hollwayand Jefferson (2000) put it, on allowing an individual gestalt toemerge which can trace the many different facets of an individual’ssubjectivity: their trajectories, dilemmas, conflicts, turning points,loose ends, repetitions and fixations, resolutions, and so on. Thisinvolves staying close to the data rather than searching the data foralready conceived categories. Inevitably, as more and more indi-vidual cases are explored, certain themes will begin to emerge, and

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these emerging themes provide the building blocks of cross-caseanalysis, but the closure that a more thematic analysis brings to thedata needs to be resisted as much as possible, for such closurereduces the element of surprise that new individual cases mightotherwise provide. As data analysis proceeds, particularly withlarge projects, a more thematic approach will almost inevitably berequired eventually in order to make the task of further analysismanageable. Here, the use of computer-aided techniques foranalysing qualitative data through software packages such asNVivo may prove valuable, but there are different views on this,some regarding such packages as cumbersome devices which canquickly become the master of the data analysis process rather thanits servant.

Ethics in psycho-social research

There are very strong ethical implications in the practice of psycho-social research, indeed, ethical issues are present throughout thewhole research process from the commencement of the researchdesign through to the analysis and presentation of the data. AsHollway (2006) argues, what frames the primary ethical challengein psycho-social research is care for the subject. It is useful at thispoint to refer to the previous volume (Clarke, 2008) in this series,where we presented a vignette, two readings of the same transcript.This vignette was about the relationship between the researcherand someone we called “Billy”. Billy is one of the respondents thatwe interviewed several times for a research project and the vignetteillustrated some very real concerns around ethical issues. Thesecentre around concern and care for the subject of our research, onnot taking transcripts at face value, and around the role of projec-tions, collusions, and fear. These concerns are about the need toavoid mis-re-presentation of the respondent, and about the need toensure that the research does present what is really important to therespondent; these concerns are also about guilt, a duty of care, andthe fact that our respondents have trusted us with their thoughts onsome very contentious issues. It would be easy to portray Billy asnot a very nice person, but there are many sides to Billy, and manyreasons that he holds the views he does. Our concern here is about

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the selective use of interview transcripts, about falling into the trapof not listening to our respondents and making our data fit our pre-conceived ideas and research questions. Ethically, then, a psycho-social approach must guard against these mistakes, and really thisneeds to be reinforced with team work, something we discussed inthe previous section of this chapter.

Ethics are a central concern in psycho-social research, as itdiffers from more traditional forms of social science in that it usesa different ontology of the self; whether you call this psycho-analytic, Kleinian, or relational, it is about depth, in contrast to therational, constructed, conscious self. As we have seen in the earliersections of this chapter, we encounter the “defended subject”, andoften the defended researcher. We are all anxious, and we defendourselves against our anxieties. Things, statements, ideas, are notalways transparent; indeed, more often than not, we do not knowwhat makes us act the way we do in the research encounter, whichis why it is so important to reiterate that ethical issues are presentthroughout the whole research process. We need to consider ourown emotional responses to the encounter. So, for example, shouldwe make interpretations while we are conducting interviews? Isthis ethical, can we actually stop ourselves doing it as interpretinghuman subjects? After all, interpretation is central to understandingand communication. This, as we have seen, has implications forresearch practice: for example, the use of reflexive fieldnotes torecord our own emotional responses, the use of peer groups in dataanalysis, and the processes through which we make our analysisavailable to participants.

So, to summarize, there are some key ethical points and prac-tices in psycho-social research. We have to recognize that ethicalissues are present throughout the whole research process. Thismeans that informed consent, for example, really does meaninformed consent; in other words, making sure that people knowwhat they are participating in. It entails being aware of the ethicaldemands of the actual research encounter, recognizing counter-transference, identifications, and projective identifications. Itinvolves an ethical approach to data analysis, one which is able torecognize what gets left in and what gets left out in talk, transcrip-tion, and presentation. It also means that we need to think verycarefully about how we present our data, as we have an ethical

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obligation of care for the subject and avoidance of any harm.Ethically, this is about relationality: we have to recognize that webring our own unconscious feelings around class, or ethnicity, forexample, that we identify with people, indeed, we have to in orderto understand their affective states, meanings, and experiences.However, on the other hand, we have to be careful that we do notmerge parts of our “selves” with the Other.

Conclusion

Psycho-social research is a rapidly expanding field, and we havetried to offer something of an overview here, one which focuses onbreadth rather than depth. Needless to say, the area is full of contro-versies, from whether the use of the countertransference in researchshould be avoided as researchers are not normally also trainedcounsellors or therapists, to whether psycho-social studies shouldcontain a hyphen or not! For those interested in some of thesecontroversies, a special issue of the journal Psychoanalysis, Cultureand Society was devoted to them in the winter of 2008.

The present volume contributes to the development of the newresearch methodologies in a number of ways. It is written largelyfrom the point of view of practitioners who are also researchers.Although contributors draw largely upon object-relations traditionsin psychoanalysis, other influences are also present, particularlyfrom continental philosophy and the sociology of the emotions. Itdevelops an approach to epistemology, how we know what weknow, which is strongly informed by a living approach to psycho-analysis, not just as a theory, but as a way of being in the world, that is, as a stance. It examines, in great depth and from a numberof perspectives, the complex psycho-social dynamics that charac-terize the research encounter. Finally, it demonstrates a number ofspecific methodologies at work and the authors’ learning from thisexperience.

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Urwin, C. (2007). Doing infant observation differently? Researching theformation of mothering identities in an inner London borough.Infant Observation, 10(3): 239–251.

Walkerdine, V. (1997). Daddy’s Girl: Young Girls and Popular Culture.Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H., & Melody, J. (2001). Growing Up Girl:Psychosocial Explorations of Gender and Class. London: Palgrave.

Warren, C. (1988). Gender Issues in Field Research. London: Sage.Wengraf, T. (2001). Qualitative Researach Interviewing: Biographical

Narrative and Semi-Structured Method. London: Sage.Wengraf, T., & Chamberlayne, P. (2006). Interviewing for life histories,

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lived situations and personal experience: the biographical–narra-tive–interpretive method (BNIM). Short Guide to BNIM Interviewingand Interpretation. Available at [email protected].

Wetherell, M. (2003). Paranoia, ambivalence and discursive practices:concepts of position and positioning in psychoanalysis and discur-sive psychology. In: R. Harre & F. Moghaddam (Eds.), The Self andOthers: Positioning Individuals and Groups in Personal, Political andCultural Contexts (pp. 99–120). New York: Praeger/Greenwood.

Wetherell, M. (2005). Unconscious conflict or everyday accountability?British Journal of Social Psychology, 44: 169–173.

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PART I

WAYS OF KNOWING

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CHAPTER TWO

Experiencing knowledge: thevicissitudes of a research journey

Haralan Alexandrov

“An explorer can never know what he is exploring until ithas been explored”

(Bateson, 1972)

This chapter dwells on the epistemological, methodological,and ethical issues raised by the psycho-social approach to thestudy of organizational cultures. The theoretical reflections

are inspired by the experience of the author as a participant in, andexplorer of, the process of organizational change unfolding in thebroader context of social, political, and cultural transformation in atransitional society. The methodology of psycho-social research ishighlighted vis-à-vis the tradition of other hermeneutic disciplinessuch as reflexive sociology, interpretative ethnography, psycho-analytic studies, etc. The author arrives at the conclusion that,compared to other research traditions, psycho-social studies haveunique investigative and explanatory as well as transformativepotential.

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29


Reality and interpretation

By doing social research, one is involved in a process of knowledgeproduction and is therefore confronted with the questions concern-ing the nature of knowledge and its relation to reality as it is experi-enced by the researcher (in the case of action research, also by theother participants in the process). Explicitly or implicitly, theresearcher espouses a theory of knowledge which is not necessarilyshared by the other participants. Explicating the epistemologicalfoundations of one’s knowledgeable engagement with certain fieldof study is, therefore, an important part of the research process, notonly in terms of defending the validity claims of the findings, butalso in terms of the strategic choices one makes in the researchprocess and the mode of involvement with the object of study.

Each theory of knowledge strives to answer a few fundamentalquestions: “how we come to know what we know”, “how we knowthat what we know is true”, and “what are the limits of our know-ledge”. The anxious awareness of the fallibility of our knowledge,which marks the late modern times (Clarke, 2006), makes it increas-ingly difficult for the student of society to take for granted a set ofassumptions about the nature of knowledge and use them as apoint of departure for his research journey. Critically questioningthe foundations of one’s knowledge has become an integral part ofscientific research, and increasingly of the practice of living itselfunder the uncertain circumstances of reflexive modernization(Beck, Giddens, & Lash, 1994).

Departing from the realist assumption that “the world existsindependently of our knowledge of it”, Sayer (1992) argues that ourperception of the world is mediated by preconceptions and henceour observations are “conceptually saturated” (pp. 5–6). Gatheringdata, therefore, is not a neutral and “objective” process, but a“theory-laden” enterprise as long as scientists have learned to dis-criminate certain patterns when observing their object of study.

The central epistemological implication of taking a realistapproach to the social world is the need for distinguishing betweenfacts and interpretations, an operation which is not required fromthe perspective of radical constructionism, assuming that the onlyattainable social reality is that of discourses, since the world isgiven to our knowledge only in terms of linguistic constructions

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(Burr, 2004). Such a distinction is not self evident, however, sincehuman interpretations tend to get reified and present themselves assolid reality to our commonsense knowledge, thus becoming secon-dary social facts, which are hardly distinguished from the “prim-ary” facts. Indeed, this tendency to objectify and ultimately reifyhuman phenomena into non-human givens is constitutional for ourperception of the social world, as famously argued by Berger andLuckmann:

Reification is the apprehension of human phenomena as if theywere things, that is, in non-human or possibly supra-human terms.Another way of saying this is that reification is the apprehension ofthe products of human activity as if they were something other thanhuman products—such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, ormanifestations of divine will. Reification implies that man is capa-ble of forgetting his own authorship of the human world, and,further, that the dialectic between man, the producer, and his prod-ucts is lost to consciousness. The reified world is by definition, adehumanized world. It is experienced by man as a strange facticity,an opus alienum over which he has no control rather than as theopus proprium of his own productive activity. [Berger & Luck-mann, 1991, p. 106]

The distinction between “primary” and “secondary” facts,which are rendered to interpretations both in making sense of dailyexperience and in systematic scientific inquiry, presupposes a hier-archy of interpretations. Unlike commonsense thinking, whichnaïvely mistakes reifications for natural facts, research activity isbound to address objectified interpretations critically, which entailssecond-order interpretations, or interpretations of the interpreta-tions. This hierarchical relation is captured in the notion of “doublehermeneutics” introduced in the methodological discourse byGiddens (1976). Sayer defines double hermeneutics as “the need forthe interpretation of the frames of reference of observer andobserved, for mediation of their respective understandings” (Sayer,1992, p. 49). The interpretation of frames of reference, includingone’s own, presupposes capacity for intellectual self-scrutiny andmeticulous differentiation between the discrete levels of interpreta-tion. It also requires awareness of the power dimensions of theinterplay of interpretations, as well as critical reflectivity on the part

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EXPERIENCING KNOWLEDGE: THE VICISSITUDES OF A RESEARCH JOURNEY 31


of the researcher. Indeed, double hermeneutics can be seen as anintrinsic quality of scientific reflection in the domain of qualitativeresearch, as Alvesson and Skoldberg argue: “Reflection can, in thecontext of empirical research, be defined as the interpretation ofinterpretation and the launching of critical self-exploration of one’sown interpretations of empirical material (including its construc-tion)” (2005, p. 6).

The hierarchy of interpretations can easily be mistaken for aprivileged position of the researcher vis-à-vis the social phenomenaunder scrutiny. The claim for a privileged viewpoint, based on themastery of specialized method and knowledge, is inherent in theepistemology of positivism and has become a central pillar of theempowered status of science and its institutions in modern societies.The adherents of action research, as we shall see, challenge thisclaim on both epistemological and ethical grounds and develop thealternative practice of democratic participatory engagement of the researcher with the studied field. Whatever the power implica-tions of scientific inquiry are, and how they are justified, the require-ment for some kind of validity of its findings remains indispensable.This requirement is a corollary of the realist assumption that socialphenomena, man-made as they are, still have existence of their own, largely independent from the perception of the researcher:“Although social phenomena cannot exist independently of actorsand subjects, they usually do exist independently of the particularindividual who is studying them” (Sayer, 1992, p. 49).

It is precisely the established boundary between subject andobject of study which is being challenged in reflexive psycho-socialresearch and which entails the need for providing alternativegrounds for the validity claims of the findings.

Validity and truth

The recognition of the transformative potential of social knowledgebrings forward the issue of its validity and reliability. While thequestion is a broad epistemological one, the answers are usuallymethodological and procedural: it is assumed that the guarantee forthe validity of scientific findings is the accurate application of therespective research techniques and procedures. The validity claims,

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however, are meaningful only in the chosen theoretical framework:a set of interrelated explanatory ideas, arrived at by other tinkersand researchers, which serve as a point of departure (and often asan ending point as well) for the research journey. These theories aresituated in a still broader explanatory entities, known as paradigms:sets of assumptions about the nature of the studied phenomena andtheir relations, which are taken for granted by the researcher andthe school of thought he belongs to (Kuhn, 1970).

Modern positivist science is founded on an objectivist version ofrealism, which takes for granted not only the existence of realityindependent of the observer, but the possibility for objective repre-sentation of this reality in the knowing mind (Rorty, 1979). Therequirements for validity, reliability, measurability, and generaliz-ability of scientific knowledge, with their methodological implica-tions, are meaningful in the framework of the correspondencetheory of truth espoused by positivism. From such a perspective,the notion of validity pertains to whether a given method investi-gates what it is meant to investigate, and to what extent it ensuresthat the gathered data reflects the phenomenon under scrutiny. Thecorrespondence theory of truth and the ensuing validity criteria isquestioned on different grounds by the hermeneutic tradition, thepostmodern world view, and the epistemology of action researchand psycho-social research.

The postmodern perspective poses a radical challenge to thevery idea of scientific knowledge as a true representation of reality,attained via systematic research procedures. Instead, knowledge isseen as a human construction, an open domain of incoherent,contradictory, and contestable discourses, tensely coexisting andoccasionally exchanging with one another:

In a postmodern conception, the understanding of knowledge as amap of an objective reality, and validity as the correspondence ofthe map with the reality mapped, is replaced by the social andlinguistic construction of a perspectival reality where knowledge isvalidated through practice. [Kvale, 2002, p. 300]

In his insightful paper on the social construction of validity, Kvalerefers to the classical criteria of truth and explores how they areevoked by the different philosophies of knowledge:

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The correspondence criterion of truth concerns whether a know-ledge statement corresponds to the objective world. The coherencecriterion of truth refers to the consistency and internal logic of astatement. And the pragmatic criterion relates the truth of a know-ledge statement to its pragmatic consequences. [ibid., p. 304]

Within the positivist tradition, the validity of knowledge is judgedby the degree of its correspondence with a presumably objectivereality. The coherence criterion has strong positions within thehermeneutic tradition, “arguing for a dialogue conception of truth,where true knowledge is sought through a rational argument byparticipants in a discourse” (ibid., p. 305]. The pragmatic criterion,according to Kvale, has prevailed in pragmatism and in Marxistphilosophy. It could be argued that the pragmatic criterion of valid-ity is embraced and promoted by the action research tradition morethan in any other school of thought. Kvale suggests that the threecriteria of validity should not be regarded as mutually exclusive,but as complementary, so that a comprehensive verification ofresearch findings could be attained.

The application of different criteria for validity is clearly relatedto the evolving perception of knowledge, its nature, generation, andapplication. The grounding of the validity claims on exhaustivedescriptions and verifiable explanations is replaced by testing thoseclaims in an ongoing debate in the research community:

A move from knowledge as correspondence with an objective real-ity to knowledge as a communal construction of reality involves achange in emphasis from observation to conversation and interac-tion. Truth is constituted through a dialogue; valid knowledgeclaims emerge as conflicting interpretations and action possibilitiesare discussed and negotiated among the members of a community.[ibid., p. 306]

The quest for ever-closer approximation of the obtained knowledgeto the observed phenomena is given up for an intensive search forconsensual validity via competing argumentation of the partici-pants in a discourse. This discursive or communicative validity isconceived in terms of continuum, where a certain degree of relia-bility is pursued, rather than in the dichotomist terms of confirma-tion and refutation. The results of a study are considered valid

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when other researchers feel they are sufficiently trustworthy to relyon them in their own work.

The action research tradition takes a step further by testing thevalidity of knowledge in the praxis of life and inviting the broadercommunity into the debate. The participants in the collaborativeaction inquiry (Torbert, 2001), conditionally defined as researchersand subjects, together produce practical knowledge about certainsocial situations that informs their further actions in this same situ-ation. Thus, they create opportunities for examining the applicabil-ity, or pragmatic validity, of the knowledge in the very process oftransforming the situation. The notion of pragmatic validity impliesthat valid knowledge is that which empowers the actors to attainthe desired results. This brings forward the ethical issues inherentin knowledge production: if knowledge is to be validated by theefficiency of the action it enables, how can validity judgements beseparated from the ethical justification of the effects of the actionundertaken?

The coupling of knowledge generation with social action intro-duces yet another, political dimension in the debate on validity. Aslong as knowledge production is a social process with ethical andpolitical implications (Foucault, 1979; Gaventa & Cornwall, 2001),the discourse on validity plays a key role in this process, providinglegitimacy to the new knowledge. This is especially the case withaction research, which pursues an explicitly political agenda ofempowerment and emancipation by enabling broader participationin knowledge production.

The epistemological turn

The growing awareness of the complex involvement of theresearcher with the explored social system brings forward the needfor rethinking the concept of “knowledge”, bequeathed by earlymodern positive science, as a linear relationship between the subjectand object: knowing subject contemplating the studied object from aprivileged and detached perspective. In a comprehensive attempt toproduce a typology of knowledge, relevant to the epistemologicalintuitions of reflexive modernity, Park distinguishes three forms ofknowledge: representational, relational, and reflective (Park, 2001).

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Representational knowledge is further differentiated into functionaland interpretive sub-types. The functional sub-type is rooted in thetradition of natural sciences, operates with logical propositions, andaims to establish correlative and causal relationships between thestudied phenomena or their components. Functional representa-tional knowledge wields considerable instrumental power to cate-gorize, order, and predict facts and events, and thus fits the aims ofboth fundamental and applied research on non-human entities. It is,however, intrinsically non-participatory, since its methodologicalprocedures presuppose a split between the researcher and the objectof study. Hence its limited applicability to social contexts, where thesubject–object relationship is rendered obsolete by the circular natureof human communication and interaction.

The positivist notion of the researcher as a non-engagedobserver is transcended in the interpretive type of representationalknowledge, rooted in the hermeneutic tradition. Applying thehermeneutic cycle to human contexts presupposes interaction,which brings to life new understanding, shared and co-created bythe involved parties (Gadamer, 1975). Interpretive knowledgebridges the split between the knower and the known, the subjectand the object: “The knower and the known thus participate in theprocess of knowing, in which what they bring to the encountermerges together... Interpretive knowledge is synthetic and integra-tive, rather than analytic and reductive” (Park, 2001, p. 83). Further-more, interpretive knowledge has transformative capacity, since, inthe act of understanding, the knower attributes new meaning to theknown (be it a text, a person, or a relationship) and thus changes it.

Elaborating on humanistic philosophy (Buber, 1970) and criticalsocial theory (Habermas, 2006), Park explores the ontological, epis-temological, and ethical dimensions of relational knowledge, inherentto human communication. As Habermas’s theory of communicativeaction suggests, linguistic exchange implicitly presumes a recipro-cal ethical commitment on the part of the involved actors, a tacit“illocutionary claim” for sincerity, embedded in the speech act(Habermas, 2006). One obvious implication of this “discursiveconsensus” is that any reliable and meaningful informationacquired in the process of communication (including the researchprocess) presupposes a relationship of trust and further reinforcesthis relationship, thus building a specific communicative space.

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Relational knowledge is contingent on the establishing and sustain-ing of such space. “Relational knowledge comes from connectingand leads to further connecting. It is reciprocal, not only in that theparties involved know each other, but also in that it grows frominteraction” (Park, 2001, p. 86). Relational knowledge is, therefore,inherently communal: it emerges and flourishes in human environ-ments, saturated with trust, authenticity, and mutuality.

Interpretive and relational knowledge, as defined by Park, chal-lenge the positivist idea of the value-neutral observer by acknow-ledging the inevitable imprinting of the values espoused by theresearcher on the process and the outcome of the research. The ethi-cal core of participatory research is explicated in the notion ofreflective knowledge, inherent to the critical engagement with socialreality on the part of the researcher. Building on Paulo Friere’spedagogy of liberation (Friere, 1970) and on John Dewey’s philoso-phy of pragmatism (Dewey, 1916), Park argues for the emancipa-tory and transformational potential of reflective involvement withsocial change and its human agents (experiential learning, in Dewey’sterms, and conscientization in Friere’s): “Reflective knowledge up-holds the dignity of human beings as free and autonomous agentswho can act effectively and responsibly on their own behalf in thecontext of their interdependent relationships” (Park, 2001, p. 86).

Park’s theory of knowledge is indicative of the epistemologicalturn, which results in changing the status of knowledge from acognitive representation of a presumably independent, thoughperceivable, reality “out there” with varying degrees of permeabil-ity for the knowing mind, towards a reflective process of co-creat-ing social reality in relatedness with other agents. Thus defined,knowledge is a process, rather than a substance, reflexive as well asreflective, since it consists of recurrent communicative and perfor-mative acts—or reiterative loops in systemic terms—reinforcing theunfolding spiral of coevolving via understanding. One implicationof this conceptual turn is the shift in the legitimating strategy ofsocial science: from the primacy of validity and reliability as crite-ria for scientific knowledge towards the primacy of authenticityand transformative capacity as criteria for knowledge-in-action.According to Kvale, the postmodern epistemological turn trans-forms the perception of science itself, shifting the emphasis fromjustification of knowledge to its applicability: “Knowledge is action

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rather than observation; the effectiveness of our knowledge beliefsis demonstrated by the effectiveness of our actions” (Kvale, 2002, p.316). This shift of focus entails enhanced ethical concern about theimminent effects of knowledge production. No longer confined tothe domain of speculation, knowledge permeates daily activity andemerges as powerful social agency, which increasingly requiresethical as well as epistemological reflection and regulation:

Criteria of efficiency and their desirability become pivotal, involv-ing ethical issues of right action. Values do not belong to a realmseparated from scientific knowledge, but are intrinsically tied to thecreation and application of knowledge. [ibid., p. 308]

Psycho-social research enhances the ethical dimension of know-ledge production by revealing the projective dynamics of theresearcher–researched relationship and utilizing it for the purposeof deeper understanding.

The pragmatic perspective of the research process puts forwardthe requirement for validating the knowledge gained about theexplored system in terms of its utilization for the purpose of trans-forming this very system. In my research, however, I learnt that therelation between knowing and changing is not at all that straightand unproblematic, but is mediated by complex group and organi-zational processes that often remain unconscious and beyond thecontrol of the participants. Despite the methodological require-ments and the ethos of collaborative inquiry, the understanding ofthe researcher about these processes and the underlying dynamicscan be only partly communicated to the other actors. In the light of this experience, the Habermasian ideal communicative situationappears to be indeed an ideal, a sophisticated theoretical construc-tion, far from the messy reality of human interaction which isgoverned by primitive anxieties and social defences rater thanethical considerations.

The rational subject and its discontents

One of the most appealing aspects of the relational concepts ofknowledge, elaborated by the action research school, is the strong

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ethical core. Paradoxically, this is also its central liability; the ethi-cal actor is construed as a rational being who wields considerablecontrol on his actions and choices. By constituting the humansubject as a self-actualizing learner (as a possibility, at least),involved in the reconstruction of his world in community withother responsible actors, this anthropology of participation echoesthe optimism of the Enlightenment, with its firm belief in reason asa reliable engine of progress. The notions of sincerity, trust, andreciprocity, central for the Habermasian theory of communicativeaction, imply such a rational actor, governed by intentions andvalues rather than passions. Human beings, however, are not neces-sarily rational, especially when involved in exploratory and poten-tially transformative interactions.

There is a class of communicative situations, which encounterthe actors with insights, or levels of learning in Bateson’s terms, thatare experienced as threatening for their identity and possibly des-tructive for their integrity. In such contexts, the commonsenseunderstanding of communication, construed in dichotomous terms(telling the truth vs. lying, knowing vs. not knowing, etc.), appearsinadequate and misleading. Established notions such as authentic-ity and integrity need to be revisited, and a different, more nuancedconceptual apparatus is necessary to describe and explain thecommunicative acts of the interlocutors. The ambiguity of truthful-ness is demonstrated by the striking epistemological insights ofBion, extracted from the hermeneutic experience of psychoanalyticsessions and exploration of group dynamics:

If we suppose now that the emotional upheaval against which thelie is mobilized is identical with catastrophic change it becomeseasier to understand why investigation uncovers an ambiguousposition which is capable of arousing strong feelings. These feelingsrelate to an outraged moral system; their strength derives from riskof changing the psyche. [Bion, 1993, p. 99]

Bion’s “liar”, be it individual or group, is not engaged in deliberatedeception, but is engulfed in primitive defensive states of mind,where the boundary between truth and lie is blurred (as well as theboundary between the self and the object) and ethical judgementsare hardly relevant.

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Bion goes further in transcending the givens of the classicalphilosophy of knowledge, that is, the Cartesian causal relationshipbetween cognition and the thinking individual, cognizant of thefact of his cognition. Bion’s epistemology decouples the “thoughts”from the “thinker” and constitutes them as separate entities, relatedto one another in uncertain and often bizarre manner. Bion’s thinkerencounters thoughts, and particularly true thoughts, as indepen-dently existing phenomena. Lies, on the other hand, are construedas idiosyncrasies, ontologically related to the specific thinker; liesare inherent to the process of lying.

Nobody needs think the true thought: it awaits the advent of thethinker who achieves significance through the true thought. The lieand the thinker are inseparable. The thinker is of no consequence tothe truth, but the truth is logically necessary to the thinker. Hissignificance depends on whether or not he will entertain thethought, but the thought remains unaltered. In contrast, the liegains significance by virtue of the epistemologically prior existenceof the liar. The only thoughts to which a thinker is absolutely essen-tial are lies. Descartes’s tacit assumption that thoughts presupposea thinker is valid only for the lie. [Bion, 1993, p. 103]

Bion’s revision of classical epistemology has direct methodolog-ical implications for psycho-social research in at least two aspects.First, it introduces another dimension to the validity debate byclaiming that thinking is far from being a purely rational process ofmeaning production, but is deeply rooted in unconscious processesand is underlain by a hierarchy of unsophisticated and undifferen-tiated body–mind states (a typology of these is elaborated in his“Grid”). Thinking is not a simple given, a universal capacity thathumans are unconditionally endowed with, but a developmentalachievement, uncertain and reversible, and is, therefore, inherentlyfallible and apt to regression. The exploration of what lies beneathour mature thinking capacity warns that our perception of reality ismediated by much more than unreflected preconceptions embed-ded in culture and language.

Second, Bion’s meta-cognition brings forward the need forreconsidering the idea that knowledge is generated and possessedby the individual knower: if the thinker is encountering thethoughts rather than producing them, can we say that he “has”

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them? And if the thoughts—the fundamental building componentsof knowledge—are not individually owned, then who owns theknowledge constructed from these thoughts? The suggestion thatknowledge has collective, rather than individual, genesis andownership by virtue of the supra-personal nature of its constituentparts—the thoughts—is in harmony with the philosophy of rela-tional and communal knowledge espoused by the practitioners ofaction research. However, it also refutes the naïve confidence in theemancipatory power of education and awareness-raising that isinherent to the activist pathos of the movement and is based on areductionist perception of man as essentially a rational being.

The psycho-social subject and the ethics of intersubjectivity

In the light of psychoanalytic knowledge, the optimistic perceptionof the human subject as an autonomous, rational, monadic entityhas to be left behind for a more sophisticated and humble idea ofman as an embodied, emotionally driven, and culturally contingentbeing, entangled in complex web of meanings and relations. Thisconcept of the human subject, based on psychoanalytic theory andclinical evidence, is the point of departure for the evolving episte-mology of the psycho-social studies:

It is obvious that our research is deeply indebted to psychoanalysis,both theoretically and methodologically: our subject is one that isnot only positioned within the surrounding social discourses, butmotivated by unconscious investments and defenses against anxi-ety; our data production is based on the principle of free associa-tion; and our data analysis depends on interpretation. [Hollway &Jefferson, 2001, p. 77]

The notion of the “defended subject” elaborated by Hollway andJefferson bridges the psychic and the social domain by acknow-ledging that the personal identity emerges on their interface, inconstant interplay between the environment and the inner world ofthe subject. The material for the continuous construction and recon-struction of identity are social discourses, which are invested withpersonal meaning and unfold into biographic narratives. Inter-acting with the subject, the researcher evokes and interprets these

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narratives and their emotional (and often unconscious) undertow:“The idea of the defended subject shows how subjects invest indiscourses when these offer positions which provide protectionagainst anxiety and therefore supports to identity” (ibid., p. 23).

The methodology of psycho-social research elaborated byHollway and Jefferson is inspired and informed by the hermeneu-tics of psychoanalysis. However, it differs substantially from clini-cal therapy in terms of purpose, technique, and the larger frame ofreference of its interpretations: the social context as well as theinteractions with the research subject. Most important, the inter-pretations are not fed back in the interaction itself, but are withheldand processed as data. Furthermore, the dynamics of interaction,including the researcher’s contributions, is regarded as data:

The primary difference between the two practices is that cliniciansinterpret into the encounter, whereas researchers will save theirinterpretations for outside it. Put another way, researchers, notbeing therapists, will be careful not to interpret at the time the infor-mation is being provided by interviewees. Their interpretive workcomes later, is separate from the participant and has a differentaudience. Research interpretation is therefore an activity associatedwith data analysis as opposed to data production. [Hollway &Jefferson, 2001, pp. 77–78]

The psycho-social approach does not encourage immediate inter-pretations and, unlike mainstream action research, admits theinevitable detachment of the researcher from the subjects and toler-ates selective feedback of the findings.

From the perspective of participatory action research, theextrapolation of the knowledge from the research process can bechallenged on ethical grounds. Assuming that knowledge belongsto the subjects as much as to the researcher and his academic audi-ence, to keep the findings might be seen as exploitative. However,this separation is ethically justifiable precisely because of the con-cern for the well being of the research subjects. The psycho-socialsubject is construed as an emotional being, who avoids painfullearning by mobilizing various defences, and therefore the pursuitfor truth encounters ethical concerns: “This issue of ‘truth’, or other-wise, of interpretations leads us on to the vexed issue of ‘harm’ toparticipants. Defences protect us from potentially distressing

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‘truths’ about ourselves” (ibid., p. 97). The recognition of the vulner-ability of the defended subject in the psycho-social approach bindsethical and epistemological issues even closer than in the actionresearch tradition. The reflexivity inherent to this approach requiresthe unreliability of common sense to be acknowledged andrespected. Self-deceit is part of human imperfection, and theresearchers are not immune to it:

Of course, self-deception is not confined to research participants;researchers too can deceive themselves. This can happen by notattending to transference/countertransference issues in theresearch relationship; in other words, by mistaking our ownconcerns for those of the participants we analyse. [ibid.]

The central ethical question in this kind of inquiry appears to beto what extent the research findings have to be communicated tothe participants and how. If the researcher has good reason tobelieve that his insights would be painful and distressing for thesubject, is he obliged to spare those and keep them for himself? Canhe take the risk of sharing his interpretations without the certainty,provided by the therapeutic framework, that they will be properlyprocessed and integrated? There are no easy answers to these ques-tions. The experience of Hollway and Jefferson suggests thatpainful learning is not necessarily harmful: “A ‘truthful’ analysismay not be able to avoid distress to the participant, but it does notautomatically follow that distress is harmful, as we argued earlierin Fran’s case” (ibid.).

A reliable point of departure in the evolving ethics of psycho-social research is provided by the concept of recognition, borrowedfrom Benjamin’s ethics of intersubjectivity (1990) and echoingHegelian classical dialectics of power relations:

The experience of recognition has a bearing, then, on our under-standing of the risk of harm in the course of this kind of research.Recognition is not about reassurance, if that is based on avoidingthe distress and therefore unreliable in telling the truth. It dependson the feeling that the other can be relied upon to be independent,to reflect back a reality which is not compromised by dependenceor avoidance. To strive after this as the basis for an ethical relation-ship in research is to pursue the values of honesty, sympathy andrespect. [Hollway & Jefferson, 2001, p. 99]

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What is recognized is both the right of the subject to defend againstpainful truths by avoiding learning, and the dignity to survive andlive with the burden of knowing. By recognizing dependency asintrinsic to human condition and tracing the possibility for trans-forming it into mature interdependency, the philosophy of inter-subjectivity regains the optimistic perception of man as apotentially autonomous and self-actualizing being.

Constructing interpretations: psycho-social research as triple hermeneutics

In his interpretative theory of culture, Geertz (2000) argues that her-meneutic involvement with culture should be conceived not interms of discovery, but in terms of inference of meaningful interpre-tations to observed occurrences. The only available procedure forvalidating knowledge, acquired through second and third orderinterpretation, is “accessing the guesses”. Such a procedure entails ahierarchy of interpretations, starting from guessing and selectivelybuilding on these guesses, until a plausible explanation emerges. To be meaningful, however, such interpretations need to be situatedin some kind of broader and intelligible frame of significance.Unless such general conceptual framework is provided (what Rorty[1989] calls “vocabulary”), any interpretative account would slideinto solipsistic, self-referential construction, the validity claims ofwhich are unsustainable. According to Geertz, interpretative discip-lines attain scientific status by cogent conceptualizing and theoriz-ing on the “thick description”: the researcher’s narrative, saturatedwith significant details as well as with interpretations. Bringingtogether interpretations and explanations is, however, an intrinsi-cally tense undertaking, since the two operations pertain to differentdomains of abstraction and are arrived at through different path-ways: interpretation draws on associations, images, dreams, etc.,while explanation relies on linking experience with cognitive cate-gories. Therefore, in interpretative ethnography, the theoreticalconstructions are closely linked to the specific case and have contex-tually limited explanatory power: “Theoretical formulations hoverso low over the interpretations they govern that they don’t makemuch sense or hold much interest apart from them” (Geertz, 2000,

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p. 25). In Geertz’s hermeneutic epistemology, theory finds itselfcontext bound, unburdened from the positivist ambition to discoverand explain the general principles of social functioning: “. . . because the essential task of theory here is not to codify abstract regularitiesbut to make thick description possible, not to generalize across casesbut to generalize within them” (ibid., p. 26).

Exemplary of the postmodern turn, this inversion of perspectiveuncouples theorizing from the enterprise of meta-explanation andcouples it to the enterprise of understanding human condition incontext, and thus opens a broad avenue for theoretical creativity.Theory is called to conceptually reinforce the interpretations of theresearcher, to ensure that they are logically and methodologicallyconsistent, and to organize them into a comprehensible, if notentirely coherent, frame: “In ethnography, the office of theory is toprovide a vocabulary in which what symbolic action has to sayabout itself—that is, about the role of culture in human life—can beexpressed” (ibid., p. 27). To what extent Geertz’s interpretativemethod is relevant to the study of organizational cultures isarguable. Judging from my experience, this approach enables theresearcher to explore the idiosyncrasies of the organizational fieldby acknowledging its uniqueness and grants him the freedom (andresponsibility) to immerse himself in the experience with an openmind, leaving behind his preconceptions. The risk inherent to suchan enterprise, however, is to depart from one’s own constructionsonly to embrace those of the other participants, especially in theaction research approach, where the researcher is also an agent inthe field of study and is, therefore, prone to misconceive his biasedperception of a given situation for valid interpretation. To with-stand this temptation, the researcher needs to sustain reflexivedistance towards his cognitive and emotional involvement with theorganizational field by critically questioning the explanations sug-gested, apparently, by the field itself. Usually these explanations arethe obvious ones, the first to come to mind. Such quick “insights”usually tell us what we already know: the questions beg theanswers. One has to learn to ward off these kinds of easy answersand the comfort they bring, to bracket the available knowledge forthe time being, and to remain with the uncertainty of unansweredquestions and fragile hypotheses long enough to give the newknowledge a chance to emerge out of the anxiety of not knowing.

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In an attempt to get beyond surface explanations, critical socialresearch develops a pattern of multi-level interpretation, which isinspired by critical theory as well as psychoanalytic theory. Thestudents of this approach point out that, to make good interpreta-tions, the researcher needs a well-developed theoretical frame ofreference, encompassing the social, cultural, and psychologicaldimensions of human condition (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2005). Toaddress such a formidable task of understanding human reality inits totality, critical research needs to draw on at least four theoreti-cal domains: a hermeneutic understanding of language and mean-ing, a theory of society as a whole, an anthropological theorypointing out the relativity of cultural meanings, and a theory of theunconscious (Deetz & Kersten, 1983; Morrow, 1994)

It is precisely the theory of the unconscious that psycho-socialstudies build in the tradition of interpretative ethnography and crit-ical theory. The awareness of the unconscious dimension ofpeople’s activity itself, as well as of the process of ascribing mean-ing to this activity, introduces another layer of interpretation andanalysis. Thus, the “double hermeneutics” of interpretive socialscience is enriched and transformed in the triple hermeneutics ofpsychoanalytically informed critical theory.

Simple hermeneutics—in social contexts—concerns individuals’interpretations of themselves and their own subjective or intersub-jective (cultural) reality, and the meaning they assign to this. Doublehermeneutics is what interpretive social scientists are engaged in,when they attempt to understand and develop knowledge aboutthis reality . . . The triple hermeneutics of critical theory includes theaforementioned double hermeneutics, and a third element as well.This encompasses the critical interpretation of unconsciousprocesses, ideologies, power relations, and other expressions ofdominance that entail the privileging of certain interests overothers, within the forms of understanding which appear to be spon-taneously generated. [Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2005, p. 144]

This description appears quite pertinent to the emerging field ofreflexive psycho-social studies, which, unlike most hermeneuticapproaches, acknowledges the emotional, as well as social andcultural, determinants of human activity, including the activity ofinterpreting the social world. Psycho-social research can be defined

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as triple hermeneutics, since it attempts to interpret the interpreta-tive activity of both the actors in the studied field and the researcherin the context of their interaction.

Going back to Berger and Luckmann’s notion of reification, itcan be argued that critical psycho-social research is emancipatory ina unique way as long as it provides means for acknowledging andresisting our innate tendency for reification of the relational aspectsof human reality. As Clarke demonstrates in his exploration of thepsychodynamics of racism and identity, this tendency makes itpossible for one person’s irrationality to become another person’srationality, one group’s phantasy to become another group’s reality,and vice versa (Clarke, 2006). This unreflected redistribution ofqualities across individual, group, and institutional boundaries,mediated by primitive processes such as splitting and projectiveidentification, is an especially malignant form of reification, whichreinforces prejudice and injustice (Young, 1994). The theoreticalunderpinnings and methodological rigorousness of the psycho-social approach safeguard the researcher against unconsciouspartaking in the vicious circle of mutual reifications, which rendersour human world alien and obscure. Supplied with the demanding,yet liberating, method of triple hermeneutics, the researcher is freeto engage in a variety of unpredictable and anxiety-provoking situ-ations and interactions and still sustain a reflective and ultimatelyethical stance by retaining the capacity “to think under fire”, asBion famously suggested. Thus, psycho-social research embarks onthe bold undertaking of interpreting the world of interpretivebeings, governed by unconscious forces: the infinite, volatile, andconstancy reconstructed world of meaning.

References

Alvesson, M., & Skoldberg, K. (2005). Reflexive Methodology: New Vistasfor Qualitative Research. London: Sage.

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine.Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive Modernization: Politics,

Tradition and Aesthetics in Modern Social Order. London: Polity.Benjamin, J. (1990). The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and the

Problem of Domination. London: Virago.

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Bion, W. (1993). Attention and Interpretation. London: Karnac.Buber, M. (1970). I and Thou. New York: Simon and Schuster.Burr, V. (2004). Social Constructionism. London: Routledge.Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1991). The Social Construction of Reality: A

Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Penguin.Clarke, S. (2006). From Enlightenment to Risk: Social Theory and

Contemporary Society. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Deetz, S., & Kersten, S. (1983). Critical models of interpretive research.

In: L. Putnam & M. Pacanowski (Eds.), Communication in Organiza-tions (pp. 147–172). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. An Introduction to thePhilosophy of Education. New York: Macmillan.

Foucault, M. (1979). History of Sexuality. London: Allen Lane.Friere, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Plenum.Gadamer, H. G. (1975). Truth and Method. New York: Continuum.Gaventa, J., & Cornwall, A. (2001). Power and knowledge. In: P. Reason

& H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of Action Research: ParticipativeInquiry & Practice (pp. 70–80). London: Sage.

Geertz, C. (2000). Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Giddens, A. (1976). New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique

of Interpretative Sociologies. London: Hutchinson.Habermas, J. (2006). The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1:

Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Cambridge: Polity.Hollway, W., & Jefferson, T. (2001). Doing Qualitative Research Differ-

ently. London: Sage.Kuhn, T. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL:

University of Chicago Press.Kvale, S. (2002). The social construction of validity. In: N. Denzin &

Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The Qualitative Inquiry Reader (pp. 299–326).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Morrow, R. (1994). Critical Theory and Methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.

Park, P. (2001). Knowledge and participatory research. In: P. Reason &H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry& Practice (pp. 81–90). London: Sage.

Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.

Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

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Sayer, A. (1992). Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach. London:Routledge.

Torbert, W. (2001). The practice of action inquiry. In: P. Reason & H.Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry &Practice (pp. 250–260). London: Sage.

Young, R. (1994). Mental Space. London: Process Press.

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CHAPTER THREE

How to live and learn: learning, duration, and the virtual

Lita Crociani-Windland

“. . . problematic Ideas are precisely the ultimate elements ofnature and the subliminal objects of little perceptions. As aresult, ‘learning’ always takes place in and through theunconscious, thereby establishing the bond of a profoundcomplicity between nature and mind”

(Deleuze, 1994, p. 205)

Introduction

This chapter aims to account for the need of a particularmethodology, founded on the ontological perspective of thecontinental philosophy of Bergson and Deleuze, while

aiming to outline some fundamental areas of convergence betweentheir ideas and Bion’s work from a psychoanalytic perspective.Both perspectives acknowledge issues of fluid connectivity aspresent and constitutive of reality as an ontological starting pointfor research and attempt to establish the method by which they canbe accessed and what this says about learning as a process. In orderto balance the highly abstract nature of the concepts to be outlined,

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51


examples of how these issues were reflected in my research practiceare given. The complexity of material and its dynamic unboundedquality challenges representation and calls for a pre-emptiveattempt to balance the inevitable reduction implied by the repre-sentational medium of words. The image of an unusual sculptureproject is offered at the outset as an alternative metaphor for thisresearch approach. The chapter frames some of the differencesbetween the psychoanalytic approach and continental philosophy,while pointing to areas of convergence in relation to how to accessunconscious processes, before moving to an outline of Bion’s theoryof learning and the beginning of a comparison of with some ofBergson’s related, though more positively formulated, ideas.

One of the central concepts that the chapter attempts to flesh outin relation to these frameworks is the complexity and the relevanceof lived experience and intuition within research processes. Havingoutlined the ontological and epistemological bases that underlie theimportance of these aspects, it concludes by briefly referring to wellestablished research paradigms within the social sciences, such asethnography and grounded theory, as highly relevant and concor-dant with such a perspective, where psycho-social research mightfind a broad foundation for method.

Reflections on the writing of this chapter

The use of art in anthropology as a means of expressing the mostelusive and yet more poignant aspects of reality is attracting inter-est. Visual ethnography, used in anthropological and sociologicalresearch, has been a developing field of study in its own right. Theuse of visual data in sociological and anthropological research iswell documented and theorised (Banks & Morphy, 1997; Chaplin,1994; Pink, 2001; among many). My rationale for opening this chap-ter with images of an unusual artistic longitudinal project is mani-fold: images add, and are suggestive of, the different sensorydimensions of both inquiry and its representation within this chap-ter, letting images and words contextualize each other, whileaccepting the incompleteness of representation (Pink, 2001, pp. 96,115). It is hard to capture affective dimensions in any form of repre-sentation. My aim has been to give them as much of a chance as

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possible to seep through and around the edges of different kinds ofaccounts.

Before attempting to outline the theories and methods central tothis chapter content, I feel impelled to offer a narrative of theprocess of writing this chapter, which triggered an association Ifound extremely helpful. The abstract, boundless, and fluid natureof what I attempt to outline led to what seemed like endless edit-ing (for a previous version see Crociani-Windland, 2003a), eachnew version offering what seemed just a different snapshot, adifferent face, of the ontology I was attempting to portray as a foun-dation of method. My writing seemed to alter depending on thematerial and stages of discovery I attempted to re-present. The firststage had a “loosely held” quality in my experience. There wassomething in the experiencing that was akin to looking into themiddle distance, or something of the quality necessary to seeing athree-dimensional picture, where one’s gaze has to relax in order tobe able to take in different levels of focus at the same time. As Ibegan to analyse my experience, the process and writing becamesharper. Sharp and dry are the words that come to mind to describethe quality of what is required in order to analyse experience. As I

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HOW TO LIVE AND LEARN: LEARNING, DURATION, AND THE VIRTUAL 53

Figure 1.


went further into the theoretical material writing became problem-atic. I began to experience writer’s block: there was too much mate-rial and it was all inter-related. I noticed this when discussingBion’s notions of “O” and “faith in O”, but reached a peak when I

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Figure 2.

Figure 3.


approached Bergson’s and Deleuze’s work. Every sentence andparagraph triggered prolonged periods of internal activity andmore reading, as countless ideas, possible patterns in which theymight arrange themselves, as well as myriad applications crowded

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Figure 4.

Figure 5.


my mind. I kept on telling myself: think about the central theme,think clearly about where you want to lead. In the process, I foundmyself constantly questioning my use of words, as well as myunderstanding of words others used. I began to wonder if the struc-ture of the paper needed fundamental editing. I tried a few majorcuts, by using the real cut and paste, scissors and Sellotape method,to see if I could gain a better overview. I persisted, like a dog worry-ing a bone, I could not leave it alone, but I was finding it hard. I wassuddenly reminded of one of David Nash’s projects. David, a sculp-tor and good friend, carved a wooden boulder from the heart of anoak in 1978. He set it in a stream in the Ffestiniog valley in NorthWales, where he lives, and has since “chronicled its long stubbornvoyage to the sea” (Nash, 1996, p. 16), its changes and movementsthrough time. In 1994, the boulder got stuck under a low bridge andhad to be helped out in order for its journey to continue. He sentme some pictures of it being freed from under the bridge at thetime. The images spoke to me, I was reminded of the initial conver-sations that had helped to change my orientation in a researchproject in central Italy, as well as the potential role of willing read-ers, helpers who might ease me out from under the theoretical

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Figure 6.


bridge I was attempting to construct, bringing relational others tobear on my questions. What had been so problematic, I realized,had to do with approaching the wider aspects of the “ineffable”inherent in Bion’s, Bergson’s, and Deleuze’s conceptual frame-works. The boulder is on its way to the sea, I realized. This is pure

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Figure 7.

Figure 8.


fluidity. I was trying to make present, to re-present, what is beyondrepresentation. The boulder became a metaphor for what I haveattempted to express through words: holding a point of conscious-ness within the stream of life, without stopping fluidity. I wonderedhow far it had got. In my anxiety to know whether I could managethis, I had identified with the wooden boulder’s journey. I phonedDavid, to discover he had lost sight of the boulder until a couple ofhours before, when someone who had originally been involvedwith the project, had phoned him to tell him the boulder was nowresting on a sand bank on the river’s tidal estuary. This felt wonder-fully appropriate: within smell of the sea, at the place where riverand tide meet. Although the boulder has since reached the opensea, this is where I also stopped my analysis, somewhere near thesea of Bergson’s pure duration and Bion’s “O”.

Rediscovering the importance of living and intuition

The ideas that we have in research are only in part a logical prod-uct growing out of a careful weighing of evidence . . . Often wehave the experience of being immersed in a mass of confusing data. . . We come up with an idea or two. But still the data do not fall inany coherent pattern. Then we go on living with the data—andwith the people—until perhaps some chance occurrence casts a

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Figure 9.


totally different light upon the data, and we begin to see a patternthat we have not seen before. This pattern is not purely an artisticcreation. Once we think we see it, we must reexamine our notes andperhaps set out to gather new data in order to determine whetherthe pattern adequately represents the life we are observing or issimply a product of our imagination. Logic, then, plays an impor-tant part. But I am convinced that the actual evolution of researchideas does not take place in accord with the formal statements weread on research methods. The ideas grow up in part out of ourimmersion in the data and out of the whole process of living. Sinceso much of this process of analysis proceeds on the unconsciouslevel, I am sure that we can never present a full account of it.[Whyte 1955, pp. 279–280]

Getting beyond familiarity is a problem most researchers will haveto engage with at some point in their career. This is a problem thatstudents in particular might find difficult to tackle. Most of the timelittle questioned notions of objectivity cloud the issues and research-ing within a known work environment or culture might bring these issues to the fore. My starting point for the issues dealt with inthis chapter was, in fact, a research project that took me back toplaces in central Italy that have shaped me by birth and family asso-ciation and that awakened me to the importance of these matters.Discovering the new is sometimes best achieved by going back toone’s origins, personally or in terms of disciplinary approaches. Thejourney has to go from knowing faded into unconsciousness fromfamiliarity, to renewed wakefulness and knowing how we know. Inother words, reflexivity is a fundamental aspect, both in individualand disciplinary terms.

While there is now plenty of literature on methods, the relativelack of such in the early days of sociology and anthropology did notstop seminal research being produced. Action often precedes ourability to understand its complexity of processes and motivations.Living is a necessary prerequisite for study, which most often onlyreveals its complexity in hindsight and as a result of intense inter-est in the world, which includes oneself as well as external reality.How did early researchers manage without a rule book? As Whyte(ibid.) states “the ideas grow up in part out of our immersion in the data and out of the whole process of living”; much of theprocess of analysis proceeds at an unconscious level, yet logic and

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triangulation between internal responses and external observationplays an important part in these issues. How we can expand ourunderstanding to include the most elusive aspects, how we canunderstand those elements that have often been thought of as toosimplistic and unsophisticated, or, more specifically, unscientific,such as living and intuition, are some of the questions that may findelaboration through the following sections. Often, we pay littleattention to the simple and obvious, and do not appreciate thecomplexity that underlies it. Furthermore, simple and obvious, asideas, are not equivalent to easy or unproblematic.

Bergson’s “Intuition as a method”

“. . . on the path which leads to that which is to be thought every-thing begins with sensibility” (Deleuze, 1994, p. 182).

Reverie and processes of free association are well known to playa part in sensing and uncovering unconscious processes withinpsychoanalytic practice. If we accept the above proposition thatmuch of the process of analysis in social science research occurs atan unconscious level, it follows that paying attention to, andmaking use of, such processes could add an important dimensionto research. In other words, we could begin to “wake up” to inter-nal and external processes and responses, which might be happen-ing below the surface of consciousness, often shrugged off as toofamiliar, “commonsensical”, or trivial to be given much attention orconsideration.

An example of this might be a small, but crucial experience atthe start of the research project mentioned earlier. A simple realiza-tion came to me as I looked at the landscape from the house whereI was born; having known it all my life, I realized I could hardlyappreciate it as many visitors to the house have done over theyears. This discrepancy came unbidden into mind as I looked at thelandscape and produced a response: I saw my not seeing. It wasthen not just the landscape that was altered by the realization; itwas also my perception of myself as a seer. This altered perceptionof myself had created a loop, which in turn sharpened my attention.A double action had taken place; my mind had caught itself and Iwas awake. I realized how much I had taken for granted, because

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I was familiar with it. I had had a plan of research before the startof fieldwork, related to questions and themes such as people’s rela-tion to land, body, and memory; these had been discussed andapproved by other academics. Yet, this small moment of insightcreated a renewed openness to my environment in the then initialstages of research. It made me realize that the epistemologicalassumptions of my initial research proposal were being put intoquestion in moments of leisurely discussion with friends andfamily, and I began to notice and consider far broader, yet maybemore fundamental, questions and issues. To refer back to Whyte’s(1955) earlier quote, it was living with the people and the data anda small “chance” occurrence that allowed me to see new patterns infamiliar places, changing the course of my research.

The process of bringing attention to bear on the conditions ofour perception of the world is part of what Bergson meant by “intu-ition as a method”, which also informed Deleuze’s work. The firstmovement of such a method is attention to our perceptions andsensibilities: “. . . that which can only be sensed . . . moves the soul,‘perplexes’ it” (Deleuze, 1994, p. 174). This is not a simple matter ofrecognition, but the sensing of problematic intensities (see latersection), which lead to thought (ibid., p. 176). It is the attention tothe perplexity, itself made up of multiple affective responses, whichis potentially generative of thoughts new to the thinker. By raisingintuition into a methodology, Bergson embedded reflexivity firmlyin the research process as an integral part of it, something thatHusserl (1991) later developed into fully fledged “phenomenol-ogy”. There is circularity: “My enquiring is present to me onlywhen I am enquiring” (Barden, 1999, p. 33). Thus, research createsthe opportunity for reflexivity and reflexivity in turn offers rewardsto research by making our assumptions and processes visible: “Themind does not know itself truly and does not grasp itself except inits effort to discover a precise solution to a particular problem”(Lacroix, 1943, p. 197, cited in Barden, 1999, p. 33). It is not a coin-cidence that I had caught my inattention while looking at theTuscan landscape, as the land and people’s attachment to it werecentral to my research questions: they were part of the problem Ihad posed. This implies a profound relationality between internaland external milieus. It is out of living through and withstandingthis relational tension that insight emerges.

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In addition to this fundamental principle, Bergson’s intuitivemethod has three basic rules (Deleuze, 1991, Chapter One). The firstrule centres on attention to the positing of a problem (ibid., p. 15)and is related to the second rule, which has to do with rediscover-ing the true differences in kind, or articulations of the real (ibid., p.21): that is, the qualitative differences between and within aspectsof reality. The third rule of “intuition as a method” has to do withstating and solving problems in terms of time rather than space(ibid., p. 31). As might become clearer in following sections, differ-ences in kind and the tensions and interrelations between them areindeed fundamental, not only to this philosophical framework, butcan be noted in the work of Bion, as evidenced below. Psycho-analytic emphasis on life histories as part of its case study methodcan be seen as an approach based on time and process. The waypast experience can be intensely activated for new elaborationduring therapeutic sessions implies a particular quality of time andexperience, which can be seen to chime with the perspectivesfounded on the concepts of “duration” and the “virtual” that I amabout to outline in more detail. Just as individuals’ biographieshave a profound influence on the problematic nature of their lives,the ontological approaches I present broaden this logic beyond theindividual domain. Societies are shaped by their environment andhistory; therefore, it follows that if we are to understand theirdynamics we need to include inquiry into these aspects as funda-mental to research.

Psychoanalytic methods and continental philosophy

Let us consider the first part of the process: the attention of themind to itself, in more depth. This serves as a link to the notions of“duration” and the “virtual”, which constitute essential aspects ofBergson’s and Deleuze’s ontology. I do this by introducing WilfredBion’s ideas on learning, before returning to those of Bergson, andlinking these to Deleuzian extensions of his philosophy. Whilemuch psychoanalytic theory appears inimical to the vitalist stanceof continental philosophy, I aim to demonstrate that, in spite of thedifferences, there is convergence between Bion’s theory of learningas a process and Bergsonian method. Both approaches postulate the

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existence of unconscious processes, which require the formulationof methods other than conceptual theory (though it could be arguedthat they offer differing accounts of the nature of such processes).Free association, reverie, reflection, and case histories are the stockin trade of psychoanalysis. These are relevant, though differentlyframed, to the method of intuition, as they are able to become toolsfor the perception of qualitative differences and processes. As Iargued more fully elsewhere (Crociani-Windland, 2003a), focusingon process, that is “how” rather than “what” questions, allows thetwo frameworks to find a measure of agreement, although Berg-son’s formulation is far more positive, as well as more complex.

Bion’s ideas on learning

Wilfred Bion’s concept of “Faith in O” and approaching inquiry“without memory or desire” (Bion, 1970) came strongly to mindalongside Bergson’s ideas as I tried to understand the potency ofwhat seemed a simple and obvious realization recounted earlier. Atfirst, these thoughts also just came through in the form of “reverie”(Bion, 1962), echoes of similarities, dreamy recognitions.

Bion distinguishes between knowledge and learning. He usesthe symbol “K” to denote “knowing”, and “O” to denote “not-knowing”. “O” stands for the reality of the moment, its truth, which is imminent (French & Simpson, 2000, p. 55) and ultimatelyungraspable in an absolute sense. “O does not fall in the domain ofknowledge or learning save incidentally; it can be ‘become’, but itcannot be ‘known’” (Bion, 1970, p. 26, also in French & Simpson,2000, p. 55). Positing a tension between “K” and “O”, Bion locatedlearning as the process of withstanding that tension and its discom-fort: “Learning arises from working at the edges between knowingand not-knowing” (French & Simpson, 2000, p. 54). Noticing thepuzzling and staying with it would be a Deleuzian way of framingthis approach. The notion of tension is also of crucial importance inDeleuze’s formulation to which I will return.

Readings of Bion’s ideas give particular prominence to the valu-ing of “O” over “K”, but “O” needs to be understood in its rela-tional opposition to “K”. “K” is knowledge that, while forming anecessary and mostly sufficient foundation for existence by way of

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notions and assumptions, also hampers us by its limited and inher-ently partial nature. “O” is the “ineffable” reality of “truth-in-the-moment” (French & Simpson, 2000, p. 55). Learning occurs if wemaintain an attitude of active waiting in the tension between them.

If we think back to Bergson’s attention of the mind to the objectof inquiry and to itself, we see a similar process being outlined inBion. Attending to the truth in the moment is an attitude of atten-tion to the processes that arise in the tension between what isunknown and what we know.

The value placed on not-knowing and one’s own realization ofit is not a denial of the possibility of learning or of the value ofknowledge; rather, it is the acknowledgement of its infinite natureand of the inadequacy inherent in representation, also acknow-ledged by Whyte (1955). The key to the difference between “K” and“O” is what Bergson defined as a difference in kind. My suggestionhere is that Bion and others in the psychoanalytic world, as well asthe mystic traditions from which inspiration might have beenderived, have been expressing in their own, often poetic, metaphorsand paradoxical statements what Bergson would have described interms of “quality” and “quantity”. (Deleuze [1991] points out thatBergson, for convenience, used the terms quality and quantity asshorthand for far more complexity. I am following the same prac-tice here for the sake of simplicity.) Perhaps we should consider “O”as a qualitative, dynamic, “virtual” and unconscious aspect of real-ity, which can be experienced in the moment, but cannot be fullygrasped and represented due to its infinite potentiality, with “K” asits quantitative, static, representational, and conscious counterpart.Existence partakes of both, therefore learning and method musttake both into account.

In spite of the similarity between the concepts outlined so far,Bergson appears far more positive than Bion about the possibilityof learning, though both value process over result and prize atten-tiveness as the ultimate tool of inquiry.

Bion’s insistence on the value of not-knowing, as opposed toknowing, has a disturbing edge. “Discard your memory; discardthe future tense of your desire: forget them both, both what youknew and what you want, to leave space for a new idea” (Bion,1980, p. 11) are negative injunctions, which could be interpreted indramatic terms. “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate”, “All hope

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abandon, ye who enter here”, as Dante saw written on the doors ofhell in his Divine Comedy (1889, Inferno, III, p. 9), comes to mind.Bergson’s concept of duration and its dual nature offers no lessdifficult ways to understand a little more of the un-nameable, butthey are stated in more positive terms. Bion spoke of “O” as thatwhich can be “become”, rather than known, save incidentally; Berg-son pointed to the body as the site of both consciousness and“becoming”, or transformation (Watson, 1998). Bergson’s dualitiesnever imply a separation between mind and body, rather differentmodalities of action and perception.

Duration

The starting point for this analysis was the mind’s attention to itsobject and to itself, which applies both to the initial research expe-rience briefly summarized earlier as well as to Bion’s theories. Bydelving further into Bergson’s and Deleuze’s elaborations of Berg-sonian ontology, the relevance of the issues already outlined isextended to issues of identity.

What is known as Bergson’s concept of “duration” is complexand multi-faceted, having wide-ranging implications for differentaspects of reality such as our concepts of time and space, percep-tion and consciousness. I isolate those aspects of his work that havedirect relevance to the issue of “intuition” in research.

In reality “things . . . are always mixtures” and “only tendenciesare simple and pure” (Deleuze, 1999, p. 45, original italics). Thetendencies referred to are intensive and extensive. Intensity isexperienced in the form of affects, which ground and guide ourexperience. A self-referential process is necessary to discover this inthe first place, taking note of it, in other words. This is “intuition” ina Bergsonian sense, which finds its foundation in a concept of “dura-tion” as comprehensive of a dual nature: a homogeneous, quantita-tive aspect, which is identified with extension, that is, space andspatialized time (i.e., clock time), and a heterogeneous, qualitativeone, identified with intension or intensity, that is lived time, flux,change, the way in which time can have different qualities depend-ing on our engagement. The latter is what he refers to as the basis ofpure duration, i.e., the virtual (Bergson, 2001; Deleuze, 1991). (Time

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is a good example of these two tendencies: clock time is spatializedand homogenous, but what Bergson primarily highlights is a differ-ent time dynamic, belonging to the virtual or pure duration. This ismarked by intensity and continuity, as in the example of music.)Bergson (2001) gave many examples of this duality as embedded inour modes of perceiving reality. One of the examples of a qualitativeaspect that recurs in his writing is music. A tune is an audiblepattern, rather than just a sequence of individual notes. We experi-ence it qualitatively/intensively; it moves us. The fact that it can also be divided into its components, i.e., its quantitative aspects, orthat we can take each note in succession is not music or what wevalue music for. Edmund Husserl (1991) tackled similar issues at thehand of “melody”. How do we retain a consciousness of differentnotes in such a way that we perceive a melody, rather than singlenotes in each present moment? His answer was to coin the notionsof “retention” and “protention”, the first being the mode of con-sciousness by which the past is in the present, rather than repre-sented within it; the second is an orientation towards the future thatalso allows it presence in the moment. This involves a “continuum”of consciousness. The flowing unbounded nature of this “contin-uum” is what is at issue in all the theories explored here. This con-tinuum is not only a continuum of consciousness, but also of nature.I believe this to be a different, but relevant, account for the possi-bility of reliving the past, on which psycho-dynamic practice isfounded. What I am suggesting here is twofold: first, an ontologicalbasis is given, which accounts for what have been common practicesin psycho-analysis; second, this basis does not relate simply to thenature of individuals, but extends to all of reality, including thesocial sphere. This validates the use of a number of practices andtechniques developed within psychoanalytic practice, though notall currents of psychoanalysis are as easy to reconcile with theseperspectives. I offer the following section on identity as an illustra-tion of a fluid and dynamic perspective on the self.

A duration based notion of dynamic identity

Identity, in Bergson’s formulation, is a dynamic concept, which,though hard to grasp, does not entail the concept of a separate

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entity that moves (Bergson, 1974). What Bergson is pointing ustowards, Deleuze notes, is

Not things nor states of things which differ in nature, it is not char-acters, but tendencies. This is why the conception of specific differ-ence is not satisfactory: it is not to the presence of characters thatwe must pay attention, but to their tendencies to develop them-selves. [Deleuze, 1999, p. 44]

Bergson’s concept of pure duration rests on the idea of move-ment, tendencies, and consciousness as indivisible, qualitativeevents. This, in his view, is the fundamental self (2001, p. 128):

Pure duration is the form which the succession of our consciousstates assumes when our ego lets itself live, when it refrains fromseparating its present state from its former states. For this purposeit need not be entirely absorbed in the passing sensation or idea; forthen, on the contrary, it would no longer endure. Nor need it forgetits former states: it is enough that, in recalling these states, it doesnot set them alongside its actual state as one point alongsideanother, but forms both the past and the present states into anorganic whole, as happens when we recall the notes of a tune, melt-ing, so to speak, into one another. [Bergson, 2001, p. 100]

One of the operative statements in this passage is “lets itself live”,without needing to abandon memory. Superficially, this could beseen as contradicting Bion’s ideas. The principal distinction Bergsonmakes had to do with allowing all the elements, such as memoryand the present, also mentioned by Bion, to blend in a continuousindivisible whole, without needing to deny the past, or fix it, andwithout attempting to predetermine the content of the future. Thisway, the past and the present can form a new unity, which can onlybe apprehended as a movement of quality/intensity. Bergson’sstatement is different from Bion’s only superficially. Faimberg(2000, p. 84) recalls a conference where Bion approved of an ana-lyst’s interpretation, which had relied on memory “because thememory had arisen spontaneously while the analyst was listening withoutmemory or desire” (original italics). This points us towards a differ-ent stance, something subtle and hard to express. Bergson (2001, p. 100) describes a minimum requirement, which is simple, yet goes

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against the trend of quantitative analysis: do not set sensations orideas as one point alongside another. What he describes, therefore,is a particular quality of loose attention encompassing past andpresent in a non-spatialized, non-representational manner (2001,Chapter II). It is our habit, as rational beings, to arrange thoughtsin static spatial sequences, such as categories and classifications,ordered by number, hierarchically structured and bounded. Thecreation of boundaries facilitates focus, but might also precludesight of potentially important aspects and links. What is imperativeis that those boundaries are not determined primarily according toprior classifications, but from direct experiences and observations,to include all manner of responses, related not to abstract categoriesof events, but to specific instances. This is what the theories out-lined have at their heart. They require attention to fluid processes,affective responses, implicating both body and mind.

Bergson spoke of dreaming as a state of pure duration thatescapes the gradual incursion of space into the domain of pureconsciousness (2001, p. 126). Bion spoke of “alpha elements” asdreamlike, pictorial images coming unbidden into the mind andconstituting the first articulations on which thinking may find abasis (Bion, cited in Bion Talamo, 1997). It was in my dreamy, openquestioning of the landscape of Tuscany that a first insight cameabout. It is not as if I had no knowledge of Bion or Bergson. Thefreshness of insight was given by my living it, experiencing itdirectly, which brought some of the theories alive and allowed meto engage more fully with them, letting them under my skin. Thereverie was strong enough to wake me up.

The importance of dreams to psychoanalytic practice is, ofcourse, well established. What Bion introduced is the importance ofdreamlike states of consciousness during waking time as a founda-tion for thinking, within an original framework of a theory of learn-ing. Bergson’s work might provide further clarification as to theirnature. Bergson does not demand that we abandon memory anddesire. This is an impossibility, both in terms of his concept of dura-tion and, in Bion’s case particularly, in terms of an acknowledge-ment of the unconscious. What is needed is a different way ofholding them. By setting out the minimum conditions in terms ofallowing the past and the present to blend into an organic whole,as a qualitative heterogeneous “multiplicity” (2001, p. 128), Bergson

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offered more positive guidance to achieving something similar towhat Bion characterized as holding the tension between the oppo-site terms of knowing and not knowing. Bergson, as did Deleuzelater, avoided a relational dynamic of opposition and negation,while specifying the difference in kind between two differentmodes by which consciousness unfolds.

He did this by approaching consciousness with a “how” ques-tion. Rather than asking what it is, he asked what is its nature ortendency, how does it express itself. It is this important differentia-tion that allowed him to go further and define basic method, amethod that concerns the “how” of “intuition”. Pure duration is, inBergson’s view, the fundamental self, which is discovered througha “vigorous effort of analysis, which will isolate the fluid innerstates from their image, first refracted, then solidified in homoge-neous space” (2001, p. 129).

As the self thus refracted, and thereby broken to pieces, is muchbetter adapted to the requirements of social life in general andlanguage in particular, consciousness prefers it, and gradually losessight of the fundamental self. [ibid., p. 128]

What we must remember, though, is that, in line with earlier state-ments, what he meant by “fundamental self” is also not a “what”,but a “how”, related to the fluid connectivity of intensive tenden-cies, rather than a static representational and represented self.Recovering our access to pure duration is a double move: it reflex-ively reveals our “multiplicitous” fluid inner states as well as a littlemore of the Absolute. (The concept of multiplicity is fundamentalto both Bergson and Deleuze and one of the most challenging andabstract notions to define. Taken from Riemann’s mathematicalconcept, two types of multiplicity are distinguished, characterizedin terms already used: (1) extensive, numerical, and homogeneous,which Bergson linked to space and quantity and which can bedivided without changing its nature; (2) intensive, continuous, andheterogeneous, which Bergson links to time and quality and whichchanges in nature by being divided. It denotes a patchwork ofdifferent elements being brought into intense conjunction. Itschanging of nature by division is what justified Bergson’s use of theterms quality or qualitative as sufficient to denote these issues and

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their relation to time, duration, and the “virtual” [Bergson, 1988,2001; Deleuze, 1991, Chapter II; Roffe, 2005, pp. 176–177].) Thiscould be seen as a precursor to postmodern conceptions of identity.What I experienced in my research at various times, which linksback to the issues of familiarity and reflexivity, was a recovery of alittle more of myself as well as a renewed relationship to what Ithought I knew. This was related to a rediscovery of the externalpresent chiming with my internal past, by way of reminiscencesand stirrings of tonalities, gestures, flicks of the head; just whatDeleuze (1994, p. 107) more precisely designated as “a passivesynthesis, an involuntary memory which differs in kind from anyactive synthesis associated with voluntary memory”, and whicharises within forgetting. My experience was related to a particularform of fluid identity, founded on movement and sound in partic-ular, and which became available to thought by paying attention tomoments of unbidden memory, by allowing reverie to play a part.Deleuze’s work in Difference and Repetition (1994) has indeed manypoints of contact with the theories outlined thus far.

The productivity of the problem: reaching for roots in the virtual

The outline sketched in earlier sections has already been concernedwith that which defies representation, presented in terms of “dura-tion” and “O”. The concept of the “virtual”, already developed byBergson (1988) and related to “pure duration”, is fundamental toDeleuzian theory. “Exactly what Proust said of states of resonancemust be said of the virtual: ‘Real, without being actual, ideal with-out being abstract’” (Deleuze, 1994, p. 260). This is a realm of poten-tiality, of genetic conditions, of forces, and of structure, belongingto everyday life and what he terms the “object”. Deleuze goes as faras to define it as “strictly a part of the real object—as though theobject had one part of itself in the virtual into which it plunged asthough into an objective dimension” (ibid.) The attention to theobject, which is plunged into the virtual, a realm beyond thought,is capable of arousing sensation, puzzlement, and thought (ibid., p. 176). The object in this context could be a flag or other artefact,or a practice or a puzzling set of events or responses within a

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research project. An example of this could be my noticing and ques-tioning the relation of flags to identity. We are so used to flags beingused and understood as symbols of identity, yet I found myselfpuzzling over why they are so ubiquitous in their particular form.It seemed to me, on reflection, that just as the flags’ colourful clothmoves in the wind but the flags themselves remain anchored totheir staff, so does identity appear to be constituted around fluidityand structure in a similar, though not as static, relation as theirrepresentation in the form of a flag may lead us to think. Ques-tioning, or, to use a Deleuzian term, problematizing that which is socommon and familiar as to be taken for granted, is a foundation forlearning. In this simple example it took me behind the object tothinking about of what it might be an expression, or sign. Deleuze(1994, p. 204) also makes a distinction between knowledge andlearning. Knowledge, in his view, “designates only generality ofconcepts or the calm possession of a rule enabling solution” (ibid.).Learning has to do with specificities and is directly related to theproblematic nature of objects. In his own words:

Problematic structure is part of objects themselves, allowing themto be grasped as signs, just as the questioning or problematisinginstance is a part of knowledge allowing its positivity and its speci-ficity to be grasped in the act of learning. More profoundly still,Being (what Plato calls the Idea) “corresponds” to the essence of theproblem or the question as such. [ibid., p. 76, original italics]

There is an obvious correlation here to what Bion referred to asthe truth-in-the-moment, but also, as in Bergson, a positive framingof knowledge generated by questioning and arrived at throughactivity. Deleuze (1994, p. 204) speaks of an “ideal” (of the Idea,which, as he says, corresponds to the essence of the “problem” assuch) apprenticeship and of mobilizing all the faculties by holdingthe continuity of questioning in the midst of the discontinuities ofthe answers. Deleuze gives the example of the Idea of the sea as asystem of liaisons, or differential relations, the totality of which isincarnated in the real movement of the waves. “To learn to swim isto conjugate the distinctive points of our bodies with the singularpoints of the objective Idea” (ibid., p. 205). What is implied is anexperiential style of learning and a holistic approach. Deleuze

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speaks of something in the world forcing us to think. “This some-thing is an object not of recognition, but of a fundamental encoun-ter” (ibid., p. 176, original italics), something that can only be sensedand does not reside in thought itself.

Ideas/problems are virtual objects which give form to inten-sive processes, which are themselves actualized as extensive andqualitative form (i.e., actual phenomena). Learning thus involvesencounters with the virtual and intensive conditions of existence.This cannot take place exclusively through the concept (representa-tional knowledge), since the concept is itself an effect of thesevirtual processes. This is why an alternative method (alternative toconceptual analysis) is required; thus, we need intuition, andmodes of learning which force a more direct encounter with theintensive conditions of existence.

Time, problems and genealogy

According to Deleuzian ontology, the world is an open system,where a myriad of variable influences combine to give rise to differ-ences, which may or may not resemble each other to varyingdegrees. The very idea of truth is destabilized by such a conception,just as much as the idea of identity. In such a fluid world, impor-tance and relevance, rather than truth, are the key concepts(Delanda, 2002, p. 5) by which to select what might constituteevidence of a reality, founded on both what can be directlyobserved and its virtual components, the generative conditions thatcreate the problem to which what we can observe is an adaptiveresponse, which is always in the making (Deleuze, 1994). Access tothis realm has been at the centre of discussion up to now; the rele-vance of this now becomes determined more concretely. It is impor-tant to do this not only to reflexively avoid assumptions due tofamiliarity or ingrained patterns of thought and to access the truth-in-the moment; doing this gives access to potential observations ofwhat might have shaped the reality under scrutiny. The virtualconnects, as Bergson clearly points out, to time in a broad and opensense, and to the object in an intrinsic way.

Noticing the remarkable, the interesting, and the puzzling inDeleuze’s view is the route to asking the right questions (as it was

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for Plato). My renewed encounter with the familiar landscape wasa starting point for further inquiry into the environmental condi-tions affecting and shaping the reality of this area through time andhistorical processes. Puzzling encounters with what Deleuze wouldterm signs, not only the land, but other objects of attachment, suchas the flags, but also the dedications of Siena to Mary and child, orother recurrent images, such as the animal or natural symbols thatdenote each Siennese ward (see Crociani-Windland 2003b, 2005),referred me back to historical themes in many and varied genealog-ical linkages. Puzzling practices needed to be questioned in depth.Some of these practices and traditions included the Madonna, asvirgin and mother, being the queen of the city, having been givenits keys in 1260; that the wild, little regulated, competitive Palio race(a horse race) is dedicated to her; that the winning contrada becomesthe child of the city and by rights its members can display theirnew-found youthfulness by sucking dummies during their victoryparades. Although I cannot expand on this in this context, aspectsof fluid becoming presented by Deleuze and Guattari (1999) interms of becoming woman/child and becoming animal becamemore understandable and beautifully illustrated by the above,while giving evidence of the power of their framework to makesense of what could otherwise be seen as superstitious, quasi-pagantraditions, but are, in fact, signs of deep processes of connectivity,affective and intense dynamics.

What I found myself trying to present throughout my work wasa network of associations full of redundancies and exuberant non-linear relations. In such a wealth of material, I selected whataffected me by presenting me with questions, and what answersemerged are, by the very process of selection and representationinvolved in writing, interpretive and partial.

In terms of both a Bergsonian and Deleuzian ontology, it may bepossible to think of learning in terms of interpretation, based onphysiological and reflexive processes, which allow a new interpre-tation of reality, which is itself in a continuous process of transfor-mation. This can now be seen as discovering the tendency or“intention”, to use a Husserlian term, that is the relational qualitybelonging to the object of inquiry, given to it by its genetic condi-tions and its developmental history, which can only be sensed as“signs”, which puzzle and present a problem.

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It is through the interaction of these forces, from nature, ecolog-ical or environmental morphogenetic factors, developmentalfactors, in which history is profoundly implicated, that culturearises. The ontologies and epistemologies presented imply a natu-ralization of culture as well as a broader notion of unconsciousprocesses, as the quote given at the start of this chapter intimates. Iwill return to this later.

Methods

By examining the above theories, I have attempted to go back tovery basic issues. If research is the pursuit of learning, the processby which we acquire it has to be defined. The process of research isthe bringing into consciousness of what is around us and within us,often at least partially dulled by familiarity. We rely on a myriad ofassumptions all the time in order both to make sense of oursurroundings and to be capable of action within them. In myresearch, through engaging with empirical data and reflexive prac-tice, I have been stretched into areas of inquiry that have led inunexpected directions, but which have proved to be rich ground forstudy. The inclusion of reflexive data and processes proved centralto my inquiry. The use of my research diary, personal reflectionsand reminiscences, dream contents, and so on, formed the founda-tions of this reflexive method.

The implications for research methodology implied by thisanalysis are manifold. Accepting the frameworks outlined acknowl-edges a qualitative ontological aspect of reality, which makes the useof qualitative methodology a research imperative, rather than anoption. Working within these ontological assumptions also impliesa revaluation of the processes of synthesis as well as those of analy-sis. A natural capacity for synthesis is implied in Bergson’s imageof the “organic whole” formed by past and present “melting so tospeak into one another” (2001, p. 100). Synthesis underlies qualita-tive processes, both in their production and in our perception ofthem. This arises out of a process of letting ourselves live andforget, allowing memories and associations to emerge, rather thanbeing actively sought, while holding fast to questions, which, nonethe less, also need to remain open to re-elaboration. Reflexivity, in

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this light, is the attention of the mind to its own qualitative capa-city of synthesis on which the analytical capacity is brought to bear.This is also the area where triangulation (Denzin, 1978; Janesick,2000) between some of the methods, concepts, and theories ofpsychoanalysis, social theory as well as other fields of research, canopen areas of understanding of the interaction between individualsin groups and society:

By a system of cross-checking, following simultaneously severalmethods, each of which will lead only to possibilities or probabili-ties: by their mutual interplay the results will neutralize or reinforceone another, leading to reciprocal verification and correction.[Bergson, 1977, p. 274]

It is the interdependency of these areas that may form a complex,yet vital field of research able to bring new understanding to arange of social processes. A complex “assemblage” is createdbetween researcher, researched reality, theory, methods, and thereader.

What follows from this perspective is also more specificallyrelated to some very well established axioms of method: fieldwork,as a living involvement in research as established in ethnographicpractice (see Burgess, 1984; Coffey, 1999; Hammersley, 1972; Ham-mersley & Atkinson, 1983; among others) can be viewed as essen-tial; the adoption of an emergent paradigm such as Glaser andStrauss’s (1967) “grounded theory” can be viewed as honouring theprinciples of “without memory or desire”; the use of unstructuredor long interviews (Burgess, 1982; Clarke, 2002; Hollway andJefferson, 2000) becomes an important part of allowing those wholive the reality to be researched not only to give it expression, butto provide us with the puzzles that might take us further andmaybe help to identify and evidence the tensions and issues thatmight be shaping their reality. Taking note of our own responses is,as I have argued, a fundamental part of the process, for which ideasand practices from psychoanalysis become extremely relevant, ifnot an indispensable addition. What Bergson and Deleuze’s frame-works offer, in addition, is a way of thinking about groups andsociety in terms of a duality of process, i.e., static and dynamicprocesses, rather than of body and mind. Affect and the virtual are

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foundational concepts for the dynamic aspects, which are non-linear and pre-representational, unconscious, yet powerfully affect-ing of the realities they are implicated in creating. While, bydefinition, they are hard to represent and work with, the effort is,in my experience, well worth it.

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CHAPTER FOUR

When words are not enough

Julian Manley

Introduction

This chapter postulates the importance of developing amethodology that allows visual imagery to emerge as aresearch tool in the field of psycho-social research. I begin by

discussing the philosophical background that encouraged rele-gating the use of the image in research. I link our emphasis onlinguistics to Descartes and trace the growth of an alternativephilosophy—that would give greater space and breadth to otherforms of thinking—to Spinoza. Spinozian thinking, I suggest, isrevived and re-embodied in Deleuze, particularly his concept of“affect”, borrowed and developed from Spinoza. I then discuss how “affect” is related to image-making by considering some of the concepts of memory, time, and duration of another of Deleuze’sphilosophical mentors, Henri Bergson. In talking about image, I will be pondering the extent of its usefulness in the kind ofqualitative research that is typical of psycho-social work, that is tosay, work that demands an attitude of reflexivity and an under-standing of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in the researcher. Thisis work that takes emotions, their projections, transferences, and

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countertransferences seriously. My theoretical discussion then leadsme to consider the practice of working with images in group work.Finally, I discuss the usefulness of applying techniques of imageanalysis to group work and suggest that this could be developedinto a way of working that can be defined as “psycho-social” andsubsequently used in a research context.

Philosophical background

For Descartes, in the seventeenth century, the thinking process itselfwas reduced to the action of the brain as a disembodied organ.Rational thought expressed through the “thinking” logic of writingor numbers was part of what it meant to be human. This led to thesweeping aside of the importance and value of a wider, moreembracing attitude to existence, which might have included, forexample, emotion and feeling as part of an “embodied mind” andas legitimate ways of “thinking”. Cartesian thought leads us to con-clude that it is the content of things that matters, what can be seen,identified, and classified, rather than the processes. The idea that wemight think using processes that were not founded in the thinkingbrain was not, and has not been, generally acceptable as science.Perhaps such “processes” could only be admitted in the expressionof the creative arts, that is to say, in the “unscientific” world. Con-cepts of duality and linearity became accepted as necessary truthsin our understanding of the world.

We now know that a Cartesian attitude to understanding howpeople think is a little limited. Approaches in psycho-social think-ing help us to break out of this Cartesian mould and the key to thisnew openness is in the “psycho” part of our compound word. ForFoucault, and I believe this to be a very telling declaration, thearrival of psychology changed all Durkheimian style social think-ing forever:

. . . one can say that, starting with Freud, all the human sciencesbecame, in one way or another, sciences of the psyche. And the oldrealism à la Emile Durkheim—conceiving of society as a substancein opposition to the individual who is also a kind of substanceincorporated into society—appears to me to be unthinkable now . . . all there is now, basically, is psychology. [Foucault, 1998, p. 252]

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The alternative to Cartesian thought was incarnated in thefigure of his contemporary rival, Baruch Spinoza. The essentialdifference that interests me here is Spinoza’s awareness that think-ing could not be reduced to the bare logics of a rational brain. Herecognized that there was more to human behaviour than could besummarized by Cartesian approaches. Key to Spinoza’s ideas washis concept of “affectus”, or “affect”, which has been given a specialrelevance today in the work of Gilles Deleuze. If we accept the ideaof “affect” in its Spinozian and Deleuzian sense, then we are someway forward in our understanding of how psycho-social researchfunctions. So what is “affect”?

“Affect” is a term that has acquired a sense of complexity largelydue to a conceptual difficulty in translation. Deleuze uses the term“affect” from the Spinozian use of the Latin word “affectus”.Spinoza, who wrote The Ethics in Latin, uses a word that has nodirect translation into English, although it is usually translated as“emotion”. This is how Samuel Shirley, the translator of one of themore recent editions of The Ethics, puts it:

Emotion (affectus). This is the usual translation of “affectus”, andthe translator had best retain it in default of a more accurate term.It certainly seems odd to speak of “the emotion of desire”, and thisis sufficient indication that “affectus” is not quite the equivalent ofour “emotion”. [Spinoza, 1992, p. 28]

The best definition of “affectus” is, naturally, Spinoza’s own:

By emotion (affectus) I understand the affections of the body bywhich the body’s power of activity is increased or diminished,assisted or checked, together with the ideas of these affections.

Thus if we can be the adequate cause of one of these affections, thenby emotion I understand activity, otherwise passivity. (III, def. 3)[ibid., p. 103]

The essential nature of “affectus” in Spinoza’s definition is first, that it combines body and mind, rather than separating them inCartesian fashion, and second, it is always in activity. This is theway Deleuze understands and therefore adopts the term “affect”. InDeleuze, the idea of “affect” always being active, never passive, isconnected to the concept of “becoming”. Affect is always in a state

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WHEN WORDS ARE NOT ENOUGH 81


of becoming, always in transition between other states that may bepassive; that is to say, our images are always “becoming” affects, intransformation and conjunction with the mind. Affect does not“belong” to either the subject or the exterior world; it is a thing initself. In Deleuze’s words:

Affects are no longer feelings or affections; they go beyond thestrength of those who undergo them. Sensations, percepts, andaffects are beings whose validity lies in themselves and exceeds anylived. [Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 164, original italics]

Later, Deleuze defines affects as “nonhuman becomings of man” (ibid.,p. 169, orignal italics) and gives an example from Moby Dick:

Ahab really does have perceptions of the sea, but only because hehas entered into a relationship with Moby Dick that makes him abecoming-whale and forms a compound of sensations that nolonger needs anyone: ocean. [ibid.]

Affect, then, has a space and a duration:

It is a zone of indetermination, of indiscernability, as if things,beasts, and persons (Ahab and Moby Dick . . .) endlessly reach thatpoint that immediately precedes their natural differentiation. Thisis what is called an affect. [ibid., p. 173, original italics]

The reason this is so essential to contemporary thought is that theidea of affect requires an understanding of a holistic space and timethat indissolubly connects what otherwise would be Cartesiandualities. This connection is a “process”, thus, the emphasis onactivity, action, and transition, rather than “content”, with its corre-sponding inactivity, passivity, and stasis.

What, then, does this mean for the researcher in the area of thepsycho-social? In the first place, understanding any social data, inwhatever form that data takes, can be better understood as data ofprocess rather than content. If affect is truly a definition of an essen-tial function of how the individual think-feels in relation to herenvironment, and if this can only be perceived in movement, assuggested above, then we can never properly analyse the content ofdata without taking into account the constantly changing andmulti-layered, moving aspect of that data. This is why Clarke, forexample, suggests a methodology for data collection using open

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interviews that reduces the importance of classification of data intocontent by taking away intervention and interpretation and encour-aging free association. The word often used to describe this processis “story telling” or “narrative”. In Clarke’s words, a psycho-socialapproach to this kind of data collection might consist of:

First, the use of unstructured interviews; second, a minimum ofintervention from the researcher; the ethos behind this is to encour-age free association which allows unconscious ideas to come to thefore; third—and most important—as we are not psychoanalysts,psychoanalytical interpretation does not take place in the interview,but in the analysis of the data collected. Finally, the interviews aretranscribed in great detail which allows researchers to “immerse”themselves in the interview material. [Clarke, 2002, p. 174]

It seems to me that the real problem that psycho-social researchhas to face is in the moment after Clarke’s final sentence above, the“now what?” moment. The “immersion” into the material leads toa welter of images, as Clarke notes in quoting Hollway andJefferson:

After a whole day working on the transcripts of a particular partici-pant we would feel inhabited by that person in the sense that ourimagination was full of him or her. The impact such work had is bestdemonstrated by the fact that the interviewees would appear in ourdreams and waking fantasies . . . [quoted in Clarke, 2002, p. 179]

Clarke then goes on to discuss how projective identification canbe used to interpret data. My concern here, however, is whathappens to the images that Hollway and Jefferson identify as beingso powerfully present during the process of data analysis? Whereare these images? What value do they have? Can they be relevantto our research? These are all difficult questions. As for the locationof the images (that Hollway and Jefferson suggest are in the uncon-scious: “The process of dreaming about them suggests that ourdeveloping insights into a person were not occurring just at aconscious level” [quoted in Clarke, 2002, p.179]), it seems to me thatwe need to understand that images exist in a holistic sense, i.e., notjust in some “unconscious” part of our brain. Their value as dataand evidence rather than their mere intrinsic value depends on

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agreed criteria related to values of subjectivity. This agreement incriteria is an attitudinal consensus among all concerned: subject(s)of enquiry, researcher(s), and reader(s). In this case, the necessaryconsensus is openly acknowledged, whereas in the case of “objec-tive” data the consensus is hidden by the illusion of objectivity. Thequestion of relevance must be understood in a human and organicsense; that is to say, if our object of enquiry is “social” and if“social” is about human systems, then whatever emerges in thecourse of any interchange, including, for example, the open inter-view, must be considered relevant.

By “understanding the image in a holistic sense”, I mean, following the concept of “affect” already discussed above, that thecreation of an image is a process of constant interchange with ourhuman and physical environment. It does not just pop out of ourbrains. In Deleuze’s example above, a connection with the environ-ment is expressed in “nonhuman becomings of man”. In the case ofMoby Dick, Deleuze shows how Ahab’s obsession with Moby Dickbecomes an image that fuses Ahab with the whale (“becoming-whale”) and the sensation of loneliness that results from thisbecomes the image of the ocean. In turn, the whale had “become”Ahab by previously having bitten off and eaten his leg. Thus, therationale for the whaling expedition, to hunt and kill whales for saleand profit, becomes, through the imagery, a study of obsession,revenge, sadness, and loneliness. In approaching the images in thisway, we can also see how an image is an affect and vice versa. It isthrough the image–affect in Moby Dick that we can understand theall-important overriding emotions that drive human motivationand desire. It is my contention that the tapping of this resource canlead us to a greater understanding of information garnered fromdifferent methodological strands of psycho-social research.

In the first place, we need to understand the relationshipbetween language and image. Image, for Deleuze, had to be morethan the “pure” perception that he identified with what he under-stood as the limits of phenomenology. Although the latter acceptedintersubjectivity, it was limited to perception in space and tookinsufficient notice of the image in time, which for Bergson, Deleuze,and Foucault was essential as a means of understanding truesubjectivity, since the subject is forever moving in time. In otherwords, an image cannot be “pure”. Even a still image moves

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through time in our thinking minds. So, subjective knowledge hasa constant role to play in the interchanges between perceiver andperceived. This accounts for Deleuze’s praise for Foucault’s workon Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”, the picture of a pipecombined with the words denying the very existence of the imagewe “see”:

This is Foucault’s major achievement: the conversion of phenome-nology into epistemology. For seeing and speaking means knowing(savoir), but we do not see what we speak about, nor do we speakabout what we see; and when we see a pipe we shall always say (inone way or another): “this is not a pipe”, as though intentionalitydenied itself, and collapsed into itself. Everything is knowledge . . .[Deleuze, 1999, p. 90]

The image–affect, therefore, is only available to us in movement intime and it only becomes embodied through knowledge. InDeleuze’s words, the three conditions of embodiment are:

First, there is affectivity, which assumes that the body is somethingother than a mathematical point and which gives it volume inspace. Next, it is the recollections of memory that link the instantsto each other and interpolate the past to the present. Finally, it ismemory again in another form, in the form of a contraction ofmatter that makes the quality appear. (It is therefore memory thatmakes the body something other than instantaneous and gives it aduration in time.) We are consequently in the presence of a newline, that of subjectivity, on which affectivity, recollection-memory,and contraction-memory are ranged: these terms may be said todiffer in kind from those of the preceding line (perception–object–matter). [Deleuze, 1991, pp. 25–26]

These Bergsonian concepts of memory can only exist as affects inassociation with images. Memory, like the image, can never be“pure”. When it is brought to bear upon the present, it must becreated in a sensorial image:

Memory actualised in an image differs, then, profoundly from purememory. The image is a present state, and its sole share in the pastis the memory from which it arose. Memory, on the contrary,powerless as long as it remains without utility, is pure from all

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admixture of sensation, is without attachment to the present, andis, consequently, unextended. [Bergson, 2002, p. 129]

That is to say, first, memory has no meaning without image andsecond, speech can only be the expression of subjective knowledgeengendered through a “memory image”. In Foucault “memory” isinextricably linked to knowledge, which he described as “archaeol-ogy”, stratum of knowledge through time in memory. The impor-tance of all this to the researcher is the value it gives and the depthof reflexivity it implies as necessary for a full and proper under-standing of what happens to us, our feelings, senses, thoughts, andperceptions, as we work with image–affects that emerge in thecourse of our research.

Working with image–affects requires a deeply honed “intuition”on the part of the researcher because the image–affects are by definition illogical, “difference” as opposed to “repetition”, inDeleuzian terms. For example, the affect of “awe” produced by the“sublime” is caused by what Deleuze calls “discordant harmony”:

. . . the harmony between the faculties can appear only in the formof a discordant harmony, since each communicates to the otheronly the violence which confronts it with its own difference and itsdivergence from others. [Deleuze, 2004, p. 183]

I would say that the affect of “discordant harmony” produced byan unexpected combination of images is often a sign of truth in ourwork.

This leads me to a case study that demonstrates the use of“discordant” image–affects in group dynamics. By tracking thisprocess in context of a group relations conference, I mean to showhow such an understanding might be applied to the gathering andinterpretation of data in psycho-social research.

Case study

The context for this illustration of theory into practice is a week-long residential group relations conference in Spain, 2004, where myrole was that of a consultant member of staff. In these conferencesit is normal to offer the participants an opportunity to experience

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their interactions in different group settings, one of which is the“small” group or “system”, consisting of 8–12 members. I haveselected developments in a Small Study System. All names havebeen changed, and any details and references that are not essentialto my analysis have been omitted.

In this discussion, I will be analysing how a conference partici-pant, James, was enabled, through the experience of working in asmall group, to communicate what had been unknown to himconsciously. What was known in his unconscious, but unspeakable,was reconstructed in the images arising from the interactions of thegroup. All the communication, until the final statement, was sub-liminal, below the surface and unspoken. I will be showing how theaccumulation of images in inter-group exchanges made it possiblefor feelings to crystallize into images that could not be expressed inwords. I examine the process of emergence until the final verbalcommunication at the end of the session. The understanding ofthese processes shows how the attitude of the consultant–researchercan be adapted to allow for the emergence of visual imagery as aform of communication from the unconscious which would other-wise not have emerged and been lost.

James’ use of unconscious imagery

James was a particularly taciturn member of the group. He neversmiled. He would spend most of the time in absolute silence and barelymoving, hardly looking up. He made his first comments in the SmallGroup event on the Wednesday, having remained completely silent onMonday and Tuesday, the first two days of the conference week. Thesecomments emerged in the light of the discussions revolving around thequestion of cultural identities: he said he wanted to make what was forhim a “personal and profound” statement. He went on to explain thathe felt he was just beginning to give importance to his Catalan origins,which he had never done before. This intervention happened just afteranother member of the group had opened a window, complaining thatthe room was stuffy. It was as if the opening of the window had some-how opened out an opportunity for James to speak. In Deleuzian terms,James was “becoming window”, opening up a possibility of affect inJames, but in conjunction with the group as a whole personified by themember who had opened the window. The action of opening thewindow became an image. The group connection in this respect was

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made clear immediately following his comment, when another memberof the group pointed out how the Incas had been destroyed by the inva-sion of another country’s “civilization” (just as, in this context, James’Catalan origins had been “destroyed” by Spain). These three events,the opening of the window, James’ intervention, and the final histori-cal observation were left at that, undeveloped and, in a sense, appar-ently relatively meaningless in terms of dialogue and conversationalinterchange. It felt memorable, partly because it was an unusualmoment of participation from James, partly because the physical actionof opening the window seemed to be a break from the norm, but it wasdifficult to make much of it at the time. Nothing much was actuallybeing said, as it were.

James then lapsed back into silence again, but the next day he came intothe room wearing a T-shirt bearing the words “Charlie don’t surf” and,below that, “Heart of Darkness”. In the course of the group interac-tions, I suggested that James was carrying something on behalf of thegroup that the group did not want to acknowledge, and thereforeJames was in danger of being excluded. I drew attention to the words“Heart of Darkness” which is the title of Joseph Conrad’s book aboutthe simultaneously physical and psychological European invasion ofAfrican culture in the late nineteenth century. A conversation ensued,directed towards James, about the meaning of these words and theirassociation with the film Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’sfamous film about the Vietnam war released in 1979, inspired byConrad’s novel. Talking about the images from the film facilitatedJames’ participation. He was now able to talk about the unbearablenature of Apocalypse Now, but without any sense of detail or analysis.Despite being unable to speak in any depth about the film, Jamesrevealed that he had seen it about fifteen times. The film, of course, isabout one country’s invasion of another culture, a conference theme,but this fact was not openly discussed. The link between the destruc-tion of the Incas and the film must have been in people’s minds,however. Despite this, James was unable to express much more thanthe fact that this was his favourite film and how profoundly disturbingit was to him. The reasons for having repeatedly viewed the film andfor calling it “disturbing” remained unspoken. This fact, combinedwith James’ lack of developed conversation and the additional raritythat he had actually participated at all, left the group slightly dazed anddisturbed, and none the wiser in terms of verbal communication. Onceagain, we were left with images and a feeling, and a sensation thatnothing was actually being said. What had emerged, however, werepowerful film images in people’s minds of invasion, death, and

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destruction, all linked to images of black hearts and the connectionsthat must have been made between images of the heart and feelings oflove and hate, most of this, however, unsaid. There had been a power-ful communication in the group, but this had been subliminal.

The following day I arrived punctually, as usual, and the door wasshut. This was unusual, since the custom until then had been to leavethe door open for the consultant to shut. I entered, to find that all butthree of the members had moved the chairs around the room and weresitting on the floor or standing up. Someone was standing next to thewindow, directly opposite to where I sat down. James was sittingpolitely in a chair. The invasion, death, and destruction of the daybefore was being played out in a stage setting fashion in the room atthat moment. The conference had been “invaded”, the norms“destroyed”, and I, in my consultant role, had been “killed”. We couldsee and feel this wordlessly. After a certain amount of excitement atthis “rebellion”, one of the members, an Englishman, came and satdown next to James. Both were sitting with their legs wide apart. Itlooked as if they were about to give birth. The “womb” of the circle ofchairs and its containment had dissolved, but a new “birth” was to takeplace. As all this action was being played out, like a kind of humantableau, in silence and with the previous day’s images well in mind, Iwas reminded of Gordon Lawrence’s description of the social dream-ing matrix as being a place “from which something might be born”(Tatham, 2002, p. 77). There was nobody in front of James, but anothermember of the group was sitting on the floor between the Englishmember’s legs. This member had previously had a dream about fight-ing and replacing the conference Director. It was as if my “rival”, theother Englishman, was giving birth to a new and better Director, whilehe himself was a new and better consultant. The group debatedverbally and at length about their rebellion in a rational and logicalfashion in a debate that seemed to be killing time (the pros and cons ofsitting on the floor and other trivia in a basic assumption fight/flightfashion, to use Bion’s language), and the excitement finally died down.This was the last session, and a feeling of loss, stillness, and silencepervaded the room. So much talk had fizzled to nothing. With only tenminutes to go, and having remained silent throughout, James made hiscontribution—he “gave birth”—along the following lines: “I feel I needto share something with the group. It’s something I thought I had over-come but I see now that I haven’t. I don’t want this to finish withouttelling you. I don’t know who my biological parents are. I’ve neverknown . . .” The sense of simultaneous shock and relief, a feeling remi-niscent of Deleuze’s “discordant harmony” (Deleuze, 2004, p. 183), was

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palpable in the room. The irrational and the unconscious that beforehad been only partly visible in the evocation of images had material-ized and become part of the group’s conscious experience. The rationalwas challenged. How could you not know your parents? And where,but hidden and locked away in the unconscious, could you store thissecret? And what verbal communication can express the intensity ofsadness, loneliness, and loss of identity that this fact contained? Thesefeelings were communicated and comprehended through group empa-thy and compassion with the speaker. At this moment, and in thiscontext, the group felt and understood something similar to the mean-ing and affect of Kurtz’s last words in Heart of Darkness and ApocalypseNow, words which are unclear and ambiguous in the context of boththe novel and the film considered in isolation: “The horror! Thehorror!” More was felt and understood than had been spoken. For amoment, everyone was James, and this accounted for the feeling ofrelief. He had finally managed to verbally articulate an affect that hehad not been able to express until then. He had been enabled to do itby participation in group imaging, which had built up a collage of theunconscious from which the conscious could be built: the symbols ofthe heart, the darkness, the breaking of the containment to be replacedby the new birth, the images of the destruction of identities andcultures in Apocalypse Now and in the conference theme of identityconflicts. The group had contained James’ pain until it had maturedinto a new birth and provided the symbolic, dream-like pattern ofcommunication to bring out this truth. In doing so, James’ truth alsobecame the group’s truth, the truth of being alone, of the fragility ofidentity, of individual dependence on relationships with others todefine our identities, of the dangers of identities being invaded andreplaced with other identities. In being involved in this group relationsconference, the members had begun to perceive their multiple sharedunconscious identities through working with images.

James: the imagery after the conference

After the conference had actually ended, we said our goodbyes. As Ihad already said goodbye to James and many others, I was taking amoment for myself, when James came up to me once more and said,“You know, I’ve got a good name for you. You know what I callyou?”, to which I could think of no reply. He then said, “You are theSilver Surfer.” I was quite taken aback by this enigmatic commentand still could hardly think of a decent reply, except to thank him for

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what I interpreted as a compliment, after which James left. I had noidea what he was talking about, but felt struck that he should havebeen impelled to tell me this. I also felt I had been as inarticulate ashe had been before, as if, through projection, James was making mefeel the same as he had felt within the boundaries of the conference.

Back home, reflecting upon the conference, I remembered the“Silver Surfer” comment and the feeling of projection that had gonewith the naming. I was also reminded that James’ Heart of DarknessT-shirt had also borne the words “Charlie don’t surf”, so that I wasleft with the projected feeling and various images of surfers, surf-boards, war, apocalypse, and madness, images from the conferenceand new images, too. I had no idea what these things meant in arational sense. I could not put any words to this collage of picturesand emotions. Actually, that had been one of the reasons for focus-ing on the words “Heart of Darkness” in the group work that I hadjust experienced. I felt in a similar situation to that described byHollway and Jefferson above, full of dreams and images and withthe sensation of James as a projection within me. From a researcher’spoint of view, one of my questions now is “when does the workfinish”? It seems to me that in psycho-social research the work doesnot finish at the moment of “data collection” (in this case the confer-ence), or immediately afterwards (in this case, immediately after theconference), but continues for as long as the processes informing theresearcher are in movement. Since we are talking about unconsciousprocesses made relevant through the researcher’s abilities, know-ledge, and experience, each research process will take an undefinedand undefinable time to mature and make sense. This is when werealize that subjectivity and intersubjectivity continue to be impor-tant. The researcher needs to give time and space for the uncon-scious to evolve and emerge in its meaning, and this is a subjectivedecision. In the case in question, I feel it was intersubjective, too, inthe sense that I still felt James’s projection inside me long after theconference was over.

The continued process of emergence and meaning

Further research revealed that the Silver Surfer is a Marvel comiccharacter and that “Charlie don’t surf” is a quotation from the filmApocalypse Now. They appeared to have nothing in common except

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the word “surf”. So who was the Silver Surfer? Here is a summaryadapted from Marvel comics:

The Silver Surfer was created by Galactus, the “Devourer ofWorlds”. One day, Galactus came to a planet called Zenn-La. Herequired the planet’s energies. The planet was populated by scien-tists who had forgotten how to fight. One of these scientists, NorrinRadd, spoke up in defence of his world, to which Galactus res-ponded by striking a bargain: he would spare Zenn-La if NorrinRadd agreed to serve as his cosmic servant, seeking out worldswhich suited Galactus’ needs. Radd was transformed for thispurpose and was created by using an adolescent fantasy from hisown mind. “Norrin Radd had surrendered his identity, his homeand his love in order to save his people. He was no more. Hebecame the SILVER SURFER.” Galactus created a supernatural boardfor him, which obeyed his every thought. The Silver Surfer servedGalactus in this way until he came across the Earth. There, theSilver Surfer learned compassion from a human being and he triedto disobey Galactus and save the Earth, just as he had once savedZenn-La. Although the Silver Surfer was weak compared to Galac-tus, he was helped by the Fantastic Four and a doomsday weaponknown as the Ultimate Nullifier, and Galactus was forced to leave.Before leaving, Galactus stripped the Silver Surfer of his title andplaced a barrier around the Earth to leave him there, marooned. Heremained trapped there for years, ever hopeful of returning tospace and soaring among the stars again. Eventually, he escaped.Galactus pardoned him and removed the barrier forever. [Adaptedfrom www.marvelite.prohosting.com/surfer/origin]

What do we learn from the words “Charlie don’t surf”? Here isthe incident during which these words are heard in Apocalypse Now:

During the Vietnam war, Captain Willard is sent on a specialmission up river to assassinate fellow soldier Colonel Kurtz, who issuspected of having lost his mind and is using his personalcharisma to lead his own band of people, out of touch and out ofcontrol of the US Army. On the way, Captain Willard comes acrossColonel Kilgore, who is to escort him to the start of the river.Kilgore himself is none too sane. A keen surfer, he decides to attacka difficult enemy position (from where Willard would be able tobegin his journey), largely because it would be possible to do somesurfing there. When a soldier warns Kilgore that this is a difficult

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enemy position to attack, Kilgore replies, “Charlie don’t surf!”“Charlie” is US soldier slang for the Viet Cong enemy. The soldiersboard the helicopters with their surfboards and go to battle. As thebattle rages, Kilgore orders some of the soldiers to take advantageof the waves and go surfing. When the soldiers point out that thebattle is still being fought, Kilgore replies, “You either surf orfight!” So, the soldiers get changed and start surfing as the bomb-ing and shooting continues. Even while the fighting persists,Willard takes the first opportunity he has to leave up river, and hesteals Kilgore’s surfboard and takes it with him! He does this tospite Kilgore. Symbolically, of course, he is taking away Kilgore’sidentity as an American. Mortified, Kilgore sends a helicopter upriver, pleading with Willard to return the board.

What we are left with now are a series of images, concepts, andassociations floating in the air, rather like a dream or a memory ofa dream. It seems to me that James had worn the T-shirt as a wayof communicating his affect, which resonated with the collage ofimagery that had been gathered together during the course of theconference. He had not intended to purposely create a feeling ofdream; he had not deliberately brought in powerful images for thepurpose of stimulating free association. He was impelled tocommunicate in this way partly because he was so limited in theusual socializing skills.

What James could not express verbally, he was expressingsymbolically along the following lines. In the Silver Surfer, we haveimages of transformation (Norrin Radd is transformed into the SilverSurfer to save Zenn-La and subsequently is transformed fromGalactus’s faithful servant to the saviour of the Earth, through theunderstanding of compassion). We have the images of the weak fight-ing the strong, of good fighting evil. We have the ideas of punishmentand redemption, of imprisonment and freedom, of the earthly and thecosmic.

The surfing image itself, which links the T-shirt and the SilverSurfer, is connected to youth and freedom, the American way oflife, counter-culture and the easy going permissiveness of the 1960s.In Apocalypse Now, the soldiers on Willard’s boat sing Beach Boys’songs. And, of course, today “surfing” is related to the internet. This is how one internet surfer enthusiast puts it: “. . . real surfersremain the masters of their own way of life and of their own way

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of speaking. Surfing still remains a counter culture in a way, inso-far as new expressions are constantly created” (www.blackmagic.com/ses/surf/papers/surfing).

“Surfing culture”, then, actually has the power to create newexpressions and ways of communicating. In his own way, this iswhat James was doing.

In the scene from Apocalypse Now, we have surfing representingthe image of the American way of life invading and stamping itselfon foreign culture, and we are reminded of one of the main themesof the conference, that of invasion of culture and loss of identity. Atthe same time, we are presented with powerful images of violenceand madness.

Using images, James was able, in the context of the group, toweave a web of meaning that he would otherwise have been inca-pable of articulating. Expressed verbally, his message might havebeen something like the following:

“I admit and understand that my identity is lost. I have noparents and I don’t know if my Catalan origins really count. Thishas trapped me. I often feel threatened and enclosed or imprisoned.I do, however, live in hope. I reject violence. I know that violence isa way to madness. I feel that one day I will be able to break out ofthis prison and find myself and my identity. Maybe this processbegins here and now.”

In reaching this conclusion, James had identified the consultantwith the Silver Surfer, a mediator between the “apocalypse now”(Galactus) and humanity (the Earth under threat), a mediationmade possible through compassion (of the group), representing thepossibility of defeating the horror (of Galactus’s destruction).Defeating the apocalypse is possible through a combination of thiscompassion and the will to succeed with the help and understand-ing of other humans (the Fantastic Four, or, in the conference, theSmall Group members). The consultant “surfs” the Small Groupinteractions, which flow like waves. The instruction “Don’t surf” isan incitement for the consultant to allow the waves to break, tounearth what is below the surface. In Spanish, mojarse (literally “toget wet”) means to commit yourself to something and this could berelated to the idea of coming off the surfboard, “getting wet”, andrevealing what is hidden in the depths.

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Emerging into social

A point arising from the above is the important idea that James’experience, and that of the consultant and the Small Group, is notjust an isolated or peculiar “happening” exclusive to a particularsituation and set of circumstances. Rather, this mode of communi-cation is part of our daily existence, maybe even more emphaticallyso today, and, as such, can be an important element in psycho-socialresearch.

Psycho-social research in today’s complex world needs to inter-pret communication on many different levels and with ever increas-ing sophistication. The growing “multiverse” of our twenty-firstcentury

plunges the individual into a collective sea that erodes the barrierbetween human agency and the surrounding environment. In thisworld . . . objects are organized according to symbolic resemblancesand the rhetoric of dream rather than the dry and objective classi-fications that pack scientific texts or corporate reports. [Davis, 1999,p. 174]

Resemblances, echoes, resonances, and roundabout links; dreams,images, associations, memories, and pictures: all of these—elementsof the unconscious and remains of the conscious—are an integralpart of communication today. James, we remember, had not justseen Apocalypse Now a couple of times, but about fifteen: the imageswere bound to remain in his mind through sheer exposure, andthey were, and are still, available to him, and to us, at the touch ofa button. The media machines of the world produced T-shirts forJames to wear. This T-shirt is not just an item of clothing. In James,it is even a reflection of the images in his mind. It is an unconsciouscommunication.

This way of perception of multi-images and their associatedaffects is a recent phenomenon. For James, “Heart of Darkness” and“Charlie don’t surf” were not really words. Rather, they wereimages and affects that actually replaced the word. They were actsof emotion without words. In the words of Francisco Varela, “Thevery act of encountering the world, the perception, is already intrin-sically emotionally shaped. There could not be a perception withoutan emotional component” (quoted in Goleman, 2004, p. 323).

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Conclusion

What is clear to me, reaching the end of this chapter, is that researchthat aims to understand meanings and the deeper “below-the-surface” reasons for human behaviour in our society should beworking towards:

● an acknowledgement of the existence of a shared multi-layeredcollage of images in the human unconscious;

● a greater understanding of how these unconscious images areintimately linked to our strongest emotions or “affects”;

● a way of including this knowledge in our research; and/or● new methodologies that allow for the assessment and evalua-

tion of affect in psycho-social research and studies in general.

One method that offers a way of working with dream imagesand with other images associated with or amplified from thosedream images in a group setting might be social dreaming andassociated techniques. The interpretation of James’ communicationwas largely enabled through my experiences in social dreaming.The essential difficulty that inhibits the development of a moreprofound method of research that can include working with imagesin this way is a problem of psycho-social research in general: towhat extent can empirical evidence be based on subjectivity? That“something is going on” when working with the more psychologi-cal aspects of psycho-social research is clear to the researcher, butthe problem of how to convert this subjective clarity into “objec-tive” evidence can still be an obstacle to progress.

This obstacle is partly a figment of our imagination clouded byprejudice, by an idea that words are somehow more “objective”than images. Our research discussion often tries to strip words ofany possible subjective, metaphorical content, as if the words of theresearcher could be more “objective” than those of the researched.However, as I have discussed elsewhere, “This . . . would be toignore the reality of our minds and the nature of language . . . Ourminds are not separate machines of rationality, where the experi-ence of the unconscious can be conveniently cut off”. Neither arewords themselves merely tools of rationality, but are often inextri-cably linked to images and image making, as Lacan pointed out inhis discussion of signifiers and the signified (Manley, 2003).

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To a certain extent, the difficulty is also partly a philosophical orattitudinal question. If we accept even partially a Spinozian orDeleuzian approach to humanity, then we have no choice but tofind a way of including working with images and affect as amethod of enquiry into what is happening “below the surface” inour society.

To do this, we need to develop an awareness of how we useimage–affects as defined by Bergson and Deleuze as discussedabove. By accessing affect through imagery, we are able to under-stand some of the hidden motivations in the way people think andact. This is one of the ways we can “research below the surface” and reach fuller and more mature understandings of how societyfunctions.

Endnote

In 2007, the film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, was released.This is interesting further evidence of how images are shared in asocietal sense. James’ images were also our images.

References

Bergson, H. (2002). Matter and memory. In: Key Writings (pp. 81–140).London: Continuum.


Davis, E. (1999). Techgnosis, Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age ofInformation. London: Serpent’s Tail.

Deleuze, G. (1991). Bergsonism. New York: Zone.Deleuze, G. (1999). Foucault. London: Continuum.Deleuze, G. (2004). Difference and Repetition. London: Continuum.Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is Philosophy? London: Verso.Foucault, M. (1998). Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 2,

Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology. London: Penguin.Goleman, D. (Ed.) (2004). Destructive Emotions and How We Can

Overcome Them. London: Bloomsbury.Manley, J. (2003). Metaphoric absurdity. A psychoanalytically informed

approach to text based research. Journal of Psycho-Social Studies, 2(1):Article 4, www.btinternet.com/~psycho_social/Vol2/V2.html.

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Spinoza, B. (1992). Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect andSelected Letters, S. Feldman (Ed.), S. Shirley (Trans.). Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett.

Tatham, P. (2002). Getting to the heart of the matter: a Jungian approachto social dreaming. In: A. Chesner & H. Hahn (Eds.), CreativeAdvances in Groupwork (pp. 67–84). London: Jessica Kingsley.

www.blackmagic.com/ses/surf/papers/surfingUSA.www.marvelite.prohosting.com/surfer/origin.

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PART II

THE DYNAMICS OF THE RESEARCH ENCOUNTER

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CHAPTER FIVE

Charting the clear waters and themurky depths

Phoebe Beedell

Introduction

Ibegan work on the ESRC project “Negotiating ethical dilemmasin contested communities” (Award No. RES-000–23–0127) inSeptember 2003. Perhaps rather naïvely, I did not realize the

extent to which this project was using and developing, in an exper-imental sense, a relatively new methodology. Later, I worked on asecond ESRC project, part of the Identities and Social Action Pro-gramme, entitled “Identities, educational choice and the whiteurban middle classes” (Award No. RES-148–25–0023), which had afar more sociological emphasis but which encompassed aspects ofthe psycho-social approach and to which I was able to bring to bearmy previous experience.

In hindsight, some of the anxieties and challenges I faced on theDilemmas project stemmed from our quest, as a team, to elucidateand refine the psycho-social method. On the Dilemmas project, notonly was I feeling my way with the participants, but also with themethod and dynamics of the team. At times, I felt there was a gapin the market for a “how to” manual for psycho-social researchers(now substantially filled by Finlay and Gough’s practical guide to

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reflexivity [2003]). My aim here is rather to offer the reader some-thing more akin to a travelogue through my own and others’ expe-riences: a collection of reflections on the obstacles, encumbrances,and occurrences encountered, in a “tell it how it is” explication ofpsycho-social researchers’ inescapable emotional engagement withtheir subjects and the consequences thereof.

My hope is that the title of this chapter conveys something ofthe nature of what lies ahead. In speaking about emotions and theinner world, I often find a watery metaphor appropriate for itsqualities of mutability and essentiality. In writing about the processof researching below the surface, my aim for this chapter is to revealthe process of navigating one’s way through the clear waters, whenthings appear to be going swimmingly and where the way forwardseems brightly apparent; the murky depths, when one’s vision hasbecome clouded, one’s touch is tentative, and one is compelled tostrain all the senses in order to perceive a path to follow or a wayout; and the areas of turbulence, where the internal machinations ofboth researcher and researched churn as they pass through externalrealities.

In nearly five years of working as a university research associateon a number of social inquiries, the most exciting and intriguingmoments of my working days have consisted of that still, quietinterval between knocking on someone’s door and the responsethese strangers offer upon their opening of that door. In these fewpregnant moments I have felt a number of emotions, primarilyanticipation, but also dread, trepidation, intrigue, complacency, andcuriosity. This is the final moment in which to prepare myself for thetask ahead of data gathering; the harvesting of opinions, perspec-tives, feelings; the garnering of contradictions, congruencies, andparadoxes. It is at this precise point, when one is confronted face-to-face with the research subject, whether invited into their home,workplace, or, indeed, inviting them into another assigned meetingplace, that the relationship between researcher and researched trulybegins. It is at this point that the person, whether an employee,contractor, student, or interested professional, literally steps overthe threshold and into their role as researcher to enact all theconcomitant constituents of that role as questioner, listener, reflector,interpreter, and analyst. One is also acutely aware of other, moreproblematic roles, such as influencer, judge, and juggler of emotions.

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What is thrilling (and it is a truism so obvious that its full extentis quite easily overlooked) is that one never really knows what willhappen next; to what extent these sub-roles will come into play andwith what ease or difficulty they will be employed, neither in thecourse of the interview, nor in the effect they will have on theresearch project nor on the researcher. It is this panoply of role-func-tions and the emotional demands of the miasma of identificationsand defences that it produces that I wish to explore. I will argue thatemotional engagement is both necessary and inescapable for thepsycho-social researcher, and that it can be both burdensome andbeneficial, both problem and solution, as Finlay notes (Finlay &Gough, 2003, p. 3), and to be mindful of this can better help in thepreparation, conduct, and management of psycho-social researchprojects.

Definitions and locations

First, let us discuss what is meant by the terms “emotional labour”,“emotional work”, and “emotional engagement” and how thesedescriptions relate to the job of the psycho-social researcher, andsketch out where these experiences might be located.

Emotional labour has been defined, classically, in Hochschild’s(1983) The Managed Heart as the requirement “to induce or suppressfeeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that producesthe proper state of mind in others” (p. 7). This assumes knowledgeof, and places a value on, what a “proper” state of mind might be(presenting the first of many interesting questions for the psycho-social researcher). At the heart of Hochschild’s emotional labour isa very instrumental and rationalized concept of suppressing theexpression of one’s own true feelings and acting (either deeply oron the surface) for the sake of achieving a given end. With a simi-lar rationale, but in an effort to focus on the relational nature ofemotional labour, other writers, such as Cook and Berger (2000) andKessler, Werner Wilson, Cook, and Berger (2000), draw on Erickson(1993) to describe emotional work as action “done in a consciouseffort to maintain the well-being of a relationship”. Both of theterms emotional labour and emotional work capture the instrumentaltask of the researcher in so far as we are required to extract, in oneway or another, rich and valuable data (exchange value) from the

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CHARTING THE CLEAR WATERS AND THE MURKY DEPTHS 103


research subjects and, certainly in the case of a planned series ofinterviews, to maintain a good enough relationship for this to takeplace (use value). Emotional engagement, on the other hand, is awider concept commonly used in conflict resolution and mediation,and relates to the broad acts of recognizing and acknowledgingemotional responses and investments as significant. Therefore, itcomes closer to encapsulating the work and labour of maintaining“proper states of mind” to create relationships with our researchsubjects that are characterized by trust and rapport; and recogniz-ing the emotional investments of both the researched and theresearcher in order that the task is undertaken in an ethically andscientifically feasible context.

One of the essential elements of Hollway and Jefferson’s (2000)psycho-social methodology is a recognition that anxiety is inherentin the human condition and, as such, capable of producing both adefended research subject and a defended researcher. However,emotional activity and the management of emotion not only takesplace in the encounter with research subjects, but can and does alsooccur in relationships within the research team, where it is en-meshed with our intellectual labours. It can also be felt and experi-enced at a distance from the research in post hoc re-evaluations ofourselves, our pasts, and our place in the world.

Such a wide remit is challenging, so it is no surprise that wemight find affinities with James’ description of emotional labour as“hard work [that] can be sorrowful and difficult. It demands thatthe labourer gives personal attention, which means they must givesomething of themselves, not just a formulaic response” (James,1998).

In the course of these two ESRC projects and others, I have inter-viewed thirteen public service workers up six times each, beginningwith a biographical narrative; forty-five middle class parents andtwenty of their teenage children; fifteen pensioners, older people,and community activists, again using biographical narrative butconfined only to a single occasion; and semi-structured curriculum-focused interviewing with a generous spattering of academic pro-fessionals. What I have experienced, in diving into this stream ofpsycho-social research, has been a personal as well as professionaljourney into the emotions. I have learnt as much about myself as Ihave about my subjects, and a good deal about academia too.

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If qualitative research is facing the challenge of being morereflexive, of developing a more relational research paradigm (Holl-way & Jefferson, 2000) then we must consider the internal world ofthe researcher and examine their emotions and the emotional toilthat goes into the gathering and processing of data. If this “givingsomething of ourselves” goes beyond the mere recognition andacknowledgement of emotional engagement, is there a cost, and isit also possible, or even desirable, to “take back” something for our-selves in a practice that enhances our capacity to explore our ownprocesses?

Emotional engagement in practice

When I began doing academic psycho-social research interviews, Iwas acutely aware of the need (as I perceived it then) to present asneutral an image of myself as possible. I tried to remove any obvi-ous signifiers of my personality or values from the equation.Gradually, as my confidence in my ability and experience as aninterviewer grew, I took less and less care over the process ofneutralizing my outward image and propping up the façade of theobjective interlocutor.

In seeking to build the genuine trust and rapport which enabledrespondents to reveal sometimes intensely personal informationabout their lives and psychological states, I came to realize that Ihad to present, react, and respond more like the real me, rather thanas the artifice of the clinically objective researcher I had imaginedwould do the job. I also had to come to terms with the fairlyconstant state of role-strain that this approach engendered, andwhich in itself was not totally unproblematic. The clues to my need-ing a more authentic approach were several, not least the uncer-tainties of respondents who often asked questions along the lines of“Is this what you want?” and “Are you really interested in all thisstuff?” I felt I had to convince them that yes, not only was I profes-sionally interested in the intimate details of their biographies, butthat by giving, or rather revealing, something of myself, I was alsoprepared to commit personally and emotionally to the endeavourin order to elicit the richness of their stories.

Fortunately, not all of the researchers’ emotional engagementsare of the negative kind. Like many of my colleagues, I have found

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joyous moments of discovery, good humour, and reinforcement ofour passionate connection with our projects among our experiencesof interviewing. One of my first research subjects turned out to bea “dream participant” of this order. He was charming andhospitable, open and talkative. He had a fascinating life story,which later featured in our publications, and, best of all for a novicesuch as I was, he had done a huge amount of the work already,having been in counselling and under professional supervision forsome time. In the fast flow of rich data accumulation, one can beswept along, as I was, by the current. I was undoubtedly seducedinto fantasies that I had at last found my vocation as a talentedinterviewer. This was an easy and enjoyable job and represents the“clear water” of our mission of exploration. Everything was trans-parent, he was accessible, co-operative, and the process was smoothrunning to the point of exhilaration. Often, after an interview withthis participant, I felt privileged, beguiled by the shared confi-dences and ease of interpretation, but I was also burdened by theirresolvable dilemmas and stresses they exposed.

Concurrently, and in stark contrast, I began a series of inter-views with a formidably experienced and academically activeyouth worker, senior to me in several respects, utilitarian in mannerand speech, and in whose presence I felt unsure of myself and wasoften flustered. The significance of minor, even trivial, details accu-mulated, and came to define the nature of our relationship. Nosmall talk, no tea offered, a scruffy, often noisy public room, hardchairs, always a table between us. Unlike other respondents, hemade it clear very early on that some areas of his life were com-pletely off-limits. According to my notes, “he doggedly avoids talkof his childhood or specifics about his parents”. A classic case of the“defended subject” referred to by Hollway and Jefferson, I reasonedat the time. Why, he asked, did I want to ask him about his father?How and why did I consider this as even potentially relevant? Notonly was he reluctant to talk about major events in his biography (akey aspect of our research), but he was also questioning the verymethodology I was adopting. Given the developing methodologi-cal nature of our project and my relative inexperience with it, it isno surprise that these kinds of questions made me anxious. Theuneasiness of the relationship was forcefully demonstrated when,after the third uncomfortable and unrewarding session with this

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participant, he challenged me in one of those the telling “hand onthe doorknob”, off-record exchanges. He commented on theinequalities of our relationship: “I’m giving you all this stuff and Iknow almost nothing about you.” It was obvious that he was tryingto find out who I was, where I was coming from, my disposition,perhaps even my predispositions: in short, my (Bourdieusian)habitus.

The Dilemmas research team began to think about the“defended researcher”, one who, by avoiding emotional engage-ment with any data that produces anxiety for the researcher, cutsoff the respondent’s opportunities for expression. With hindsight,my experience with this senior youth worker had revealed in myapproach another dimension of this “defended researcher”: one forwhom the research relationship, rather than any specific data in it,produces anxiety and forestalls the generation of any sense of inti-macy and trust between researcher and researched. In recognizingthe “transparent self” and “transparent account” problems in theresearch subject identified by Hollway and Jefferson (ibid.), wemight wish to call this a “transparent researcher problem”. Differ-ent interviewees demand different amounts of transparency, andthis is yet another variable one must prepare for.

Prompted by this episode, a long discussion within the researchteam ensued, covering issues of transference and our ethical stancethat indicated a strengthening of the maxim “empathy with bound-aries” as appropriate to work with. It was not the ethics, empathy,or boundaries that were obscuring my progress, but my sense ofauthority, of credence, or lack of it, with this particular interviewee.I made a conscious effort in subsequent sessions to “loosen up”,dropping hints as to my own history of community activism andsharing some of my own experiences of similar dilemmas with thisrespondent in order that he could position me as a “somebody” (acredible and knowledgeable researcher, I hoped) rather than anobscured “nobody”. While he did not go on to elaborate on his rela-tionship with either his late father or mother, this new approachand the fact that the series of interviews moved from biographicalnarrative to discussion of critical incidents contributed to a morerelaxed, equitable, and, eventually, highly productive relationship.

A similar episode took place while undertaking a later series ofinterviews with a woman with strong working-class roots, which

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again demonstrated the problematic nature of the interviewer’shabitus as perceived by the interviewee. After our first interview,she contacted me to say she felt uncomfortable with the research inso far as the research team were also interviewing a colleague ofhers. Her relationship with this colleague and her views about thiscolleague’s professionalism and approach were central to thedilemma she was experiencing and which we were examining. Iassured her of confidentiality, and informed her that we haddecided not to share the data between the two interviewers untilthe series was complete. She agreed to continue with the series,although her uneasiness remained.

At one point during the next interview, she asked me where Ilived. On answering honestly that I lived in a part of the city wellknown as the “posh” neighbourhood, I felt I was immediately posi-tioned, albeit understandably, as opposite to her in terms of oursocial class. It was a fairly obvious indication of the lack of trust inour relationship. I felt it was not enough to simply reiterate ourethical guidelines and assurances of confidentiality and anonymity,and, in subsequent encounters, as I had done with the youthworker, I felt compelled to “leak out” other parts of my own lifehistory in order to address the subjectivities of class and place thatwere interfering with our relationship. It is as if I had to ensure thatmy habitus, my dispositions and predispositions, conformed enoughwith that of the interviewee in order for them to place enough trustin me to proceed. It was a very difficult and fine line to tread, andnot only triggered ethical considerations of researcher influence,but also tapped into my past experiences of social positioning (aswe shall see later). The difference from the youth worker was thatrather than sharing something of myself of my own volition inorder to reduce my own anxieties, I felt compelled to give some-thing of myself in order to reduce her anxieties. The extent of mypersonal engagement with the interviewee was less controllableand more emotionally demanding. My speculations that a per-ceived dissonance in habitus had impaired the relationship with thefemale respondent were roundly confirmed at the end of the sixthand final interview when, after I had switched off the recorder,there was a remarkable change in the tone of our conversation. Thepost-interview small talk suddenly turned to the subject of therights and wrongs of the Iraq war (a subject which was receiving

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blanket coverage in the news media at the time and drawing newlines of division in the public realm). We quickly discovered ourviews were very similar and entered into perhaps the most ani-mated and frank discussion of the whole series of encounters. Quiteunexpectedly, by the end of the process, we had found a hithertoconcealed solidarity.

There are many other instances where the anxieties of position-ing can crop up both on the part of the researcher and theresearched, experiences where both participants in the encountervacillate between friend and foe. The work of managing the rela-tionship can also vacillate between researcher and researched in sofar as the latter is able to define the terms of engagement, while theformer not only has to follow (as in these cases), but also ultimatelyhas to take the responsibility for managing the relationship andkeeping it “proper”.

To approach the psycho-social interview as an “objective”researcher opens oneself up to, among others, questions of author-ity, credence, and integrity. In the very setting up of the interview,in the questions asked, or the location chosen, we may invite oursubjects to demonstrate their power or privilege. It is inherent inour work as researchers that we will meet different people with ahuge variety of life histories. For the reflexive researcher, it isinevitable that these life stories will be compared at some level toour own, both in their living and in their telling.

The Dilemmas research produced a paper that explored theroots of motivation and commitment to welfare (Hoggett, Beedell,Jimenez, Mayo, & Miller, 2006), which has much in common withthe roots of commitment and attachment to the research processthat we might find in ourselves. An experienced research colleagueexplained aspects of his motivation and reflexivity thus: “Fromquite early days, even doing A Levels, I was confronting argumentsand data that seemed to help make sense of my own surroundingsin ways that I didn’t think were possible, or that I didn’t thinkanyone bothered to do, and it’s a continual process. Here weresome tools to make sense of my own past . . . kind of ‘at last! hereare some tools!’ actually, because there were a lot of things thatreally troubled me”.

In ways such as this we are drawn to psycho-social inquirybecause of the “things that trouble us”, and we are required to be

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reflexive in order to chart the identifications and defences andmeasure the affinities or dissonances that we might feel. It is whenthe dissonances catch you off-guard, either in the moment or atsome distance, that one can be on the receiving end of a kind ofsociological slap in the face. As the previous researcher commented“research can do that when you least expect it”.

He relates an experience during his PhD research when inter-viewing a very high status academic. His suspicion that the inter-viewee was cynically and subtly ridiculing the interviewer wasconfirmed during the transcription process. He says the intervieweewas “taking the piss” and “having a laugh” and “I felt kind ofabused, by someone who should know better but who was power-ful enough not to care.” This experience of being toyed with, patro-nised, and humoured might be familiar to many researchers and isan important aspect of the interview process that requires, whetherwe like it or not, steadfastness and resilience in the researcher.

There were many other instances during both the ESRC projectsI was involved in when the interviews proceeded smoothly, pro-ducing the kinds of data we wanted and found valuable to thestudy. As my experience and confidence grew, these run-of-the-millcases became the stuff of my ordinary professional existence.Sometimes, I found it necessary to ask questions to which theanswer was both obvious and already known to both parties. Attimes like these, the assumptions of interviewees can lead theresearcher into a murky state of complacency and it is here,perhaps, that intuition—the sense of “knowing” without a clearknowledge—can play a role. One can be seduced by the ease withwhich a seemingly shared habitus contributes to fulsome and richdata, and only later, on immersion in the data, can one dissect themeanings and implications, some of which may be distasteful andaffronting. This happened in the research I undertook on the moti-vation of middle-class parents who had made a positive choice tosend their children to “under-performing” state schools. A particu-lar family were keen to be involved in the research and were inmany ways ideal and interesting interviewees, open and co-opera-tive, trusting and effusive. As I noted afterwards, while on thesurface we got on very well, seemingly sharing many commonunderstandings, I felt I had not warmed to them in any authenticway. Only on later analysis of the transcript did it become clear that

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their data encapsulated all the aspects of our research findings thatconflicted with the commitment to social justice in which theresearch team was rooted. Their espoused commitment to equalityof opportunity had been skilfully managed not only in their socialactions (which we were studying), but also in the interviewencounter, and I had to admit that to a great extent I had been“taken for a ride”. The strength and complexity of their inconsis-tencies made it an effort, later, to avoid the vilification of this familyby continually pointing to their data as an extreme example of theself-interested motivations we uncovered. It was also some comfortthat my “intuition” had proved well founded.

We can recognize that intuition here may have been used as areparative function in so far as it enabled me to reclaim that part ofmyself (committed to social justice) that I had “given up” by mycollusion in the construction of their (to me) distasteful reality. This“taking back” as a means of protecting or exploring one’s own selfcan be a hazardous and slippery slope, flying in the face of posi-tivist notions of objectivity, disassociation, and disconnection, but itis not necessarily in opposition to the task of seeking scientificknowledge and elucidation.

Bourdieu (1977) has argued against the reification of the distinc-tion between conscious and unconscious. From a Bourdieusianstance, it can be said that most people act (for want of a betterphrase) “semi-consciously” all the time. It is only when called uponby an interviewer that their reality appears more conscious than it is. During the interview, the interviewer has very little time to befully conscious of their own motivations and actions. One cananticipate one’s conscious reactions and/or come to an awarenessand understanding afterwards. The process of “coming to know-ledge” of one’s self in the interview is certainly not confined to theimmediate aftermath, or to the process of interpretation and analy-sis; it can also take place over a much longer period as one digeststhe research project’s content and implications.

Researchers are likely to feel visceral discomforts, particularlywhen one shares a certain habitus with the respondents, as thisexperienced researcher attests:

“I would kind of acknowledge, at some distance, that I would beuncomfortable if I were being asked those questions, but that also

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that told me it was the right question to ask. So I suppose that inthe actual practice of interviewing and then reading and dealingwith data, what I’m doing is using my own positioning and repo-sitioning as a sort of empathetic resource really. . . . Actually thediscomfort is neither here nor there really, it’s sort of secondaryissue and the main issue is that those positioning and reposition-ings and that history and experience functions as a sort of guide toknowing whether you’re asking questions that are pertinent orimportant . . . Also, I was asking questions because I knew [these]things were important to me.”

The “empathetic resource” produced by our emotional engage-ment enables us to use our own experience to propel the interviewalong, to explore the paths and contours of the researched person’sexperience, but we can also be swept into currents that are danger-ous in the pull they exert on the researcher’s emotions.

It is often easier to recognize and manage the emotional labourthat occurs when respondents reveal traumatic stories and events,or when the dissonance between the values and dispositions ofresearcher and researched is stark. A colleague remembers a power-fully disturbing occurrence of coming away from an interview andthinking “you bastard . . . you’re a racist, sexist git”. I, too, havesworn into my field notes, tired and burdened by the emotionaleffort, when the labour is visible. There are, of course, times whenthe labour is less visible and the use of oneself as an “empatheticresource” more tricky.

The Dilemmas team began to examine the cycle of influencebetween researcher and researched: the ebb and flow of emotional“heat”, or pressure, that is raised and released, sometimes beingallowed reach deep into visceral areas, depending on the courageand willingness of the people involved.

I can illustrate this with an example from an interview I did withEmily (not her real name). It was our first meeting and she had beenreferred to me by a colleague, so I had had very few prior dealingswith her apart from a very brief exchange of emails to make theappointment. For the first two-thirds of the interview, the route ofthe narrative was clear, and I had already begun to gently probeinto some contradictions and connections. I started to question heron her Buddhist faith, asking how her strongly atheist family res-ponded. As she explained how she and her partner came across Zen

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and found it at first challenging but also “transformational”, Iremember feeling a knot of ugly resentment and cynicism growingin me that was shouting out for my attention. Having recently comeout of a short and disturbing relationship with a devout Buddhistmyself, the interviewee had touched a raw nerve, and althoughalarm bells were already sounding in my head, I pushed her oninstead of simply accepting her evaluation. The last lines of herdescription of her conversion, the response of her family, and theeffect on her work reads:

Emily: . . . It has, you know, it has a big impact on my ability to copewith the job and things like that, I think.

PB: Mmm-hmm. In what way?

Emily: Being able to let go, that’s probably the biggest thing, I’d say.Not holding . . . I remember my last job when I was in [X], Ihad a nervous breakdown from stress, and you know, basicallystress, lots of other . . . various factors . . .

On the face of it, my interjection seemed entirely professional, evenpredictable, but this unexpected revelation took me aback and I hadjust a few moments to decide whether or not to continue furtheralong this road as she described her “horrible and frightening”experience. Like a mountaineer with the imperative to do it“because it’s there”, I carry on. I am careful to ask her, a couple oftimes, if it is all right to continue down this path, but as I read thetranscript it is as if I am actually asking the question of myself.Emily comes to some sort of conclusion to this story and thenbreaks the tension by noticing how hot the room is, and we bothmove to open a window before I return to the interview and changethe subject. The leader of the research team viewed this exchangeas an example of an undefended, courageous researcher, but, morethan that, I was conscious of wanting to explore the issues for myown satisfaction and was perhaps saved from myself by Emily’sdefences and my ability to take the hint.

Hollway and Jefferson (2000) assert the importance of using freeassociation, eschewing “intrusive questioning” (see also Bourdieu,1999, p. 208, on non-violent communication) but how might theresearcher define “intrusive”? My questioning of Emily, on closeexamination, was neither “too direct nor too concrete”, and stopped

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just short of pursuing “a specific researcher-defined problem”. Itdid “generate a more complex and multi-layered picture” as advo-cated (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000, p. 295) but I still feel ambivalentand slightly guilty about this episode, for it is the closest I havecome to selfish intrusion.

This task of “containing one’s self” was again troubling for mein regard to an interview I conducted as part of the School Choiceproject, but was made easier to manage because the challenge wasanticipated. From the outset I felt a special attachment to theproject. My parents were middle-class liberal intellectuals, and Imyself went to the same state comprehensive school from which asignificant number of our sample was drawn.

As the research project progressed, I interviewed, with greatfascination and anticipation, a number of white middle-class chil-dren attending these inner-city comprehensives, being aware ofhaving to “psych myself up” and almost ritually cleanse myself ofmy own historical perceptions of the schools and neighbourhoods.Interviewing Lowry (again, a pseudonym), I found myself on peri-lously familiar ground: an articulate and self assured seventeen-year-old who had attended the same school as me and whom Iknew, having interviewed her mother, had similar family values tomy own. As I listened to her and asked the required questions, Icould not help seeing a version of myself shifted thirty years intime, and my responses and tone began to reflect my own experi-ence. After some probing of how the children at her primary schooldiffered from those at her secondary school came this exchange:

PB: OK. So what was it like in terms of, well, I, I just wanted toask, what was the reaction of other kids towards you? Yousaid that some of them called you, y’know, thought you wereposh because you were . . .

Lowry: I was certainly, for the first few years, “posh” and “a keener”,meaning that I worked hard [laughs] basically. Um . . . I think,sort of, because I was coming from a very different back-ground, just, we didn’t know how to interact at all, on bothsides, so, like it took me ages to work out what you’resupposed to say when someone says “alrigh’?” to you![laughs]

PB: OK [laugh].

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L: [laughs] Which they just all did automatically! Um . . . so . . .

PB: That kind of “alrigh’”? [in local accent, joking]

L: Yeh, “Alrigh’?” “Alrigh’.” You just sort of reply the same[laugh] . . . um . . .

PB: Right, yeh.

L: So, I think mostly, it was just sort of feeling quite distanced,on both sides by . . . some . . . not really nameable difference.

PB: Yeah . . . And how did you feel about that? Was that a prob-lem for you? Or was it just . . . sort of interesting? Weird? Orwas it . . . isolating?

L: Um, it never sort of consciously upset me. It was really hard,um, because I was used to being . . . really quite normal, in . . . the circles I moved in. Um . . . [longish pause] I don’tknow. [laugh]

PB: OK, OK. I’m just wond . . . y’know, I’m just er . . . Did itchange your personality or the way that you acted?

L: Um . . .

PB: Were you, were you . . .

L: I definitely developed a school persona.

PB: Mmmm. Tell me about that.

L: [sigh] Oh . . . It was, just, a lot more closed off really. Um, I,did my best to hide the parts of me that were problematic forother people, sort of . . . very little, but to a certain extent, Iwould . . . restrain myself from . . . using . . . very . . . compli-cated vocabulary and, sort of, I would dress more to theirstandard, um, and, I think probably my accent did change abit, while I was there, to . . . fit in more, um, and, actually,once I left I realized that that whole thing . . . really stressedme out for the whole time. Just . . . the . . . letting go once Ileft, was great! [laugh]

PB: Mmmm. Mmmm.

L: So, that was quite hard work for five years! [laugh]

PB: Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm . . . OK.

L: . . . but not something I noticed while was there.

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My questioning of Lowry could be judged as intrusive orsuggestive, but it was also rooted in my knowledge of what, poten-tially, lay beneath. By recognizing my history and my self as aresource, the interview did indeed reveal some valuable complexi-ties of identity and social action. I have felt many things listeningand reading the accounts of respondents over the last few years, butLowry’s interview in particular has made me feel a great sense ofloss and sadness as the roots of my own feelings about positioningand repositionings have been exposed, and it is obvious that socialand educational systems continue to cast the same shadows overnew generations. It is perhaps not coincidental that the substance ofthe data produced refers to a reflexivity and management of the selfwith which I continue to identify!

Conclusion

Both psycho-social projects I have been involved in have investi-gated important areas for study but have not involved workingwith respondents in more obvious or absolute states of distress. Ihave not worked with refugees, prisoners, addicts, or other victims,and wonder how my psychic mechanisms might react in thesecircumstances. Would it be easier or more difficult? I suspect itwould be both: a journey of extremes. Psycho-social researchers,particularly the interviewers, experience a range of situations inwhich they are required not only to manage their emotions in aprofessional sense, but also to measure them, in every sense.

If we are to be the “invisible catalyst” (Hollway & Jefferson,2000, p. 36), the one who gives of themselves, how are we topreserve our selves? Where is the space for our “recognition” andvisibility? The psycho-social approach, perhaps uniquely of allmethodologies, recognizes the potential anxiety generated in theresearch encounter. If we are not to overemphasize or give exces-sive weight to the researcher’s subjectivity, then perhaps we need aspace for the safe “venting” of feelings and emotions generated bythis method.

Is it fair to ask the researcher to “contain” the pains of theresearched (ibid.)? I would prefer to call it a “holding”, for thisimplies a temporary containment and speaks more accurately of the

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task of the data-gatherer as conduit for emotions from subject toanalytical team than of the therapist, who is primarily the tool,often the container, of the subject and his or her emotions.

Would supervision of some kind, or simply a post-interview de-briefing, be sufficient for the recognition of the researcher’semotional work? It would be a space for unloading or decontami-nating one’s own self from the pain and suffering of the researched,and for evaluating the processes of countertransference, identifica-tion, and defensiveness. What does this imply for the dynamics andcapacity for support within the research team? There is a case to bemade for having an accredited psychotherapist on the psycho-social research team, part of whose role would be to recognize,locate, and contain the researchers’ subjective responses, and Iwould advocate this. In trying to develop a method characterizedby scientific integrity and robustness, there is a need to call uponthe highest levels of expertise, beyond simple self-awareness orgroup consciousness. Reflexivity within the team should not betaken for granted.

In my experience, the reflexive interviewer needs to be morethan just an emotional labourer, s/he needs to be a kind of psycho-logical athlete: conscious of their own strengths and weaknesses orinjuries, imbued with courage and stamina, and able to acknow-ledge and use the characteristics of the “psychological equipment”with which they work. Like any other explorer, the task demands atouch of selfishness and confidence in one’s own preparedness, butalso the humility to seek and accept the advice and support of morehighly qualified or experienced members of their team.

I grew up in a reflexive, one might say “psycho-socially aware”,household. I am the daughter of two qualified psychologists, one asocial worker, the other an academic specialist in the residentialcare of children, both also politically active. Some of my earliestmemories are of a succession of interesting and diverse peopleflowing through our house and the concomitant discussion of theirprocesses, motivations, and personalities. I must have been veryyoung, perhaps just seven or eight, at the stage when one begins topay attention and attempts to understand adult discourses, when Ifirst heard the axiom “good breast, bad breast”, but it took severaldecades before I was able to put this seemingly esoteric phrase intothe context of the work and thinking of Melanie Klein and others.

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This “inherited habitus” has undoubtedly contributed to my workas a psycho-social researcher. I try to manage my engagement withthe psycho-social project with care, in the hope that I might not onlyfulfil my obligations and responsibilities, but also acknowledge myown needs and desires. It is a delicate balance, and one that I cannotjudge, on my own, to have succeeded in achieving. For that, oneneeds trusting and authentic relationships with one’s colleagues toact as the mediating third in the research relationship.

However each specific psycho-social project chooses to adaptthe methodology for their own context, the intersubjective nature ofpsycho-social interviewing must be recognized and needs to beexplored, but the affective process of the researcher should not beafforded such strength as to be in danger of “the researcher becom-ing the researched”. By recognizing and taking account of themyriad of affective responses that potentially lie ahead they may bemanaged, or, perhaps more specifically, managed-out, in the inter-pretation and analysis of data.

Acknowledgement

Thanks go to my research colleagues for sharing their experienceswith me for the purposes of this chapter.

References

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. R. Nice (Trans.).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bourdieu, P. (1999). The Weight of The World: Social Suffering inContemporary Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Cook, A., & Berger, P. (2000). Predictors of Emotion Work and HouseholdLabor Among Dual-Earner Couples. Colorado State University www.cyfernet.org/parent/workandfamily/colorado_findings.html17.04.08.

Erickson, R. J. (1993). Reconceptualizing family work: the effect ofemotion work on perceptions of marital quality. Journal of Marriageand the Family, 55: 888–900.

Finlay, L., & Gough, B. (Eds.) (2003). Reflexivity: A Practical Guide forResearchers in Health and Social Sciences. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of HumanFeeling. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.

Hoggett, P., Beedell, P., Jimenez, L., Mayo, M., & Miller, C. (2006).Identity, life history & commitment to welfare. Journal of SocialPolicy, 35(4): 689–704.

Hollway, W., & Jefferson, T. (2000). Doing Qualitative Research Differ-ently: Free Association, Narrative and the Interview Method. London:Sage.

James, N. (1998). Emotional labour: skill and work in the social regula-tion of feelings. In: L. Mackay, K. Soothill & K. Melia (Eds.), ClassicTexts in Health Care (219–225). Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Kessler, M. R. K., Werner-Wilson, R. J., Cook, A. S., & Berger, P. (2000).Emotion management of marriage and family therapists: how is itdifferent for women and men? American Journal of Family Therapy,28(3): 243–253.

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CHAPTER SIX

Fear—and psycho-social interviewing

Rosie Gilmour

“If the natural world is ruled by fate and chance, and thetechnical world by rationality and entropy, the social worldcan only be characterized as existing in fear and trembling”

(Bell, in Bauman, 1993, p. 16)

Introduction

In his recent book on risk, Gardner describes the effects of the1930s depression in the USA and the palpable fear in a societythat seemed to have lost its way, where “fear had settled like a

thick, grey fog across Washington”. He notes how Rooseveltfamously referred to this in his inaugural address in 1933, with thecomment that “. . . the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes neededefforts to convert retreat into advance” (Gardner, 2008, p. 5). At thetime, America was in a deep recession with millions of its citizensunemployed, impoverished. and fighting for survival. In suchconditions, fear would be both understandable and expected.

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121


However, Gardner also posits that, nowadays, in the westernworld at least, “. . . we are the healthiest, wealthiest and longest-lived people in history. And we are increasingly afraid. This is oneof the greatest paradoxes of our time” (ibid., p. 10).

But is it a paradox? In comparison with the 1930s, it wouldcertainly appear so. I believe, however, that we are living in an eraof unpredictability and profound uncertainty, where people feelthat they have little control over their own lives and futures, andthat this uncertainty and a sense of powerlessness are generating alevel of existential fear, an undercurrent which affects their world-view and their relations with others.

Fear, as Gardner highlights (2008), is a much exploited emotionthese days, a discourse which dominates our epistème, to use Fou-cault’s term. Politicians regularly invoke the spectre of fear in rela-tion to national security, terrorism, stolen identities, unguardedborders, predatory criminals, illegal immigrants, drug addiction,and more, and “the politics of fear” is now a commonplace term.Technological advances also evoke fear and uncertainty: witness thescares surrounding various vaccines, GM foods, biometric ID cards,and the reliability of data protection. Marketers and advertisers,bankers and insurers exploit this discourse to convince people tobuy products or services that will, allegedly, preserve them and theirfamilies from risks and offer them protection in the future. TheHealth and Safety Executive seems to have an uncommonly stronggrip on the national psyche, with people urged to beware of whatthey eat, smoke, drink, and do, and the fear of litigation hangs heavyon many providers of products and services. Tension and violencepermeate much of the output of the entertainment industry. Fear is,thus, a constant which haunts the media, creating a climate in whichrisks and dangers apparently lurk around every corner.

Moreover, many of the values of the western world and itscultural dominance have come into question in recent years, anduncertainty and a lack of confidence have infiltrated the public psy-che. Fear has, thus, pervaded our consciousness, seeping throughits porous seams into our unconsciousness, and now features inmany people’s world view, making them nervous of risks, change,and difference.

There is nothing extraordinary about fear. It is in all humansfrom birth, according to Melanie Klein, and is “the predominant

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emotion of the paranoid–schizoid position, pity the dominantemotion of the depressive position” (Alford, 1998, p. 121). As such,we are subject to both. Alford also notes that, for Klein, “fear is ulti-mately fear of our own aggression and hatred”, and that negativeinstincts such as greed and possessive individualism are, in fact,provoked by fear. It is one of the emotions, however, which Kleinsaw as motivating “almost all human conduct” and, thus, creatinga world (ibid., pp. 11, 179). Indeed, as Lucey demonstrates, “In asocial psychoanalytic framework, unconscious anxiety is under-stood as inevitable, ‘normal’ and central to the development of thepersonality (Freud, 1936)” (Hollway, Lucey, & Phoenix, 2007, p. 82).

I hope to show that the ubiquitous presence of fear in today’sworld is both “inevitable” and “normal”, and that it should be ack-nowledged as such, not derided or ignored.

Uncertainty and fear

Uncertainty, insecurity, and the fear arising from these have longbeen themes in the work of Zygmunt Bauman and in his thoughtson the “liquid” quality of modernity. According to Bauman, we livein a time when “social forms”, structures which might previouslyhave appeared solid and clearly identifiable no longer display thosequalities, but are “melting”, and no longer offer a long-term frameof reference for humans. The separation of power and politics hasaccompanied this: because of globalization, power is no longerexercised at the level of the nation-state but in the global spacewhere there is no political control. Functions previously performedby the state are “contracted out”, and the state becomes increas-ingly irrelevant to many of its citizens (Bauman, 2007, pp. 1–2).

Beck also describes what he calls “manufactured uncertainties”and the fear inherent in today’s society and the cause of these:

In the age of risk the threats we are confronted with cannot beattributed to God or nature but to “modernization” and “progress”itself. Thus the culture of fear derives from the paradoxical fact thatthe institutions that are designed to control produced uncontrolla-bility. [Beck & Yates, 2003, p. 99]

Inevitably, this uncertainty affects people’s social relations and ismanifested in a decrease in social solidarity and “community” and

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a weakening of “interhuman bonds”, which take on a temporaryquality. Lives become fragmented and focused on the short-term,and individuals are forced to be responsive and flexible when con-fronted with ever-changing circumstances (Bauman, 2007, pp. 2–4).

Bauman blames “negative globalization” for this, a phenome-non beyond the individual’s comprehension and control, whichtherefore magnifies their fear and insecurity:

Fear is arguably the most sinister of the demons nesting in the opensocieties of our time. But it is the insecurity of the present and uncer-tainty about the future that hatch and breed the most awesome andleast bearable of our fears. That insecurity and that uncertainty, intheir turn, are born of a sense of impotence: we seem to be no longerin control, whether singly, severally or collectively—and to makethings still worse we lack the tools that would allow politics to belifted to the level where power has already settled, so enabling us torecover and repossess control over the forces shaping our sharedcondition while setting the range of our possibilities and the limitsto our freedom to choose: a control which has now slipped or hasbeen torn out of our hands. [Bauman, 2007, p. 26]

Global warming, global terrorism, and the global credit crunchare all examples of phenomena over which states and individualshave little, if any, control, but which most certainly affect them:witness the floods in England in 2007, the attacks on the TwinTowers, Madrid, and London, and the recent collapse of majorfinancial institutions. These are global phenomena, but theyprovide a backdrop to the way people feel about and live their dailylives and can impinge upon these at any moment. People’s wellbeing, jobs, future prospects, family and relationship stability, theirwhole being-in-the-world, are all undermined by the lack ofcertainty:

The ground on which our life prospects are presumed to rest isadmittedly shaky—as are our jobs and the companies that offerthem, our partners and networks of friends, the standing we enjoyin wider society and the self-esteem and self-confidence that comewith it. [ibid., p. 10]

Another frightening factor is the reach of the instability inherentin “negative globalization”. Nobody is immune. There is “no

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outside”, and no possibility of opting out (Beck & Yates, 2003, p. 105).

Evidently, this backdrop affects me as much as interviewees,something I became aware of while interviewing respondents in2005–2006 in two cities in south west England for an ESRC-fundedproject entitled “Mobility and unsettlement: new identity construc-tion in contemporary Britain”.

Fear as an interviewer

Interviewing is not as simple as it might seem. To be effective, inter-viewers need experience, in-depth knowledge of the subject theyare exploring, and a capacity “to break through the screen of clichésbehind which each of us lives” (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 614). Bourdieusees interviewing as a kind of social relationship affected by distort-ing factors which the interviewer must try to minimize: “At thevery least, this implies understanding what can and cannot be said, the forms of censorship that prevent saying certain things andthe promptings that encourage stressing others” (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 609).

When I started on the project, academic research was a newventure for me, although I had experience of commercial marketresearch. To a large extent, the uncertainties in any research projectare much the same from a technical point of view: the success of theproject will depend largely on the definition of the research ques-tion, the appropriateness of the methodology, the suitability andsize of the sample, and the quality of the analysis and interpreta-tion. The purpose of commercial market research may differ fromthat of academic research, as it is normally employed to helpmarketers make informed decisions about products and services,decisions that can often be tracked in terms of sales. Certaintyregarding the “correct” answer arguably becomes more of animperative, and structured questionnaires and the power of num-bers usually rule. Structured interviews theoretically offer morecertainty, potentially limiting the researcher’s fear of misunder-standing and misinterpreting, and also permitting him/her toremain neutral and “outside” the process, all of which has a strongappeal. However, structured interviewing and what Bourdieu

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describes as “the interventionism of the questionnaire” (Bourdieu,1999, p. 609) limit both the responses of the interviewees and theresearcher’s understanding of what lies behind their responses. Italso ignores the presence of the interviewer as a co-constructor ofthe research environment and means that the interviewees’ repliesmust be taken at face value, which is not how people normally dealwith one another (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000, p. 3). Not only do therelations between the interviewer and interviewee affect the qual-ity and type of data, but there is also the question of the dominantdiscourse, as Lucey highlights:

Discursive psychologists and those applying a social psycho-analytic approach share the principle that reality and our experi-ence of any external reality is a co-construction, created throughsocial and interpersonal interactions. They would also agree on theimportance of discourse in the production of subjectivity as well asthe emphasis on the place of history, location and culture in exam-ining why certain subject positions are taken up and not others.[Hollway, Lucey, & Phoenix, 2007, p. 82]

It is therefore important to acknowledge both the personal cir-cumstances of the interviewees and what might be happeninghistorically in the epistème. Virtually all of our respondents agreedto be interviewed twice, and between the first and the second inter-view, the London bombings occurred. We explored issues aroundimmigration in the second interview, and, although we cannot saythat our findings would have differed if the bombings had not hap-pened, it was evidently a discourse likely to affect the respondents’views at that moment, although very few of them mentioned it.

As I have said elsewhere (Gilmour, 2007), when I started workon the ESRC-funded project, I was somewhat in awe of the acade-mic brains I was going to be working with and uncertain how muchI would able to contribute intellectually. I was also unfamiliar withthe psycho-social approach we were going to use. I was consciousthat I was not trained in psychology or psychoanalysis, and feltnervous about the responsibility of asking people to talk about theirpersonal lives. As Bauman comments,

At no time . . . does articulation carry stakes as huge as when itcomes to the telling of the “whole life” story. What is at stake then

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is the acquittal (or not, as the case may be) of the awesome respon-sibility placed on one’s shoulders . . . by irresistible “individualisa-tion”. In our “society of individuals” all the messes into which onecan get are assumed to be self-made and all the hot water intowhich one can fall is proclaimed to have been boiled by the haplessfailures who have fallen into it. For the good and the bad that fillone’s life a person has only himself or herself to thank or to blame.And the way the “whole-life” story is told raises this assumption tothe rank of an axiom. [Bauman, 2001, p. 9]

I felt that I was asking the respondents to do a lot, putting them-selves into a position in which I might judge them and their actions,despite our repeated assurances about ethics and confidentiality.They did not really know what we might do with the information.On the one hand, I was in a position of power, as I would be one ofthose evaluating the information they provided and deciding howit would be used, yet the respondents were in a position of powerin choosing what and how much knowledge to provide me with.This reciprocity is reminiscent of Foucault’s view of the power–knowledge paradigm:

[T]here is no power relation without the correlative constitution ofa field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presupposeand constitute at the same time power relations . . . [It is] power-knowledge, the processes and struggles that traverse it and ofwhich it is made up, that determines the forms and possibledomains of knowledge. [Foucault, 1991, pp. 27–28]

To me, it was important that the respondents should feel that therelationship was equal, which was not always easy: some werenervous about the fact that we came from a university and thatthere might be a “right” or “wrong” answer. The interviewer holdsthe power initially as s/he initiates the interview, and, as Bourdieunotes,

This asymmetry is reinforced by a social symmetry every time theinvestigator occupies a higher place in the social hierarchy of differ-ent types of capital, cultural capital in particular. The market forlinguistic and symbolic goods established every time an interviewtakes place varies in structure according to the objective relation-ship between the investigator and the investigated or . . . the

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relationship between all the different kinds of capital, especiallylinguistic capital, with which each of them is endowed. [Bourdieu,1999, p. 609]

This meant being aware of the language I used, trying to adaptit to each respondent, not making them feel uncomfortable by usingpotentially unfamiliar concepts. This rarely happened in the firstinterviews, when people talked about their lives and experiences, aprocess which many clearly enjoyed. However, in the second inter-views, it was obvious from the quality of some of the responses thatwe were asking questions that people felt uncomfortable with ornot capable of answering, and that our approach was not working.As “Jan” said, after talking about immigration:

“It makes you feel a bit stupid—I suppose I should have thoughtabout this before. The last one was easy—it’s all about me. It makesme think I’m racist.”

Some were evidently bemused by the questions, as “Jessica’s”comments illustrate:

Q. “How do you feel about being a European?”

A “I have no idea. I struggled with Britishness [laughing], nowEuropean. I don’t know. It’s all that huge thing about going tothe euro and all that. I don’t really know. It seems far away inmy head, so I don’t really feel anything about it apart fromdistance.”

Q. “I mean, it’s not an idea that you reject, or is it?”

A. “I don’t reject it, I just haven’t formed an opinion on it . . . Youcan probe more—I might come up with some childish compar-ison.” [Laughing]

Such responses made me feel that I was not formulating reasonablequestions, that I was not in touch with what I was trying to do. Werecognized as a team that the methodology was not producing thequality of data we needed, and that we had to rethink our strategyand modify the questions so that they might be more open and less“testing” for our respondents. The data became richer when westopped being so directive and gave the respondents their ownvoice.

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I was also conscious that I would have to “help” the respon-dents produce their story, and that what they chose to entrust mewith would depend to a large extent on how they related to me. AsHollway says,

I know . . . that I have a stock of ready narratives to draw on whichfit particular situations and which will tell me nothing new unlessthe person I am talking to helps me to produce something new . . .I have realised that there is no context, however private and search-ing, which could provide the account which tells the whole truth . . . The combination of this use of my own experience and the idea(from Foucault) that “truth” is a historical product and therefore noknowledge is absolute, enabled me to begin to see participants’accounts as one production among an infinite set of possibilities.[Hollway, 1989, p. 41]

I, therefore, had to recognize my own role in and responsibilityfor the quality of each of those individual productions and allowmyself to believe that, had the interview been conducted by one ofmy colleagues, it would not necessarily have been better or worse,just different.

I was also worried that I might upset people by pushing themtoo far. The first interview I conducted lasted 21⁄2 hours, with“Maria” describing quite traumatic events from her past. I wasconcerned that the process had evoked painful memories for herwhen she said, “You can never relax in life and you can neverforgive yourself for a mistake. You are always blaming yourself—itis almost a paranoia.”

I remember feeling out of my depth: I had not expected suchfrankness and did not know how to respond other than by listen-ing. I also did not know when to stop it. I recall empathizing withher and believe this was my first conscious experience of projectiveidentification, which might explain why I was so shaken by it. Onthe other hand, participating in the interview may have been a kindof therapy for “Maria”.

Most of the respondents seemed to welcome the opportunity totalk about their lives, somehow reliving them, and for some itpresented an opportunity to talk in a way they perhaps rarely expe-rienced in their daily lives. As Bourdieu demonstrates,

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[C]ertain respondents, especially the most disadvantaged, seem tograsp this situation as an exceptional opportunity offered to themto testify, to make themselves heard, to carry their experience overfrom the private to the public sphere; an opportunity also to explainthemselves in the fullest sense of the term, that is, to construct theirown point of view both about themselves and about the world andto bring into the open the point within this world from which theysee themselves and the world, become comprehensible and justifiednot least for themselves. (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 615]

This was clearly true for “Susie”, who poured out some verypersonal and often harrowing details and for whom it seemed to bea therapeutic process: “Got it all off my chest.”

While the respondents seemed happy to talk about their lifeexperiences, there were moments when I felt I had unintentionallymade interviewees uncomfortable. For example, when I asked“Jake” about the black and the Somalian kids who he said had goneto his school, he evidently thought I perceived him as racist:

“You know, only a few of your mates are going with you, youknow, they chose different schools, then to be, I was going to sayexposed, can’t use exposed as a bad word or anything like that, tosee how different the jump was from junior school to senior school,you know, just in the sense of like, obviously you’re going to beknowing a lot of different people and stuff, but it just seemed asthere was just a load of Somalian people. But again, I’m not racist,do you know what I mean, I’m not racist, it takes a lot to wind meup, do you know what I mean, it takes a lot to get me going, do youknow what I mean, I’ve got a high tolerance level, it was neverreally an issue when I was younger, I was just going back to whatI was saying because I was whereabouts my school, my educationand stuff.”

I was afraid that I had pushed him into a position where he feltracist, as evinced by the nervous language he uses above and by hisassertions that he was not racist. I called him later to thank him forthe interview and reiterated that I did not see him as racist, and hethanked me for that. He had evidently felt bad about it afterwards,as indeed had I. It made me think of the importance of the respon-dents’ well being without losing sight of the fact that they had

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agreed to be interviewed and to provide information about them-selves. According to Hollway,

Identification also provides a useful starting point for conceptualis-ing ethical relating, which should involve recognising others forwhat they are (not for what you want or need them to be nor forhow they might want to be recognised). . . . [P]sychoanalytic theo-rising of identification problematises how we can differentiatebetween ourselves and others in ways that enable us to identifywith their experiences without confusing their situation with ourown. In research ethics, this applies to how the researcher construeswhat she experiences and whether it is a fair and respectful way ofknowing participants. [2008, p. 157]

However, there were instances when I felt a different fear, whenI was afraid that I was potentially condoning racism. I was awarein both of the following cases of feeling conflicting emotions: on theone hand, I appreciated that the respondents were apparently beinghonest with me and was also aware of the spontaneity of the inter-view situation, when people do not know what they are going to beasked and therefore might say things they do not really mean andthat they should not be immediately “labelled” as a result, but I alsoquestioned whether I was “legitimating racism” (Bourdieu, 1999, p. 623) by remaining silent.

Q. “If I say the word immigrant, what picture does it conjure up?”

A. “Oh it conjures up negative images, I hate to say it, but it does.It conjures up East Europeans or African Soweto, not Soweto,what do you call them, what’s that place, there’s a lot of themin “Summersville”. It conjures up bad images. It conjures upspongers, people living off us who are not destroying our wayof life, but having an effect on the British side, I suppose,because it touches back I suppose to what we were sayingabout being British. This is why we’re partly being diluted. It’snot being diluted by Indians or Pakistanis who’ve been herefor fifty-five years or whatever. It’s by people coming in, andI’ve noticed it, [when] I go to London . . . and I do find it, I’llbe honest, mildly irritating because you hardly see what youwould call a normal white British person on the street, becauseit is just full of foreigners. Foreigners in inverted commas,sorry . . . And I think that is quite sad really, because what are

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they doing here, and I think, well, that’s a silly thing to think,do you know what I mean, but it does annoy me.”

Q. “Have you had experience of immigrants yourself?”

A “None whatsoever, no, so again, it’s a perception whichperhaps I should be slightly ashamed of. But that’s the way Iwould feel.”

By not making “Harry” understand that I did not share his posi-tion, perhaps I was legitimating a level of racism? Yet, he was beingfrank, which I appreciated. It was a conundrum for me, and onethat I have not yet resolved.

“Anne” really objected in the first interview to being recorded,which made me feel that I was putting her in an uncomfortableposition. I had consequently interviewed her in a rushed, disjointedfashion, feeling ill at ease myself, again perhaps an example ofprojective identification. Consequently, I was nervous in the secondinterview, but she was more relaxed and talked freely about immi-gration. Afterwards, she evidently felt uncomfortable about someof her views and said she thought she was “really racist” and thatit was very recent to think like this. I started to sympathize with her,but then she said she had given to the tsunami relief fund butwould not give to the Pakistani earthquake disaster, as she thoughtthere was a big pot of money already there and they should notcome round with their “begging bowl”, that Indians and Pakistanisin Britain should give to it. I remember feeling real discomfort withthis, wanting to say what I thought, but also being conscious of“interviewer neutrality”. However, I also felt that by saying noth-ing, I had potentially colluded with the beliefs expressed. I againhad difficulty resolving that: the interviewees were giving theirtime and at no benefit to themselves and I was grateful, but at whatcost? It left me concerned about my own integrity: if I had saidsomething, I might have grasped why they felt the way they did,but I did not trust myself to do so. There was also the question ofunderstanding where the respondents might be coming from. AsSkeggs posits,

To say that their statements about fairness are just racist is toosimple. We need to get at the complexity of their remarks—theattachments, the labour, the investments, the loss, and how all these

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exist in relation to the privileges and interest of the ones who makethe judgements of them. [Skeggs, 2006]

Knowing that my colleagues would read the interview tran-scripts, I was also concerned about the implications of my ownracism and incompetence. This emerged on one particular occasionwhen I suddenly realized that the respondent was distinguishingbetween “black” and “Somalian” children, a distinction I had beenunaware of until then:

A. “I would say, out of 100% (of pupils at my school), I would saythere was probably, 60% white kids, 15% black kids and 35%Somalians I’d say.” (Checking the sums with the interviewer,both the interviewer and respondent got the sums wrong: itshould have been 25% Somalians.)

Q. “And the 15% who were black kids, where were they from?”

A “They were people like from around the area and also likefrom X, and people that just lived locally.”

Q. “So they weren’t coming from outside of X or Y, they were partof the local community?”

During this exchange, I suddenly understood that the respon-dent was not describing the Somalians as “black”, but was puttingthem into a different category, and my question about where theblack kids came from was much more racist than his response. Itwas not a proud moment for me, and was again something I felt mycolleagues would judge me on.

Considering all the uncertainties which I felt in the researchprocess, it helped to remember Hollway’s and Jefferson’s view that“all research subjects are meaning-making and defended subjects”,who might interpret questions personally, adopt certain positions indiscourses to protect themselves, might not understand their ownfeelings, and would be “motivated, largely unconsciously, todisguise the meaning of at least some of their feelings and actions”(Hollway & Jefferson, 2000, p. 26). Bearing this in mind, it is notsurprising how many pitfalls there might be.

The psycho-social method itself can also cause uncertainty, asthere is no way of proving that the researcher’s conclusions are

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correct, and uncertainty has to be tolerated (Hollway, 2006, verbalcommunication). This can be nerve-racking for a novice researcherwho might wish to be able to speak more confidently about theresearch findings rather than relying on his/her own subjectiveinterpretations.

Fear as an interviewee

There are many reasons why respondents might feel fear, particu-larly in the kind of interviews we conducted for the ESRC project.For example, the majority of our respondents agreed to be inter-viewed by us, strangers, in their own homes, and to talk aboutpotentially intimate matters. Not everybody would do that, despiteSimmel’s observation that

[T]he stranger who moves on . . . often receives the most surprisingopenness—confidences which sometimes have the character of aconfessional and which would be carefully withheld from a moreclosely related person. [Simmel, 1964, p. 404]

To find respondents, we used “gatekeepers” trusted in thecommunity and the “snowball” method of recommendation. Con-fidentiality was therefore an issue for some interviewees, whowould only say certain things once they had been reassured thattheir comments would not be linked to them. “Janet”, for example,confided that she had been quite severely beaten as a child, some-thing she did not want anyone in her community to know. Doubtsaround confidentiality inevitably affected what was revealed andwhat was kept back.

Initial fears were obvious in the case of some of the respondents,and occasionally in the spouses. When one of my male colleaguesinterviewed a female respondent, her husband sat in on the inter-view. Similarly, when I talked to a male respondent, his wiferemained in the room throughout the interview, emanating suspi-cion. She did not stay during the second interview: either she haddecided I was “all right” or she was not interested.

In the first interviews, it was notable that the narratives of manyrespondents who were less well off were more vivid and often

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contained astonishingly frank and sometimes harrowing detailthan the more rehearsed stories of those who were better off.However, many of those who spoke fluently in the first roundresponded in a stilted, hesitant fashion in the second interviewswhen asked “difficult” questions about subjects they perhaps hadlittle knowledge of or had never thought about, as this extract from“Joseph’s” material demonstrates.

Q “And so, what does being British mean to you?”

A. “What does it mean? Gosh, you don’t half ask some awkwardquestions.”

Q. “Sorry about that.”

A. “That’s all right, it’s what you’re here for, isn’t it. . . . Whatdoes being British mean to me? [Long hesitation.] “I don’t know.I’m not too sure to be honest, sorry.”

This discomfort and the underlying fear of looking stupidevidently affected the quality of the data and were instrumental inmaking us revisit our approach.

The kind of fear mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, afear that permeates people’s lives, emerged in several interviews,particularly where immigration was concerned. As one respondentspontaneously commented, “There is such a fear in this country atthe moment, there’s a real climate for institutional racism.”

Several people expressed their fear of “losing out”, either interms of physical resources (housing, jobs, benefits) or spiritualresources (their own identity, religion). Some clearly perceived thatthe enjoyment of these resources was being “stolen” from them, inZizek’s terms, that people who had no “right”, usually those not“born and bred” in England, were somehow taking these thingsfrom them or jumping the queue. In Zizek’s view,

The national Cause is ultimately nothing but the way subjects of agiven ethnic community organize their enjoyment through nationalmyths. What is therefore at stake in ethnic tensions is always thepossession of the national Thing. We always impute to the “other”an excessive enjoyment; s/he wants to steal our enjoyment (byruining our way of life) and/or has access to some secret, perverseenjoyment. . . . The basic paradox is that our Thing is conceived as

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something inaccessible to the other, and at the same time threat-ened by it. [Zizek, 1990, pp. 53–54]

This notion of having the enjoyment of your way of life stolenwas highlighted when some interviewees talked about the alloca-tion of benefits or social housing. The most vociferous on thissubject were generally less well off with limited access to materialresources. They were evidently afraid that they might not get theirdue share when they needed it. “Jake”, for example, currently liveswith his parents, but is worried he might not get a council house:

“Like for me personally, if I wanted to go out and get a house orget a flat, I would be put further down the list for someone that isnot a British citizen to say, someone that has come over into thecountry, they get everything handed to them and it’s people thathave been living in this country since they were born that are notgetting the same benefits as other people in this country.”

“Paula” was obviously bitter that “Others” were taking from asystem they had not contributed to.

“You know, you’ve got all these are Somalians coming in. Why dothey come here? There’s loads of places that they’ve got to passover to come here. I think our government just lets them come inbecause they know we’ve got to pay them, they’ve all got to bepaid, kept when they come in here; they use our health service fornothing. I think, you know, my husband he worked himself untilhe died almost and paid in to all this what we’re getting free, butthey come here and they haven’t paid a penny into it, even from theEU. Until they’ve paid something into our system, I don’t thinkthey should get it.”

Not everybody blamed immigrants, however, with quite a fewtalking about young girls who become pregnant in order to get acouncil flat.

Others focused on the “theft” of their spiritual resources,primarily the right to enjoy their religion as they chose, and wereworried by that right being restricted.

“Something else to do with it as well which is how we seem to bebending everything to accommodate the different, and the different

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religions as well. And I think that, you know, we should allow fordifferent religions, but not when their religion takes precedenceover ours, because we certainly can’t go to a Muslim country andhave the same rights. And to call, I think, was it in Leicester, I’mnot sure, the Christmas lights winter lights because of an offence,see, and it’s that that’s becoming really annoying to most peoplethat I have spoken to lately anyway. I think it’s just that enough isenough now.”

There were several instances of this fear of spiritual “displace-ment”, both from avowed Christians, upset that they could notpractise their religion as they wanted to, and from others who wereconcerned about what they perceived as discriminatory practicesdepriving them of their traditional cultural rights:

“I get very annoyed about issues, the way rules and regulations arechanged in Britain to accommodate people who are visiting thiscountry, who have come to live in this country, when I know if Iwent to live in their countries, nobody would accommodate me.That annoys me. It annoys me that we’re all getting so politicallybloody correct now in a minute we’re all going to disappear upeach other’s bums. When schools are stopped celebrating nativityplays in case they’re offending Muslims or whatever, that reallywinds me up because we are losing our identity trying to accom-modate everybody else and it is frowned upon if you say, well, no.”

Political correctness also emerged regarding the use of lan-guage, with several respondents saying they no longer knew howto say certain things, that they had to be careful in their choice oflanguage for fear of giving offence, particularly in a racial context.

The fear of losing their national identity was a major issue for anumber of respondents, however, with some clearly envious ofwhat they perceived as strong Irish, Scottish, and Welsh identitiesin comparison with the alleged “weakness” of the English identity,while others blamed this “theft of their enjoyment” on immigrants.

Q. “Just taking the whole theme of identity—you’re British, aren’tyou?”

A. “English, actually, sorry.”

Q. “That’s OK. Do you make a distinction between being Britishand English?”

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A. “I do, I do now for the first time in all these years, yes I do.”

Q. “You are saying for the first time. Why?”

A. “Because I am just, well, this is going to sound really racistnow, I am just fed up with all the British that aren’t, you know,the non-British that are now British, and I just think that in somany years time, the English, we’re just going to be the minor-ity. I think the government should have put a stop on howmany foreigners they were letting in.”

The “Other”, the stranger, was thus blamed not only for the loss ofresources, but also identity. As Clarke comments,

The issue of asylum and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom hasseen the growth of a new politics of fear in which the Other threat-ens to not only engulf us but destroy us from within. In a danger-ous political amalgam, the asylum seeker not only has become apopular folk demon in the media but is now being equated withterrorism . . . They, the stranger, the refugee, represent all our fearsof displacement, of chaos, and represent a threat to our psychicstability. [Clarke, Hoggett, & Thompson, 2006, p. 79]

While none of the respondents mentioned immigrants in rela-tion to terrorism, some clearly felt that their way of life was threat-ened by them, regardless of whether they were immigrants,migrants, or asylum seekers.

The quest for a fulfilled sense of identity was evidently drivingsome respondents to seek out the company of fellow citizens withsimilar concerns, whether they were attendees at their church,parents fighting the loss of the local school, or neighbours strug-gling to build or maintain community ties. Bauman highlights whata solitary enterprise the endeavour of identity creation can be.

The search for identity divides and separates; yet the precarious-ness of the solitary identity-building prompts the identity-buildersto seek pegs on which they can hang together their individuallyexperienced fears and anxieties and perform the exorcism rites inthe company of others, similarly afraid and anxious individuals.Whether such “peg communities” provide what they are hoped tooffer—a collective insurance against individually confrontedrisks—is a moot question, but mounting a barricade in the

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company of others does supply a momentary respite from loneli-ness. [Bauman, 2001, pp. 151–152]

Schools and churches can provide such pegs and are markers ofcommunity. The fear of the effect of the loss of such markers wasapparent in several of the wards where we conducted the research,two of which had lost their local secondary school. This change wasfelt to have had a very negative effect, with “the soul” ripped outof the community. Some talked of how children no longer grew uptogether, but went to schools in areas where traditionally theywould never have gone, and where they experienced difficultiesbecause of territorial rivalry. “They went to their sworn enemies ifyou like. It was the same when we were at school, there was fight-ing amongst the schools.”

Because the children no longer went through school and thelocal youth club together, and did not progress on to the pub andperhaps work as a group, they lost contact with each other, and onemother feared that this would lead to crime and violence: her sonhad been attacked in the local park by a group of younger teenagersand had been struck by the fact that he had not recognized anyone;another son had got into trouble in a local pub because he was notin his own “territory”.

The lack of a secondary school also means that people areunwilling to invest time and effort in the community, knowing thattheir children will have to go to school elsewhere and, for themiddle classes, this may mean that they choose to move house inorder to get their child into a school of their choice. The samephenomenon occurs in the workplace when people know they willbe there for a short time and then move on, hoping they are goingto something better. This mobility and lack of long-term investmentof self affect not just the social relations of a neighbourhood, butalso people’s values and the emotions they employ in their dealingswith others. As Sennett demonstrates,

“No long term” is a principle which corrodes trust, loyalty, andmutual commitment . . . usually deeper experiences of trust aremore informal, as when people learn on whom they can rely whengiven a difficult or impossible task. Such social bonds take time todevelop, slowly rooting into the cracks and crevices of institutions. . . Detachment and superficial cooperativeness are better armor for

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dealing with current realities than behavior based on values ofloyalty and service. [Sennett, 1998, pp. 24–25]

Many people accept the idea that they will probably move on,particularly those who are better off and who often feel they have tomove in order to achieve. Indeed, according to Sennett, “To stay putis to be left out” (ibid., p. 87).

However, the constant moving on creates a community whereno one “becomes a long-term witness to another person’s life” (ibid.,pp. 20–21) and the strength of social bonds becomes more tenuous.Many of our respondents were aware of this phenomenon andsome were part of it, but some felt strongly about the security thatfamiliarity with a place offers.

Q. “It sounds as if you felt you were really part of a communitythere.”

A. “Mmm! Just in the sense of knowing people from schoolbecause I wouldn’t feel intimidated at going anywhere in myarea because I knew people rather than if, you know, if youwent into an area you didn’t know, you would feel intimidatedand you know, people’s perception, you think, “Well what areyou doing here? Why are you here?” Rather than, you know, Iwas like, when we was at school I could go literally anywherein my area because there was people there that I knew fromschool. You know what I mean? Then people wouldn’t be look-ing at me, going well, what are you doing here, do you knowwhat I mean, round this area, stay away from our area. Fromwhere I was in school, I could just go anywhere.”

There was a strong desire for stability and certainty in relations,and older respondents in particular hankered after a “golden age”of community, in Back’s terms (1996). The way in which manypeople now live, whether out of choice or necessity, in a state offlux, instability, and uncertainty, makes it difficult for them to seetheir lives as an entity lived in relation to others, forcing them tolive as self-sufficient but solitary individuals, living their fears aloneas Bauman notes:

The present-day uncertainty is a powerful individualizing force. Itdivides instead of uniting, and since there is no telling who might

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wake up in what division, the idea of “common interests” growsever more nebulous and in the end becomes incomprehensible.Fears, anxieties and grievances are made in such a way as to besuffered alone. [Bauman, 2001, p. 24]

It was obvious from many of our respondents’ comments thatsuch “individualization” was not something to which they neces-sarily aspired. No one said anything negative about the concept ofcommunity, and many said they would like to work for the commu-nity, if they were not already doing so. Everyone acknowledged thevalue and strength of a cohesive, stable, and long-term community,and the sense of belonging and continuity of identity which thatmight offer, as well as the notion that other people are there for youand that you are not alone.

“It’s just knowing your neighbours, it’s having people around you,it’s working with them, just working, shopping, interfacing, youjust meet with them and bump into them occasionally, getting toknow the people around you, that gives you a sense not just ofsecurity, but belonging, and things like that, ownership, those sortof words.”

Conclusions

Sennett questions how humans can “develop a narrative of identityand life history in a society composed of episodes and fragments”(Sennett, 1998, p. 26). Yet, the globalizing world forces many peopleto live in a more episodic and fragmentary way than lives werepreviously lived. With stability and certainty about the future afigment of past imaginations, people are obliged to change and takerisks, perhaps not out of choice, but out of necessity, and to“revamp” and “relaunch” their identity at regular intervals (Craib,1998, p. 3). Each time this happens, there has to be a mental andemotional recalibration, and there will be doubt and fears as to theappropriateness of the identity currently “on view”, especially ifthis happens in the context of an unfamiliar community. It is not aforgiving world, and there may be repercussions if the “wrong”identity is selected for the task in hand. Moreover, in such “liquidtimes”, there are inevitably fewer people who might be qualified

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and willing to give advice as and when it is needed. Ultimately,people are on their own and with limited power and control: afrightening prospect.

However, we are all vulnerable and defended beings, and fear isan emotion that has to be recognized and accepted as part of ourlives. As Hollway demonstrates, following Klein, and relating itback to the power that lies at the heart of all relations and relation-ships,

[T]his vulnerability (of the ego) is an unavoidable effect of humannature: anxiety is the original state of human nature . . . The contin-uous attempt to manage anxiety, to protect oneself, is never finallyaccomplished (though mature adulthood can achieve relativestability and a state of apparent peace with anxiety). Anxiety thusprovides a continuous, more or less driven, motive for the negotia-tion of power in relations. [Hollway, 1989, p. 85]

References

Alford, C. F. (1989). Melanie Klein & Critical Social Theory. New Haven,CT: Yale University Press.

Back, L. (1996). New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racisms andMulticulture in Young Lives. London: Routledge.

Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.Bauman, Z. (2001). The Individualised Society. Cambridge: Polity Press

with Blackwell.Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty.

Cambridge: Polity Press.Beck, U., & Yates, J. (2003). Joshua Yates interview with Ulrich Beck on

fear and risk society. The Hedgehog Review, 5(3): 96–107.Bourdieu, P. (1999). Understanding. In: The Weight of the World: Social

Suffering in Contemporary Society (pp. 607–626). Cambridge: PolityPress with Blackwell.

Clarke, S., Hoggett, P., & Thompson, S. (Eds.) (2006). Emotion, Politicsand Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Craib, I. (1998). Experiencing Identity. London: Sage.Foucault, M. (1991). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

London: Penguin.Gardner, D. (2008). Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear. London: Virgin.

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Gilmour, R. (2007). Uncertainty and guilt—dilemmas for researchers.Unpublished paper for the Psychosocial Group, London Metropoli-tan University, 12/2/2007.

Hollway, W. (1989). Subjectivity and Method in Psychology—Gender,Meaning and Science. London: Sage.

Hollway, W. (2008). The importance of relational thinking in the prac-tice of psycho-social research: ontology, epistemology, methodol-ogy and ethics. In: S. Clarke, H. Hahn & P. Hoggett (Eds.), ObjectRelations and Social Relations. London: Karnac.

Hollway, W., & Jefferson, T. (2000). Doing Qualitative ResearchDifferently. London: Sage.

Hollway, W., Lucey, H., & Phoenix, A. (Eds.) (2007). Social PsychologyMatters. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Sennett, R. (1998). The Corrosion of Character – The Personal Consequencesof Work in the New Capitalism. New York: Norton.

Simmel, G. (1964). The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Glencoe, New York:Collier–Macmillan.

Skeggs, B. (2006). Notes for ESRC Ethnicities Workshop. London: LondonSchool of Economics.

Zizek, S. (1990). Eastern Europe’s republics of Gilead. New Left Review,1(183): 50–62.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

The use of self as a research tool

Sue Jervis

This chapter is drawn from PhD research into the emotionalexperiences of servicemen’s wives, whose repeated reloca-tion, particularly overseas, involves numerous losses. These

women lose their established careers, homes, and familiar environ-ments and become separated from family and friends, including,importantly for this chapter, children left behind at boardingschool. Having trained and worked as a psychodynamic counsellorbefore embarking upon this research, I was already convinced thatindividuals are complex and that their relationships always involveideas and processes outside their awareness. I wanted to use aresearch method that would allow me to address these unconsciousdynamics and potentially reach a deeper level of understandingthan would be possible otherwise. Consequently, I chose the“reflexive psychoanalytic research methodology” (Clarke, 2000, p. 150), which, in common with Hollway and Jefferson’s (2000)“free-association narrative interview method”, considers not only the manifest content of research data, but also what mightunderlie it.

Since both research methods have been described elsewhere(Clarke, 2000, 2002; Hollway & Jefferson, 2000), I will not detail

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them again here. Instead, my focus is on the psychoanalytic conceptof countertransference, defined as “the whole of the analyst’sunconscious reactions to the individual analysand” (Laplanche &Pontalis, 1973, p. 92). I will consider how countertransference may usefully inform the reflexivity required of psycho-socialresearchers, drawing particularly from the notion of “total counter-transference” (Racker, 1957, p. 310). While my arguments will referto examples from my research, all respondents’ names have beenchanged for reasons of confidentiality.

Countertransference and its usefulness to the reflexive researcher

Countertransference was not always seen as a useful psychoanalytictool. Indeed, for Freud, it derived from analysts’ unresolved uncon-scious conflicts, which could hinder psychoanalysis unless over-come (Gay, 1998; Sandler, Dare, & Holder, 1992). In his paper“Recommendations to physicians practising psycho-analysis”(1912e), Freud advised analysts to remain as emotionally detachedas surgeons. Somewhat confusingly though, he went on to say thatit was necessary for analysts to turn their “own unconscious like areceptive organ towards the transmitting unconscious of thepatient” (ibid., p. 115). Freud’s recommendations seemed contradic-tory. As Ellman (1991) argues, he was warning analysts to be dispas-sionate, yet he implicitly acknowledged the potential usefulness oftheir emotional responses (ibid., pp. 158–160, nn. 7–8). Perhapsunsurprisingly, Freud’s advice was initially misunderstood.

However, in 1950, Heimann clarified the situation with her clas-sic paper “On countertransference”, arguing that analysts achievean unconscious awareness of the contents of their analysands’psyches long before they reach any intellectual understanding. Forher, countertransference was an important “instrument of researchinto the patient’s unconscious” (ibid., p. 81). Thus, countertransfer-ence became recognized as a phenomenon that facilitates under-standing (Carpy, 1989; Ellman, 1991; Young, 2001). Although thisview remains widespread among analysts today, the early ambiva-lence about countertransference within psychoanalysis indicateshow concerned the profession was about the possibility that

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analysts might misunderstand or misuse the feelings aroused inthem, to the detriment of their work.

Similarly, within the field of research, there has been resistanceto the notion that the emotional responses evoked in researchersmight be useful (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000; Oakley, 1981). Indeed,it is only relatively recently that researchers’ feelings have beenrecognized as another form of data. Meanwhile, the idea ofresearchers remaining emotionally aloof from respondents was alsobeing challenged. Consequently, the traditional neglect within soci-ological research of the often irrational feelings that influence all ofus has begun to be replaced by the utilization of researchers’ subjec-tivity (Brown, 2000; Clarke, 2003, 2006; Froggett & Wengraf, 2004).Thus, a similar shift is currently occurring within sociology to thatwhich occurred within psychoanalysis after the discovery of boththe ubiquity and the value of countertransference.

Contemporary understanding of the potential usefulness ofcountertransference owes much to Melanie Klein’s (1946) notion of “projective identification”; an unconscious process whereinunwanted parts of the self are psychically split off and projectedinto an object (often another person) which is then identified withthose parts (ibid., p. 183). Deriving from infancy, projective identifi-cation is a means of communicating emotions and experiences that,as yet, cannot be comprehended or verbalised. For Bion (1959), itsprototype is the crying baby who projects bewildering, distressingfeelings, aroused, for example, by hunger, into an empathic mothercapable of internalizing and calmly making sense of (identifyingwith) her child’s anxiety, responding to it appropriately and render-ing it more tolerable (ibid., p. 104).

Klein (1946) stressed that projective identification is usedthroughout life (1946, pp. 187–188). Indeed, Bion (1959) argued thatsometimes it is the only way that individuals, even as adults, cancommunicate what is happening within their psyches. He empha-sized the importance of analysts being able to internalize and feelfor themselves their analysands’ unbearable or incomprehensibleexperiences (ibid., pp. 103–106). For Bion (1970), analysts mustbecome “containers” for their analysands’ disturbing ideas andfeelings. Once this psychic material is “contained”, it may be trans-formed into something more meaningful (ibid., p. 29). Thus, it isnow considered essential that analysts notice and make sense of

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THE USE OF SELF AS A RESEARCH TOOL 147


their countertransference responses. In fact, analytic understandingdepends upon analysts’ sensitivity to the feelings evoked withinthem (Bion, 1959, 1970; Carpy, 1989; Joseph, 1983, 1985).

Similarly, researchers who pay attention to what is going oninside them, especially to anything unusual, may discover that a res-pondent has communicated something of how they feel withoutactually verbalizing it. The sort of open-minded attitude that Bionrecommended for analysts is therefore ideal, too, for researchers uti-lizing psychoanalytically informed research methods (Hollway,2008; Skogstad, 2004). As Clarke (2000) argues, respondents unwit-tingly communicate their emotional states by evoking feelings inresearchers that replicate their own, so if researchers are open toexperiencing something that may feel “alien” to them, they can learnfrom respondents’ “otherness” and reach “that which is beyondwords” (ibid., p. 149). For Clarke (2002), this arousal of similar emo-tions and ideas within researchers to those (unconsciously) experi-enced by respondents is the result of “projective communication”(ibid., p. 182). Clarke (2002, 2008) shares with Hollway and Jefferson(2000) a conviction that this involves projective identification.

Perhaps what happened to me while I was interviewing Karenillustrates this phenomenon. Karen had been married for thirtyyears to a Naval officer, accompanying him on more than twentypostings, including several overseas. She seemed to be philosophi-cally resigned to these repeated moves, which had necessitatedsending her children away to boarding school. Although Karenprimarily described her experiences in a rather flat tone, shelaughed in a self-deprecating manner as she told me that, for her,relocation involved “disruption and the guilt thing, you know, ‘I’veleft my babies behind’, all that rubbish.” As Karen was speaking, I became aware of some discomfort in my throat and then realizedthat I was feeling rather sad and swallowing repeatedly. Soon afterwards, I noticed that Karen was swallowing a lot, too. Reflect-ing later on the constricted sensation in my throat and my sad-ness, I began to wonder whether Karen had been obliged to “swal-low” many painful feelings that might “choke” her if they wereverbalized.

When I subsequently compared all of the interview trans-criptions to identify any recurring themes, I realized that most ofthe respondents who had talked about sending their children to

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boarding school had minimized or laughed off this loss, and othermajor losses, thereby denying their emotional importance. More-over, there were various indications of significant underlyingdistress among these women, albeit that this was rarely acknow-ledged within the military community, which tended to adopt a“stiff upper lip”. That is, the response evoked in me as I inter-viewed Karen alerted me to the possibility, which additionalresearch data later confirmed, that certain distressing emotionswere taboo both for her and for other respondents. Had I notreflected upon the unusual sensation that I believe Karen hadunconsciously communicated to me, it is possible that this dynamicmight have remained hidden, limiting the research findings.

I want to highlight that my identification with what I believewere Karen’s unconscious feelings began with a bodily response,followed by an emotional response. While the experience feltimportant immediately, it only made sense to me later, after I hadspent some time thinking about it, confirming, for me at least, theapplicability to research of the psychoanalytic notion that uncon-scious awareness of another’s psyche precedes intellectual under-standing. Moreover, the fact that I identified first with a physicalsensation, repeated swallowing, which had emotional significance,lends weight to the argument (see Hinshelwood, 1991; Ogden, 1986;Young, 2006) that the continuing use of projective identificationthroughout adulthood involves similar unconscious ideas to thoseexperienced so concretely (bodily) by pre-verbal infants.

I am suggesting here that researchers may experience counter-transference somatically as well as emotionally. If they can achieve“affective attunement” (Brown, 2000, p. 43) by adopting a receptiveattitude akin to that of an effective analyst, researchers may reachdeeper levels of understanding. However, in common with analysts,researchers might find it difficult to maintain the necessary balancebetween empathy and intellectual awareness. If the usefulness ofreflexivity in research is more often recognized now, so are the prob-lems that it shares with psychoanalysis (Clarke, 2002, 2006; Hollway,2004, 2008; Hollway & Jefferson, 2000). In other words, there aregood reasons for practitioners within both disciplines to exercisecaution when using their personal feelings to inform their work. AsFreud (1912e) argued, countertransference feelings may hinder asmuch as help the development of understanding.

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Problems associated with utilizing countertransference feelings

Individuals who are open to another’s feelings sometimes find theexperience disturbing. It has long been recognized within psycho-analysis that being the recipient of communication by projectiveidentification might powerfully disturb analysts (Bion, 1970;Joseph, 1983, 1987; Pick, 1985). When that happens, analysts mayunconsciously defend themselves from psychic pain. Moreover,they share with their analysands a desire to avoid the discomfort ofconnecting emotionally to unfamiliar aspects of themselves(Casement, 1985; Pick, 1985; Symington, 1986). Analysts might evencollude to resist encountering unpalatable psychological truths(Grinberg, 1981; Money-Kyrle, 1956; Pick, 1985)

If they are to be effective, analysts must learn how they uncon-sciously defend themselves. That is, they must learn to differentiatetheir own, possibly obstructive, psychic material from that belong-ing to their analysands (Hamilton, 1988; Money-Kyrle, 1956; Pick,1985). One way that analysts do this is through being analysedthemselves. Undergoing personal analysis increases self-awareness.This makes it more likely that analysts would notice if they beganto respond defensively to something arising from their analyticwork. Without such training, there is an increased risk that analystsmight unconsciously ascribe their own emotions to their analy-sands. When analysts privilege their countertransference as the solemeans of discovering meaning, then “wild countertransferenceanalysis” (Sandler, Dare, & Holder, 1992, p. 51) might ensue.

Researchers usually lack the advantage of personal analysis.Nevertheless, in their work they, too, might encounter unexpectedideas and emotions which they would rather not examine tooclosely. That is, utilizing reflexive research methods might disturbresearchers (Clarke, 2002; Lucey, Melody, & Walkerdine, 2003;Savin-Baden, 2004). For Bion, every psychoanalytic relationshipexploring the unknown comprises two anxious people (Casement,1985, p. 4). An analogous anxiety exists within research relation-ships. Both respondents and researchers might unconsciouslydefend themselves against disturbing psychic material (Hollway,2008; Hollway & Jefferson, 2000; Wengraf, 2000). These defencesmight then block understanding within research.

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Consequently, just as analysts must distinguish informativefrom unhelpful countertransference, researchers must determinewhich feelings emanate from respondents and which originate inthemselves. Discussing research material with colleagues can helpresearchers to do this (Clarke, 2002; Hollway & Jefferson, 2000;Wengraf, 2000). Indeed, for some psycho-social researchers, the taskof analysing data is best performed within a group, because itprovides different perspectives to those of a singleton researcherand might uncover material that would otherwise remain uncon-scious (Buckner, 2005; Froggett & Wengraf, 2004; Skogstad, 2004).Such consultations are akin to the clinical supervision that supportssome analytic work.

When I found it difficult to disentangle my own issues fromthose presented by respondents, I asked for help from otherpsycho-social researchers. On one occasion, I sought assistancebecause I felt disturbed after listening to a tape-recording of the firstof my two interviews with Kayleigh, a young, recently relocatedserviceman’s wife. I was shocked to hear my cool, almost dismis-sive, responses to Kayleigh, and also the frequency with which Ihad interrupted her. This was not my usual interviewing style andthe tone of our conversation was markedly different from thatwithin the second interview, when Kayleigh and I developed amuch warmer relationship. I was now at a loss to understand whyI had behaved so differently during that first interview.

With hindsight, Kayleigh’s frequent failure to complete her sen-tences, instead trailing off and indicating her meaning with gestureseven though she had a good vocabulary, should have alerted me tothe possibility that something important was being left unspoken.My apparent lack of empathy certainly failed to provide the sort ofcontainment that might have helped me to recognize the depth ofpsychic pain that was threatening Kayleigh at that time, which, as itsubsequently transpired, she was unconsciously attempting to deny.After I listened to the recorded interview, even my choice of pseudo-nym had become suspect, because, for me, “Kayleigh” suggestssomeone rather airy, not someone to be taken seriously.

Through discussing the interview with other researchers I real-ized that I had unwittingly encouraged Kayleigh’s resistance toengaging with, as yet, unacknowledged distress about significantlosses that she had sustained as a result of her recent move; losses

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which had undermined her normal coping skills. For example, mypeers noticed that when I reflected back one of the few upsettingexperiences that Kayleigh had acknowledged, I replaced her word“terrible” with the word “difficult”, thereby minimizing her feelingand denying its seriousness. I began to see that, just as Kayleighhad been unable to verbalize her painful feelings, I had been unableto “hear” them, by which I mean that I, too, remained out of touchwith the disturbing emotions underlying her words. I now believethat, at first, Kayleigh and I unconsciously colluded in not takingseriously her distressing experience. It was not until our secondmeeting, six months after the first, that Kayleigh was able to talkabout, and I was able to empathize with, how out of control andpanicky she had felt after relocating.

On reflection, several factors could have contributed to myinitial inability to recognize the extent of Kayleigh’s distress, includ-ing, of course, my own unconscious defences against connectingwith her feelings of bewilderment and incompetence, whichresonated with my personal experience following relocation. Inaddition, there was the influence of the overseas military commu-nity where Kayleigh and I met, which was an environment whereinpainful emotions tended to be denied. It was also a hierarchicalcommunity that positioned wives according to their husband’srank, placing me, an officer’s wife, as “superior” to Kayleigh,whose husband belonged to the other ranks. Regardless of myconscious opposition to this replication of the military rank struc-ture among wives, I now recognize that I did, nevertheless, perceiveKayleigh as somehow “junior” to me. That perception might havebeen influenced by Kayleigh’s youth (as the youngest participant inmy research, she could have been my daughter), or the fact that shelacked both my experience of living overseas and my post-gradu-ate education. Moreover, since Kayleigh’s life was somewhatrestricted because it necessarily revolved around her baby, I madean assumption, erroneously as it turned out, that she had sustainedfew losses when she relocated. Thus, I positioned Kayleigh as lessimportant (junior) for my research than other wives whose dailylives had changed significantly because they lost children to board-ing school or lost valued careers.

Another important factor that, with hindsight, I believe influ-enced my detachment from Kayleigh’s distress was that she, herself,

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had minimized the emotional impact that relocation had upon her.While this was common among respondents, Kayleigh had gone tounusual lengths to deny that her situation had changed. For exam-ple, she organized the living room in her new house so that it lookedexactly like the one in her former home. I will return to this pointlater, when I say more about identification and its complexities. Fornow, I simply want to stress that research relationships are complexand, as within psychoanalytic relationships, confusion could ariseabout which feelings belong to whom. Moreover, the subsequentprocess of untangling them might leave researchers feeling foolish,even guilty, as I did, for not noticing the muddle sooner.

Researchers might also require some help to unravel differentaspects of the research which are connected in ways that are notimmediately apparent, as I found in the two incidents describedbelow. The first incident occurred during a meeting with membersof my post-graduate peer group as we discussed various researchproblems with which we were struggling. I was talking about thedifficulty of accurately representing respondents’ experiences with-out projecting my own emotional baggage (as a fellow mobileserviceman’s wife) on to their narratives. This issue had been verymuch in my mind after I had heard a presentation by anotherresearcher about a respondent who was not, or not only, what heappeared to be at face value. I was surprised to find myself becom-ing tearful as I spoke about Fiona, the wife of an Army officerwhom I had interviewed many months earlier. Fiona had criedwhile recalling the distress of sending her children to boardingschool. She was shocked by the strength of her current feelingsabout events that had happened many years earlier. Although I hadpreviously imagined using much of the touching material obtainedduring that interview in my thesis, thus far I had used very little,primarily because, until now, I had felt that my understanding ofFiona’s experiences was only at a surface level. One member of mypeer group, who was shocked by my distress, said that it was asthough I was a different person to the calm, balanced, sensible,contained person that he imagined me to be.

The second incident occurred a few days later, when I presenteda paper at a conference. As I quoted from several research inter-views, it was important to me that I should verbalize the words insuch a way as to convey the emotions that I felt were behind them.

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One woman told me afterwards that she liked the way that I had“given voice” to the respondents, comparing this to “acting”, which,for her, involved really empathizing with the characters being por-trayed so that they were accurately represented. My initial responsewas to feel rather pleased by her comments, which suggested that Iwas, after all, able to represent the real feelings behind the stories ofthe individuals I had interviewed. Later on, however, I becameanxious that I might somehow have been “play acting”. I then real-ized that, although I had very consciously chosen to present thequotations from my research data in that rather dramatized way, Ihad not reflected at all on why I wanted to do that. When I discussedwith the same woman my concern that my empathy might not havebeen as genuine as it seemed, but rather some sort of “pseudo-understanding”, she remained convinced that by presenting the“stories” as I had, something vital had been conveyed about service-men’s wives’ experiences that otherwise would have been missed.

It was through reflecting afterwards upon these two incidents,both alone and with my peers, that I realized that the way in whichI had both enacted Fiona’s distress and then presented materialprovided by other respondents so dramatically, at a time when Iwas preoccupied with how to accurately represent their feelings,might be saying something about how they habitually “playeddown” their emotions. Other evidence had emerged in the researchdata which suggested that most respondents had identified withthe military institution; an institution that requires its members tomaintain the sort of discipline necessary in warfare, remaining calmeven in difficult situations. The military relies upon an outwardappearance of strength and control, irrespective of any potentiallydisturbing emotions that exist beneath the surface. For both Fionaand I, getting in touch with deeper feelings had meant movingbeyond the calm exterior that we usually present. Thus, mydistress, which I now understood as replicating Fiona’s, was per-ceived as out of character. Taken together, these incidents suggestedthat servicemen’s wives’ feelings of distress can be heard only whenthey are dramatically reproduced.

Recalling that hypothesis now brings me to another problem thatresearchers often face, which analysts do not: that researchers lackthe many opportunities usually available within psychoanalysis tocheck directly the accuracy of their interpretations. The limited

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number of their research interviews means that, ordinarily, re-searchers are not able to confirm the validity of their findings withrespondents, whereas analysts can “try out” their interpretations,refining them according to analysands’ responses. Researchers,therefore, need to ensure that the conclusions they reach have firmfoundations. That is, they should be careful not to make any inter-pretations based upon the feelings evoked in them unless thoseinterpretations are supported by other evidence within the researchmaterial (Buckner, 2005; Clarke, 2002; Frosh, 2003). Even in psycho-analysis, with its numerous possibilities for verifying the correct-ness of interpretations, it is still considered vital that analysts seekadditional evidence in the analytic material to support assumptionsbased upon their emotional responses before making interpretations(Hamilton, 1988; Heimann, 1960; Searles, 1978).

It feels important to reiterate that I did, in fact, find significantevidence within other research data to support my belief that, inorder for servicemen’s wives’ “stories” to be heard properly, theymight have to be dramatically reproduced. On numerous occasionsI was told, in one way or another, that any emotions perceived asnegative are taboo within military communities. Servicemen’swives are expected to put on a “brave face” and be stoic (like theirhusbands) about the difficulties inherent in their lifestyles. Ratherthan complain, they “just get on with it”, thus colluding with themilitary culture. Hence, respondents frequently “played down” orlaughed off the distressing losses that they sustained because ofrepeated relocation, including, as previously mentioned, beingseparated from children sent away to school.

Sally even laughed as she described the day that she had left herchildren at boarding school as “the worst day” of her life. Sheimmediately minimized the experience by saying, “This soundsdramatic”, almost as though she herself could not believe howpainful it had been. Interestingly, when I listened to the tape-record-ing of her interview, Sally’s laughter sounded more like sobbing,and it was this (dramatic reproduction of her distress?), rather thanher words, that I believe more accurately expressed how utterlydevastated she had been to leave her children behind. Given thatmembers of military communities must be brave and strong, feel-ings of distress become silenced. As Ardener (1975) argued, anychallenges to the dominant view tend to be assigned “to a non-real

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status; making them ‘overlooked’, ‘muted’, ‘invisible’” (ibid., p. 25).No wonder, then, that having identified with the distressing emo-tions underlying respondents’ “stories”, I, as a serviceman’s wifemyself, became anxious, concerned that those feelings were some-how “unreal”, or that in expressing them I might be “play-acting”.

Identifying with respondents

I have been arguing that, while the use of countertransference feel-ings by researchers might significantly enhance what they learnabout respondents’ experiences, it is not always easy to disentanglewhich feelings belong to whom. It is important that researchersidentify with respondents without becoming so undifferentiatedfrom them that perspective is lost (Britton, 1998; Clarke, 2008;Hollway, 2004, 2008). Again, this is a familiar problem withinpsychoanalysis. As Klein (1959) warned, although identifying withother people enables us to empathically understand them, this maybe taken so far that individuals “lose themselves entirely in othersand become incapable of objective judgement” (ibid., p. 295). Bion(1959, 1970) followed Freud (1912e) in warning analysts that theymust retain sufficient detachment to think about the feelingsprojected into them. What makes this complicated is not only thatanalysts/researchers inevitably bring unresolved, unconsciousissues of their own into their work, but also that the feelingsprojected into them by analysands/respondents are often complex.

For the psychoanalyst Racker, the “total countertransference”(1957, p. 310) inevitably comprises two forms of identification withan analysand; an empathic or “concordant identification” and a sim-ultaneous “complementary identification” (ibid., p. 311), the latterderiving from the analysand’s unconscious projection of an internalobject into the analyst, who is then equated with, and treated as, thatobject, inducing an identification with it. In other words, the concor-dant identification induces the analyst to feel as the analysand did ininfancy, while the complementary identification induces the analystto feel as an internalized figure, usually a parent, was experienced.For example, an analysand who experienced a parent as intrusivemight induce their analyst to feel both intruded upon (concordantidentification) and as though they are themselves intruding

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(complementary identification). That is, the phantasy of a completeobject relationship is communicated to the analyst (Feldman, 1997;Hamilton, 1988; Sandler, Dare, & Holder, 1992).

I referred earlier to Kayleigh, suggesting that one of severalfactors that might have contributed to my failure to fully recognizeher distress when we first met was that Kayleigh presented herselfas someone largely unscathed, personally, by her recent move.Instead, she talked about how her infant son’s routine had been dis-rupted and how important it was for him that she should quickly re-establish that routine. Kayleigh’s need to restore control, and toimpose a familiar order on her new environment soon aftermoving, aroused my suspicion that she might be unconsciouslydefending herself against disturbing feelings. Nevertheless, Iremained oblivious, initially, to the extent of her suffering.

I later learned that at only eight years old, Kayleigh had beenobliged to “grow up pretty quick”. She took on an adult rolebecause of her parents’ “horrific arguments”. It seemed that herown feelings were ignored as she attempted to impose order uponher bickering parents, telling them to “grow up”. In light of this,Kayleigh’s arrangement of her new house to mirror the one that shehad recently left, turning it into a “cocoon . . . like a comfort blan-ket”, can be understood as an attempt to create for herself her ownpsychic containment. Assuming that it was a familiar experience forKayleigh to be left alone to deal with her emotions, she might havehad no expectation when we met that I would understand (or care?)how she felt. She might even have communicated this to methrough projective identification, evoking my collusion with heranticipation that I would not recognize her emotional turmoil. Inother words, while undoubtedly there were other factors at work,my failure of empathy during that first interview could owe some-thing, also, to a “complementary identification” (Racker, 1957, p.311) with Kayleigh’s experience of unempathic others.

Reflecting upon my interviews with Kayleigh taught me howdifficult it can be to maintain the balance between empathy anddetachment. However, I believe that for researchers to really under-stand respondents’ experiences, they must first feel them. Thisinevitably involves transiently losing themselves in their counter-transference. What is important is that researchers should thenrecover their objectivity and try to make sense of the feelings

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evoked in them, which might require them to seek the help ofothers, as was the case for me. By unwittingly relating to Kayleighas a less interesting (junior) respondent who need not be taken seri-ously, I was predisposed to receive and identify with her projectionof an unempathic other, inducing me to remain very detached fromher underlying distress during the first interview, a dynamic that Ineeded assistance to understand.

Perhaps the following description of my interviews with Joanne,who had relocated with her RAF husband seven times in ten years,will serve to further illustrate how Racker’s “total countertransfer-ence” might function within psycho-social research. During ourfirst interview, Joanne gave the impression of someone pragmati-cally “getting on with it”. However, the tears in her eyes, especiallyas she described feeling isolated and unsupported when she wasleft alone for three months, trying to hold down a job and cope withtwo small children while her husband was away, suggested that herpragmatism might be a defence against underlying distress. At oursecond interview, I was surprised and curious about an unusualfluttery sensation in my chest, which I thought related to anxiety.This seemed incongruous, since I felt quite relaxed about inter-viewing, particularly with Joanne, who had been emotionally unde-manding when we first met. Indeed, I belatedly realized, theconnection between us felt rather superficial. Paradoxically, itbecame stronger and felt more real when Joanne spoke, albeit againin a rather matter of fact way, about a time when she had been clin-ically depressed and had blocked off her emotions.

At some point I became aware of attempting to make more eyecontact with Joanne. However, my view of her face was restrictedbecause Joanne was holding her cat high on her chest. Afterwards,I realized that on several occasions other people had entered andleft the room where we were talking, largely disregarded by usboth. Once, Joanne’s daughter stood silently looking at us for a longtime, until I felt uncomfortable that, being engrossed in the inter-view, we had ignored her. I said “hello”, and she left. At other timesI was vaguely aware of Joanne’s husband coming and going. How-ever, apart from acknowledging his first appearance, we both dis-regarded him, too. These observations seemed to link with mysense that Joanne felt overlooked and uncared for each time sherelocated:

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“we seem to have problems every time we move, we always getshort notice . . . and our paperwork seems to get lost . . . We alwaysseem to be last minute in moving . . . and everyone else just hasplenty of time.”

Reflecting upon the interview afterwards, it occurred to me thatthere was a theme around seeing and being seen, or not. For exam-ple, I was trying to “see” Joanne, but she remained hidden. Thisreminded me of Winnicott’s (1967) argument that an infant discov-ers that they exist by seeing themselves when they look into theirmother’s face; “when I look, I am seen, so I exist” (ibid., p. 134), aprocess that Winnicott suggests is about being recognized as real,an individual. I wondered whether my unusual attempts to makemore eye contact with Joanne, together with the way that we hadapparently overlooked (not seen) her family members, might relatesomehow to Joanne’s inner world, particularly to her sense of notreceiving the attention given to others.

Joanne’s description of her childhood suggests that she and hersiblings, in common with many children at that time, myselfincluded, were often out of their parents’ sight:

“we was always out to play and stuff like that . . . there was a chil-dren’s home at the top of the road in one of the parks and wealways used to go up and play in there . . . in the summer holidays. . . every day because Mum worked and Dad was working.”

As Joanne described it, her childhood seemed unremarkable,involving enjoyable rough and tumble; “as long as I came homefilthy that was OK . . . sliding down the mud banks, that was thehighlight of the day”.

Suddenly curious, I asked about Joanne’s siblings, and learntthat although she got on with her younger sister, she found herelder sister “annoying”; “She just goes OTT with a lot of stuff andshe doesn’t realize what an idiot she’s being sometimes.” Joannesaid that her elder sister “didn’t want to know her kids”. She had“chucked her eldest out when he was only about fourteen so hewent to live with my Mum and Dad . . . and she just seemed to notpay them . . .” (this phrase was left unfinished but I imagined itmight end “any attention”) “they were always sort of fending forthemselves.”

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Although Joanne presented her sister’s apparent neglect of herchildren as incomprehensible, it sounded to me quite similar toJoanne’s own childhood experience. She, too, seemed to have beenleft, at least to some extent, to fend for herself. Poignantly, Joannehad found a home from home among children in care.

While I do not wish to suggest that Joanne’s childhood lackedthe pleasures that she described, in common with most childhoodsthere were less enjoyable aspects, too. Indeed, her response to myquestion, “What was it like growing up in your family?”, implies adegree of deprivation.

“Ooh, scared of your Dad . . . as you would be, its always ‘wait ’tilyour father gets home” type thing . . . never much money to goround . . . lived in a council house which, everyone says ‘ooh, youlived in a council house’ (laughing) but it was all right actually . . .we were all right . . . things were just always tight really . . . but wehad fun.”

Joanne appeared to admire her younger sister for coping wellwith bringing up her children alone after being widowed. How-ever, their elder sister “always has a go” at the younger sisterbecause “she resents the attention the younger one got”, bothbecause of her widowhood and “the fact that the younger one was,um, the favourite”. Joanne had said to her elder sister, “Come on,you’re coming up to forty and you’re still resentful about every-thing as a kid.” Joanne could not understand why “she’s still angryand bitter about it all . . . something that happened like, nearlythirty years ago . . . she won’t let go of it”.

As mentioned previously, everyone unconsciously defendsthemselves from anything that may be disturbing. Hollway andJefferson (2000) argue that, by learning how respondents uncon-sciously defend themselves against unpalatable truths, researcherscan better understand their narratives. Relationships that areperceived as entirely bad sometimes indicate a defence against theanxiety that they might otherwise arouse (ibid., p. 59). There is someevidence that Joanne’s dislike of her elder sister might have been adefence against confronting some painful aspects of their sharedchildhood, which this sister represents. Whereas Joanne minimizedthe deprivations of childhood by saying “but we had fun”, her

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elder sister not only remained openly resentful about receivinginsufficient attention, but also demonstrated (repeated?) an appar-ent lack of care for her own children by leaving them to fend forthemselves. Conversely, if Joanne cannot see her children, she isuncomfortable (“They don’t go out, I need to be able to see them”),suggesting that, for Joanne, children should be kept within sightalways. Certainly, they would never be out of sight at a boardingschool, because Joanne’s husband was due to leave the militarybefore the possibility arose of sending their children away.

The theme of seeing and being seen also seemed to be aroundwhen Joanne suggested that military relocations had probablyaffected her husband’s parents more than her own because “theyneeded to see the kids”. Consequently, Joanne’s husband “keptwanting to go back to the UK on a regular basis”. Joanne, however,rarely visited her own family, she didn’t “see the point”. Shepreferred to “go somewhere and relax . . . than go back . . . andlisten to all the bickering and arguing”. Interestingly, Joanne’s eldersister, whose grievances from childhood are verbalized, was happyto live with their parents temporarily, whereas Joanne did not “planto go back on a regular basis”.

Joanne told me that she could not always express her feelings,even in adulthood. She described several phases of depressionwhen she became detached from her emotions: “You don’t handlethem at all . . . you’re just like numb and you suppress everything.”I suggest that Joanne might have defensively split off hurtful child-hood emotions related to times when she felt overlooked, andprojected these into her elder sister. In common with many moth-ers, Joanne acknowledged that she liked having time to herself andenjoyed being able to work rather than being “stuck” at home withthe kids. However, she condemned her elder sister for letting herhusband “take priority”, implying that the children should alwayscome first. Perhaps Joanne also needed to project into her eldersister, and then attack, a part of herself (surely inevitable in allmothers) that occasionally wanted to put her own interests aheadof looking after her children.

The focus of my research was not to speculate about respon-dents’ childhood experiences. However, such events can throw lightupon how they typically defend themselves against uncomfortablerealities, thereby enhancing understanding of other material that

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they produce. In psychoanalysis, analysts can discover much aboutan analysand’s (unconscious) early relationships by consideringhow that analysand unconsciously uses the analyst (Joseph, 1985).Similarly, I suggest that researchers should consider how the feel-ings evoked in them might pressure them to feel or act as either therespondent, or significant figures from their past, might feel or act.

I believe that my total countertransference to Joanne illustratesaspects of her unconscious relationships. The unusual anxiety thatI experienced related, I suggest, to Joanne’s (split-off) primitive fearof being overlooked, given insufficient attention, or remainingunrecognized (hidden as she was behind her cat). This can beunderstood as a concordant identification with an infantile desire tolook in order to be seen, and therefore to exist and to matter.Moreover, the arousal of my anxiety prompted a realization that,when I had met Joanne previously, I felt unaffected by her, remain-ing emotionally detached or “numb”, just as Joanne herself some-times feels when she is depressed and (unconsciously) avoidsengaging with painful feelings. That is, I had concordantly identi-fied, also, with Joanne’s emotional detachment.

I recorded in my post-interview notes that “I had to work hard totry to make a connection” with Joanne. Her response to me, whichcan be thought of as her countertransference, was to keep me out ofsight; the way that Joanne held her cat meant that for most of thetime I could neither see her, nor be seen by her. That is, Joanne quiteliterally blocked my attempts to connect with her emotionally. In ananalogous manner, I did not really notice Joanne’s family memberswhen they appeared during the interview. I believe that thisamounted to a complementary identification with an unseeing(apparently unfeeling?) object. In effect, Joanne’s family were “outof sight, out of mind”, as I suspect Joanne sometimes felt in child-hood and apparently still feels whenever she relocates with her mili-tary husband, as evidenced by her complaints of being given lessnotice of relocations than other people.

Conclusion

I have compared the use of countertransference in psychoanalysiswith the use of researchers’ feelings, sometimes evoked through

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projective identification, to inform research. Using examples frommy own research, I illustrated that, by reflecting upon their bodilysensations and/or emotions, researchers might achieve a deeperunderstanding of respondents’ experiences. However, researchersface similar problems to analysts in differentiating which feelingsbelong to whom, not least because of the complexity of the identi-fications induced by the total countertransference. Indeed, research-ers may become temporarily “lost” and require help from others torecover their objectivity. Although potentially disturbing, if thistransient blurring of the boundary between researchers’ andrespondents’ psyches is sensitively and ethically explored, it maylead to the discovery of elements that would ordinarily remaininaccessible. In particular, learning how respondents typicallydefend themselves from painful truths may help researchers tobetter understand the data that they collect, enriching their researchfindings. Certainly, discovering that Joanne might be unconsciouslydefending herself against a childhood anxiety about being over-looked helped me to understand that, although she appeared to beemotionally unaffected by military relocation, beneath the surfaceshe felt disregarded and uncared for.

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PART III

METHODS OF INQUIRYAND ANALYSIS

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Seeing ↔ believing, dreaming ↔thinking: some methodologicalmapping of view points

Lindsey Nicholls

“A point of view is inevitable; and the naïve attempt to avoidit can only lead to a self-deception, and to the uncriticalapplication of an unconscious point of view”

(Popper, 1966, p. 261)

The research I undertook examined the social defence mecha-nisms of occupational therapists in their everyday work withclients in an acute hospital department. The study used the

processes Menzies Lyth (1988) had described in her seminal studyof the nursing profession: observation, interviews, and inquirygroups. In doing the practical part of the study, I began to questionhow the method could help me explore what I did not know andwhat, because of the unconscious, I could not know. I used psycho-analytic theory as a basis for the study, which is the belief in thework of the unconscious in all that we do, say, or think.

I realized that, if the unconscious was active in the participantsand researchers’ lives, it might generate defensive patterns ofengagement within the research process. How could I discoversomething “new” if I could only be aware of (or observe) what I

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169


already knew? What research methods would uncover the areas ofthe “unthought known” (Bollas, 1987) within the qualitative meth-ods of interviews, observation, and reflexivity.

Hollway and Jefferson’s (2000) understanding of “defendedsubjects” (p. 45) and “free associate narrative interviews” (p. 37)(FANI), were key methodological resources and I explored twofurther lines of reasoning within this process: interpretation asintersubjective creation of knowledge (seeing ↔ believing) andthe use of dreaming as a reflexive tool for thinking (dreaming ↔thinking). In this chapter, I have kept these two developments inseparate sections, but hope the reader can appreciate how thestrands are related to each other. The dream material created newopportunities for dialogue with and between participants, theobservation and interviews evoked dream material. To know aboutsomething, I needed to experience it by observing the externalevents and internal “events” (including dreams). These observa-tions (and insights) then provided a fertile ground for the intersub-jective dialogues that took place in the FANI and inquiry groups.

Part 1: seeing ↔ believing

Menzies Lyth’s (1988) study of ward-based nurses was able to iden-tify the social defence systems that operated within the institution(a large general hospital) to protect the nurses from the experienceof “raw” unconscious anxiety. This study created a bridge betweensocial sciences (anthropology) and psychoanalysis, and inspired meto inquire about the professional defences that occupational thera-pists might employ in their work with clients.

In the research process, the action of observing or interviewingthe participant brought my viewpoint into focus alongside that ofthe participant. Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) said, “We do not see things asthey are, we see things as we are”(cited in Blenkiron, 2005, p. 49);and this “seeing” what we already expect to be there can make thediscovery of something new virtually impossible. The current think-ing about reflexivity (Finlay & Gough, 2003; Pillow, 2003) suggeststhat if the researcher is able to explore their own view of the worldand describe their motives for doing the study (a kind of self-analy-sis), then the reader is able to decide for themselves what “truth”

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might lie in the research report. These self-disclosures are an effort attransparency and increase the trustworthiness of the study under-taken, but, considering the active ongoing work of the unconscious,these self-disclosures are frequently beset with difficulties. I haveused the story of “The emperor’s new clothes” to uncover the diffi-culty with not knowing what you do not know, and the imaginativeuse of interpretations in the FANI as a way of creating a dialoguewith the participant in which meaning may emerge.

“The emperor’s new clothes”

The story of “The emperor’s new clothes” (Andersen, 1993) illus-trates how powerful (i.e., blinding) a cultural belief can be andpeople—the townsfolk, ministers of government, and the emperorhimself—will believe what they are told if the cost of not believingwould make them appear stupid or deficient in some respects. Inother words, people “believed” what they “saw”. This difficulty ofseeing what is “there” (or not there, in the case of the emperor’sclothes) mirrors the current thinking in social construction theory(Burr, 2003) that what we see is mediated by what we expect to see.These beliefs are created through a series of social interactions thatare encoded in a complex web of political, cultural, social, andfamily relationships. As I embarked on participant observationmethods, I wondered if what I saw would have been influenced bywhat I thought I should see, making me “blind” to what might havebeen visible.

A second part to the story has always intrigued me: the roleplayed by the young boy who called out that the emperor had“nothing on at all”. I have been interested to know how the boy wasable to see his nakedness and in the tone of his declaration: was ita kind of interpretation? It seemed to be the same kind of statementthat a therapist might make to a client, that they “saw” somethingdifferent to the narrative (verbal presentation) of the client, and thisinterpretation could sometimes expose the client to their hiddenself with an accompanying sense of shame and/or relief.

The intention behind the boy’s statement becomes crucial tounderstanding the use of an interpretation in the research process(using FANI). If the boy’s intention was to shame the emperor (by

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SEEING ↔ BELIEVING, DREAMING ↔ THINKING 171


demonstrating his “superior” knowledge), he might have evokedsuch anger (defensiveness) in the emperor (and the crowd) that itwould have destroyed any possibility of thoughtfulness. If what theboy wanted to say was as an inquiry and/or interpretation ofevents, then it might have been possible for the Emperor toconsider his role in the sham and simultaneously the townsfolk’srole in this pretence.

Although Hollway and Jefferson (2000) are explicit about notusing “interpretation” in the FANI, I found that saying what I hadbeen thinking about in the groups and interviews allowed theprocess of understanding to evolve. Hoggett (2006) described inter-pretation as a kind of “thinking aloud”, and it seemed to me thatthe boy in the fable was thinking aloud, allowing for the Emperorand the crowd to reflect on their combined folly.

Developing “insight’

Social constructionists warn us that our perceptions may be alteredby what is deemed important by a society and its culture (Burr,2002), but we have another theoretical source to understandinghuman subjects: psychoanalysis and the use of projective identifi-cation and the role of the unconscious (Ogden, 1979). The possibil-ity of “seeing” something can be an internal one; through taking inthe projections (raw experience) of the other (a client or participant)we can create an internal place for these feelings that might allowus to put them into words or take some form of action. This deeptherapeutic encounter might bring about a change in the client, and,at times, the therapist (Casement, 2006).

Menzies Lyth (1988) described how she used a process of “inter-nalising the data” (p. 128), mentally and emotionally sifting thedata until meaning could emerge. This meaning was often in theform of a hypothesis, which was then posed to a group of nurses tocheck its validity (or usefulness). As Menzies Lyth stated,

this understanding of the data is also a stressful task for the consul-tant [i.e. researcher] . . . The data have to be felt inside oneself; thatis one has to take in and experience the stress in the organisation,much as one does in individual and group psychotherapy. [ibid.]

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The real evidence of the effectiveness of the hypothesis occurredwhen discussions of its possible meaning created changes in workroutines that lessened the stress on the individual nurses.

Menzies Lyth’s study was “called sociotherapeutic or ‘clinical’”(ibid., p. 115) and was motivated by an ongoing difficulty that hadbeen identified by the organization. She described an action learn-ing intervention, but added that “one’s understanding of a socialorganisation, as of a person, is likely to be seriously limited if onecannot gain access to unconscious or implicit elements as well as tomore overt ones” (ibid., p. 119). As a psychoanalyst, she broughtthese theoretical constructs and clinical skills to gathering data anddiscussing the results. She said her in-depth access to the nurses wasmade possible by the invitation from senior management and theintention in her study was to “communicate the diagnostic findingsto the client organisation” (ibid., p. 121), i.e., to effect change in thatorganization. Unfortunately, not all research is by invitation, andmine was motivated by being an occupational therapist and myconcern with the positivist emphasis in research and therapy. Occu-pational therapists seemed to ignore the relational realm of care anddeny the possibility of their using activities (also called occupations)as a defence against the clients’ vulnerability (Nicholls, 2003).

Participant observation: creating an internal map of the psycho-social work

To create an awareness of the work undertaken by occupationaltherapists (OTs), I spent several periods immersed in observationsof their work with clients, in meetings, and at the team base. Thiswas to familiarize myself with the culture of the environment byobserving their interactions with clients (relational and tasksperformed), creating an inner experience by observing my feelings.This period gave me an internal landscape of the work and becamecrucial in developing relationships with the participants. I reflectedon what I had seen and felt, and was able to refer to these eventslater in the FANIs.

Participant observation comes from a long tradition of ethno-graphic fieldwork studies (Hunt, 1989) and what is “seen” might beaffected by what the observer expects to see (or can cope with

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seeing) while participants might be affected by the act of beingobserved. My recording of events involved a mixture of externaland internal events. The following example came from an acutemedical ward, and described my thoughts and feelings about the client, their family, the staff, and, hidden beneath that, my own sense of awkwardness at being an observer, i.e., without a“helping” role.

I saw that the bed opposite had an elderly man lying in it; he wasconnected to monitors and machines, he had a mask over his nose andmouth, and a drip. There was a younger man and woman standingeither side of the bed; the patient was either asleep or unconscious. Heshowed no recognition of them and his eyes were closed. The twofigures seemed to be keeping a silent vigil. I wondered if the man wasdying and if they were his children. I thought hospitals were verypublic places; this scenario was in full view of the ward with the usualtraffic of nurses, equipment suppliers, technicians, doctors, and adminstaff walking past without any glance towards them, or them towardsthe passing staff. I wondered if the noise was a comfort in this stillscene (a tragic tableau). It felt as if the movement of the staff was atleast a sign of life: the patient in bed showed little sign of being alive,he looked old, thin, pale, and his mouth hung open.

The work of Esther Bick (2002) on infant observation and itsinquiry into the experience of observing has been incorporated intomany new disciplines of study which use psychoanalysis in theirresearch work, e.g., organizational analysis (Hinshelwood, 2002;Mackenzie & Beecraft, 2004; Skogstad, 2004). The “Bick” methodencouraged the researcher to observe the details of events that tookplace between the child and its mother (or father or care-givers)including an uncensored description of their thoughts and feelingsduring these observations. These were transcribed into detailedfield notes that were used in seminar group discussions for furtheranalysis.

In this way, the researcher relied on their internal experiences(projective identification) to understand the unconscious communi-cation which took place between mother and child. In a similarfashion, the experience of the fieldwork in the research study withOTs provided me with an internal awareness of the emotional workundertaken by therapists. Some of this awareness was in thoughts(or as questions), dream images, or associations with events in my

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life. The creation of these internal images and reflections wereimportant in engaging in the next stage of the study, the interview.

The example used below presented me with an insight intopossible social defences employed by OTs, protecting them from theanxiety of working in an acute care setting. The observation tookplace in a general medical ward; the newly qualified OT (Fiona)was assessing an older adult patient (Sydney) for his readiness toreturn home. Assessments often involved asking patients to discussor demonstrate how they would perform their “self care” routines:washing, dressing, and using the toilet.

Fiona asked Sydney if she could do an assessment. He was sitting onhis bed in a six-bedded ward with male patients. The ward was largewith a sense of camaraderie between the men; a few smiled and greetedme. Sydney was an older man (perhaps late seventies), with a large(swollen) torso and thin legs criss-crossed with varicose veins. He waswearing pyjamas and his unbuttoned top left his chest and stomachvisible. His hair was thinning and his face ruddy; I wondered if he wasa smoker or heavy drinker to have such a deep red complexion.

Sydney said he had met occupational therapists before, during the war,when he did things with his hands to “get better” and go back to thefighting. Fiona didn’t respond to this information; she asked him somequestions about his home and if he could get to the toilet on his own,if he was able to wash and dress himself. . . . She asked him to demon-strate his walking to the toilet (on the ward). He walked there and thephysiotherapist asked him why he wasn’t using his sticks. He seemedto have forgotten that he had any and then he began to get irritable.

When he returned to his bed Fiona asked him to show her how hewashed himself. Sydney took off his shirt and I became quiteconcerned, as I didn’t know if he would strip down to his naked body.I found myself thinking about my father. Sydney’s body was similar tomy father’s and he was a similar age to my father when he had been inhospital. I wondered what my role would be in watching this man insuch a vulnerable naked state. It felt partly voyeuristic and partlypainful, as I had no role in it, nothing to do except watch.

When Fiona asked Sydney who was at home with him, he started toget more irritable. He said she couldn’t phone his wife and he couldn’tunderstand why she had to ask him all these questions. Fiona said shewould be back in a while and asked me to come out with her. She toldme she was shocked at his questioning her, and I said it seemed he

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didn’t want to let her know how things were at home and I wonderedif he was coping and perhaps her questions were making him irritable.

Fiona returned to Sydney but he wouldn’t do anything further. As wewalked back, Fiona said she was feeling scared. I didn’t respond to that(in fact, I interrupted with my next comment). I said I thought Sydneywas protecting himself from questions by being irritable with her,perhaps because he felt ashamed. I was thinking of my father, whocould be charming but would cover his sense of humiliation with ablustering aggression. I wasn’t listening to Fiona; I was thinking aboutmy father and imagining that Sydney’s irritation was similar.

This observation gave rise to several areas of inquiry which Icould explore in the interviews. Some of themes were the difficultyof working with older male clients, physical frailty, and the fearclients expressed (overtly or covertly) about the “power” an OT hadin deciding their future (i.e., their recommendations in the dischargeplans). In managing this anxiety, OTs would sometimes seem toassess only the physical capability of clients (walking, toileting,washing), allocating equipment to assist them in these tasks, andnot acknowledge the clients’ emotional experience of being inhospital. This “giving of equipment” seemed to be the defence OTsused to protect themselves from the responsibility of decisions thataltered a client’s (often an older person’s) life, such as where theywould live after leaving the hospital. I wondered if, by keepingtasks practical, there was a denial of the horror of becoming old, theloss of one’s bodily integrity (e.g., incontinence) and increasingphysical dependence on others.

An unexpected outcome of these “accompanied” observationswas the connection it established between the participants and me.Fiona, following the period of observations, described many of hernegative experiences of work in the interviews, and I wondered ifshe could trust me as she knew that I had seen some of what shedescribed. Perhaps, as I had already made an active intervention inobserving her difficulty with Sydney, we had begun a reflectivespace between us.

The observation also evoked reflections and associations to myfather, who had died in hospital (many years previously) after anelective surgical procedure. I was not expecting to find it painful toobserve the older men in the wards, and, although the associations

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helped me to think about the anxiety of these clients in hospital, Iwould sometimes cut off from listening to the therapist’s descrip-tion of their experience because I was too full of my own. By usingmy associations during the observations (e.g., Sydney’s irritability)I could ask the OTs during the second part of the research, the inter-view process, about something I had felt or thought about as a“thinking aloud” (i.e., interpretation) to what they had been saying.

The use of interpretation in the FANI

Using the work of Hollway and Jefferson (2000), based on thenotion of a defended subject and the experiences of countertrans-ference as part of the data, as a guide for the interviews I undertookwith the participants there were three aspects of the process whichbegan to intrigue me:

● what was heard was not always what was said;● the response of the researcher was critical in developing the

interview;● responding to what the researcher thinks they have “heard” is

potentially fraught with misunderstanding and/or uninten-tional exposure.

The FANI method described by Hollway and Jefferson (2000)attempts to create an agenda-free space for the interview to occur.The researcher is an integral part of what can be known from theinterview; in other words, what can be known occurs within therelationship between the participant and researcher, and both areobjects of analytic scrutiny.

. . . tracking this relationship relies on a particular view of the sub-ject: one whose inner world is not simply a reflection of the outerworld, nor a cognitively driven rational accommodation to it. Rather. . . research subjects . . . whose inner worlds cannot be understoodwithout knowledge of their experiences in the world, and whoseexperiences of the world cannot be understood without knowledgeof the way in which their inner worlds allow them to experience theouter world. The research subject cannot be known except throughanother subject; in this case, the researcher. [ibid., p. 4]

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The response of the researcher to the participant is crucial indeveloping insights into the experience of the subject. Theseresponses include the psychoanalytic concepts of containment,projective identification, identification, and interpretation. Along-side more technical discussions of how responses or interpretationsare made (or not made), I thought there was a less obvious area ofinquiry: the intention behind the response of the researcher.

The researcher may hope their conscious intention in respond-ing to the participant is to clarify or illuminate the material beingdiscussed, but be unaware of an unconscious enactment whichcould include narcissist identification, attempts to prove superior-ity by using sophisticated terminology, or an envious rivalryenacted through subtle sadistic remarks. This possible unconsciousenactment by the researcher (e.g., rivalry or narcissistic identifica-tion) can be a neglected area of inquiry if the researcher onlyemphasizes their conscious intentions. While notions of projection,projective identification, and interpretation allow us to considerhow meaning may emerge within a FANI, Fabian (2001), in hisdiscussion on “ethnographic misunderstanding and the perils ofcontext” (ibid., p. 33), also draws our attention to things that aremisunderstood (and so become available for understanding) andthe things that we do not know we did not understand, and so thepossibility of understanding them sinks beyond sight (or insight).

On understanding and not understanding and the process of containment

Joseph (1983) writes that analysts need to distinguish betweenpatients wishing to be understood and those who wish to under-stand. The desire by the patient to “be understood” was linked tothe Kleinian position of paranoid–schizoid functioning (Segal, 1973;Steiner, 1993), where the patient gave the therapist his or her feel-ings as a way of being rid of them. As such, the patient experiencedany verbal attempt by the therapist to understand these feelings asan attack. In other words, the patient wanted to be free of theirexperience and so found any attempt at an interpretation by thetherapist as a negation of their communication. These patients didnot wish to receive their feelings back, even though the therapistmay have attempted to do so in a palatable form.

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Joseph (1983) suggested the patient at a later stage, havingshifted into the (Kleinian) depressive position of functioning, mightbe able to tolerate thinking about their feelings and the therapist’sactive interpretations could be helpful and necessary for the patientto make progress. This process of being rid of feelings (throughprojection) and tolerating interpretations between patient and ther-apist seemed to me to be preceded by the capacity of the therapistto contain the experiences of the patient (Nicholls, 2000). Contain-ment, a concept initially used by Bion (1962), is clearly articulatedin work with patients (Ogden, 1979; Steiner, 1993) and with organi-zations (Bolton & Roberts, 1994).

Containment as a psychoanalytic concept, involves the analyst’skeeping a space inside their mind that allows for the patient’sprojective identifications to be “taken in” and processed. This actmay allow the patient to feel understood, and if given sufficientthoughtfulness (a mixture of personal experience, theoretical know-ledge and tolerance of these painful experiences) can be brought tobear on these projections, meaning may emerge. [Nicholls, 2000, p. 42]

Hollway and Jefferson state that within the research relationship it isthe intersubjective aspects of “recognition and containment” thatallowed for “trust to develop” (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000, p. 49).They mentioned how a verbal response by the researcher, which res-onated with the depth of the emotional material of the participant,provoked further revelations of the material that were hidden fromview. They hypothesized that the participant could be ashamed ofthe material, or had pushed it out of consciousness, as it was fright-ening to recall. The researcher’s response was described as anempathic reflection where the researcher speaks back to the partici-pant the feeling that they were in contact with (i.e., experienced asan emotional resonance) while listening to the interview: e.g., “thatsounds frightening”, or “that must have been very sad”, etc.

Ultimately, containment involved taking in the experience of the“other” (client, participant, or group) and attempting to understandwhat was being communicated. As Joseph (1983) and Steiner (1993)suggested, it may be unhelpful, or even harmful, to speak theseinsights back to the “other”, and the act of containment throughlistening may be sufficient for the person to feel understood.

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However, as the research interview aims to reach an understandingof what is being said, the researcher may risk an interpretation thataims to clarify or uncover the meaning within the communication.However, these interpretations brought to light further concerns:were they valid and ethical? Britton and Steiner (1994) distin-guished between interpretation as a “selected fact or overvaluedidea” (p. 1069), the latter being a noxious experience for the recipi-ent. I wondered, should a researcher risk an interpretation when theparticipant was not in an ongoing therapeutic relationship withthem?

The use of interpretation to create meaning in the intersubjective space

Britton and Steiner (1994) considered it was the response of thepatient to the analyst’s interpretation that provided the evidence ofits accurateness. They suggested that the analyst used their freefloating attention until a “selected fact” began to emerge, to whichother facts or events seemed to be related. At this stage, articulatingthis idea (or hypothesis) to the patient would confirm its usefulnessif the process of therapy continued: i.e., it provoked insight andmovement in the analysis. However, if the analyst had erroneouslyover-used a theoretical concept as a central tenet to their under-standing of the patient, there was a temptation to get the patient tofit the theory, resulting in an “overvalued idea” (ibid., p. 1070). Theysaid it was hard to distinguish between the two types of hypothe-ses, but articulating them (and believing in them) was essential tothe unfolding process of the analysis.

In our view, the distinction between a creative use of the selected factand a delusional one which supports an overvalued idea may besmall at the moment of its formulation, but becomes crucial in theevents which follow the verbalisation of an interpretation. It ispartly because of this we believe that an essential part of the workof interpretation takes place after it is given. [ibid., p. 1070]

There may be opportunities in the FANI that allow for theresearcher to test a hypothesis (a selected fact or overvalued idea)

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that they have been considering within the research and with theparticipant. I found this particularly useful in the second interview,where I could explore notions that had occurred to me during thefirst interview and while listening to the recording. Britton andSteiner (ibid.) said that “a great deal depends on the spirit in whichthis [the offer of an interpretation] is done” (p. 1073). If the inter-pretation is taken up by the patient as something “he is being askedto consider”, then “an atmosphere of inquiry is able to develop”(ibid.). This seemed to echo the very notion of a “thinking aloud”that Hoggett had spoken about.

Britton and Steiner (1994) also warn that interpretations whichwere forced on the patients that did not allow for any doubt causeda “soul murder” (ibid., p. 1073) and, for this reason alone, researchersmight have become very cautious about attempting any interpreta-tion in their interviews. I had thought that, because the participantwas not in an ongoing relationship with me, if my interpretationswere clumsy and/or inaccurate they would not be harmful, butmight cause the interview to come to an abrupt halt or the partici-pant to be less forthcoming. In my experience, the interpretations Iused assisted the interview more often than hindered it, and whatwas not tolerated (i.e., thought about) by the participant was easilydismissed, often to my considerable chagrin.

Menzies Lyth (1988), in her chapter “Methodological notes on ahospital study” (pp. 115–129), described how not all the insights orinterpretations were shared with the participants and only oneswhich maximized the therapeutic effectiveness of the client–consul-tant relationship were used. The insights that were never sharedwere useful in helping the consultant understand the organization.She discussed the fact that during the interviews some topics were

too painful for certain informants [participants] easily to expose ina relationship which was basically fact finding and not therapeuticfor them and where the consultant does not, therefore, have thetherapeutic sanction to cause pain. [ibid., p. 121]

This drew my attention to the ethical nature of the relationshipestablished within the interview.

The participant was protected by the explicit information on thenature and purpose of the study given to them prior to their

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consent being sought for the project. However, in agreeing toparticipate in the research, neither I nor the participants could haveanticipated the painfulness of the research process; for example,witnessing the intimacy of an encounter between a therapist andclient, interview material which emerged through an empatheticattunement to the underlying themes. These were part of the lessconscious communication, and were related to the participants’unconscious communication and my motivation for doing thestudy (conscious and unconscious).

Ethical endeavours: expropriation, emancipation, or enlightenment

The film Capote (2006) depicts the author of In Cold Blood as manip-ulating the trust of the killers in order to learn their story andunderstand their motivations for killing a family in an isolatedhouse in Kansas. The book enhanced Capote’s fame, but leaves thequestion of how interpersonal knowledge is gained and to whatpurpose it may be used. Capote exploited his relationship with thekillers to write their biography, and his identification with thekillers (as suggested in the film) caused him considerable personaldespair and contributed to his alcoholic demise.

I wondered how the ethics of consent and beneficence could beemployed where the researcher does not expropriate the know-ledge gained from the participant, creating an advantage for theresearcher and leaving the participant somewhat diminished? Theproblem of whose “voice” was being represented (and the owner-ship of information) was partially solved if the researcher explicitlyshared their understanding of the research process and analysis ofthe social defences with the participants. This may help researchersfeel less like a manipulative “Capote” figure and support the wholeinquiry process by including insights of the participants to thehypotheses generated through the analysis. But is this sharing ofpsychological “insights” ethical?

Sinding and Aronson (2003) describe what qualitative researchinterviews “do” to the participants:

At one extreme, interviews allegedly empower, generate self-awareness, or offer a kind of therapeutic release for the inter-

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viewees; at the other they draw reproach for feigning intimacywith, and then abandoning, the people they engage. [ibid., p. 95]

In the film Capote, the central drama occurred when he abandonedthe younger killer (Perry Smith) after gaining his trust and anaccount of the murder. Some researchers describe being afraid ofdoing harm through the process of inviting intimate stories fromparticipants (Birch & Miller, 2000), particularly when these inter-views become “emotional”. In my experience, when a participantbecame “emotional” any offer I made of changing the topic or evenswitching off the recording device was dismissed or ignored: theoffer seemed like a rejection of their feelings.

Alison, who cried with a wrenchingly bitter sadness while shar-ing an account of abuse, seemed disconcerted when I offered tostop the recorder or change the topic.

“No . . . I actually . . . I feel quite safe with you because instead of leav-ing which would have been my usual . . . I didn’t . . . so that’s . . . youknow, that’s just saying that I feel safe here which is good . . . I suppose. . .”

An action learning research process (Reason, 1988) providedopportunities for participants to be involved in generating andresponding to research data, promoting their development withinthe field of study. In some respects, the Menzies Lyth (1988) studydescribed that process, where hypotheses were taken back to studygroups for consideration and response, including changing wardroutines and procedures, a concrete example of an action learningoutcome. Perhaps what was different in her study to the recent useof action research (Reason, 1988) was the attention paid to uncon-scious social defence mechanisms in examining the “unthoughtknown” (Bollas, 1987) among the participants.

Following my period of data collection, I began to wonder ifwhat occurred, as moments of “understanding”, took place in thespace between me and the participant. Armstrong (2004) wroteabout the “analytic object” in work with organizations, using ourcountertransference as a way of understanding the unconsciouscommunication. He said it was the space between the patient andthe analyst that created the object of inquiry, a third position that

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was frequently full of “muddle, confusion uncertainty and fear” (p. 80), and in this space meaning emerged.

Winnicott (1971) described the use the child made of the motheras an “object”, who over time becomes a “subject” in the transi-tional space of “playing”. He identified that the child moved froma narcissistic use of the object into an appreciation of the motherhaving her own subjectivity, and thus contributing to playing byintroducing her own games. This movement of the object frombeing in the child’s omnipotent control to being outside of its innerworld (i.e., becoming a subject) involved what Winnicott (1971) andBenjamin (1999) described as a destruction of the object and thesimultaneous emergence of love. It is also the theory upon whichintersubjectivity rests: an appreciation of the subjectivity of the“other” in which a third position can be shared, a place wheresomething new (creative) can emerge. Within this exchange, thechild and parent experience pleasure in the game and in eachother’s presence.

Typical studies of mother–child interaction will formulate themother’s acts of independence as a contribution to the child’s self-regulation but not to the child’s recognition of her subjectivity . . .This perspective also misses the pleasure of the evolving relation-ship with a partner from whom one knows how to elicit a response,but whose responses are not entirely predictable and assimilable tointernal fantasy. [Benjamin, 1999, p. 186]

In the interviews and inquiry groups, I would sometimes findthat either the participant or I would articulate something “new”,an understanding of what was thought or being said. Participantswould say they had not realized they were thinking about some-thing until it emerged in the dialogue between us. The examplebelow comes from an interview with Alison. I had asked her if shethought that being “overly” self-reliant was a trait (defence) in thehelping professions.

Lindsey: Maybe that is true of all health professionals—this—being incharge of the giving and of the thoughtfulness and the addi-tional time . . . but to experience that in yourself as needingit feels threatening . . . difficult . . . can’t ask for help . . .”

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Alison: “Yes it’s horrible to ask for help . . . it’s actually forbidden[laughs] . . . I feel like it is . . . I used to feel like it is an admis-sion of failure if you are asking for help.”

Lindsey: So there is something in OTs . . . maybe it’s all helpingprofessionals . . . but it seems there is something in the verypractical nature of OT, the doing . . . the toilet seats, the stairrails, the inflatable mattresses, that allow OTs to think in thatvery practical way but find it difficult to feel they might bein a position to need them . . .”

Alison: “Do you think it might be about control? Because if you arein control you are the one doing the deciding . . . but if youfeel you need something there is a kind of lack of controlthere somewhere isn’t there? . . . so it’s admitting that youare not in control and you need something . . . I feel that Ineed to be in control . . .”

Lindsey: “Mmmh, so it’s the vulnerability.”

When I asked Alison if there was a hidden fear of being “depen-dent”, she began to talk about her own sense of shame at needinghelp, an “admission of failure”. I continued the conversation (think-ing aloud) that all the practical help OTs gave (e.g., kitchen trolleysas a mobility aid) might reassure them that they would never needit. It was following this musing that Alison had an association about“being in control” and how that might have concealed her (andperhaps other OTs) feeling of vulnerability in asking for help, some-thing they would so readily offer others.

Part 2: dreaming ↔ thinking

The dreams were eloquent, but they were also beautiful. Thataspect seems to have escaped Freud in his theory of dreams.Dreaming is not merely an act of communication (or coded commu-nication if you like); it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of theimagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove thatto imagine—to dream about things that may not have happened—is among mankind’s deepest needs . . . If dreams were not beauti-ful, they would be quickly forgotten. [Kundera, 1985, p. 59]

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This section explores the use I made of dreams as part of a reflex-ive approach in the research method, which included observations,interviews, and enquiry groups. I wanted to explore methods thatcould illuminate the “hidden from view” dynamics in the studywhich were generated by my position (conscious and unconscious)within the research. I looked at extending the use of reflexivity inthe process, using my unconscious experiences (i.e., dreams) as partof the data generated.

The problem for me was to find a way of exploring my experi-ence that did not repeat what I already knew and avoided the temp-tation I frequently felt to describe my internal world in a way thatmight be palatable to the readers of the study. I found I wouldcensure feelings or thoughts that may depict my intentions asunkind, selfish, or—the worst for me—a racist, and this self-censurewould often take place during the periods of observation or inter-view as I knew I would be recording them at a later date. Pillow(2003) discussed how the real “rawness” of reflexivity seems to beedited out in smug self-serving accounts by some researchers,losing the power to persuade the reader that what took place wasreal. Her article encouraged researchers to be unnerved (disquieted)by their reflexive experiences and not to try to explain away whatcould not be easily understood.

My goal in asking these questions is not to dismiss reflexivity but tomake visible the ways in which reflexivity is used, to be as GayatriSpivak (1984–1985) states, “vigilant about our practices” (p. 184).This vigilance from within can aid in a rethinking and questioningof the assumptive knowledge embedded in reflexive practices inethnography and qualitative research and work not to situate reflex-ivity as a confessional act, a cure for what ails us, or a practice thatrenders familiarity, but rather to situate practices of reflexivity ascritical to exposing the difficult and often uncomfortable task ofleaving what is unfamiliar, unfamiliar. [Pillow, 2003, p. 177]

Although Pillow remained highly critical of the ways that reflexiv-ity had been used in qualitative methodology, she did not offerclear guidance as to how researchers could avoid an edited, self-serving narrative in their work. She also mentioned the potentialdifficulty for researchers in exploring events in their own “commu-nity” (whether cultural, socio-economic, or professional), and how

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a researcher could have attempted “closeness” with the subject as away of understanding their position. This assumed closeness, infact, did not offer a way of understanding that individual (i.e., par-ticipant) and might have even been an unconscious wish by theresearcher to avoid the sense of separation that is part of anyresearch (and therapy) relationship.

It seemed that reflexive accounts were fraught with the diffi-culty of finding a voice that could recognize difference withoutassuming an “ethnocentric” superiority to it, or express (through aprocess of identification) an empathy and understanding for theparticipant that did not succumb to a description of the researcher’sown sense of pain and disappointment. The use of this self descrip-tion, on behalf of the research, has given rise to the concern that ithad become solipsistic and self-referential, thus forgetting the truepurpose of a research project. “. . . some scholars see the prolifera-tion of reflexivity talk at best self-indulgent, narcissistic, and tire-some and at worst, undermining the conditions necessary foremancipatorory research” (Pillow, 2003, p. 176).

In thinking about how I could be more creative (and at the sametime less defensive) in recording my reflections during the researchprocess, I decided to include any dreams I had during the time of theproject. This was in response to the work of Lawrence (1998, 2003)who said that dreaming was a form of “sustained thinking” (2003, p. 609) and can allow us to question taken for granted assumptionsof how the world appears. I believe that dreams are essentiallycreative endeavours (as Kundera, 1985, describes in the quote at thestart of this section) providing us with a rich source of metaphor thatwe can use to translate and interpret the world around us.

Segal (1986) said dreams were a form of communication, asymbolic structure; “. . . the dream is not just an equivalent of aneurotic symptom. Dream-work is also part of the psychic work ofworking through” (ibid., p. 90). I thought they would provideglimpses into the unconscious aspects of the study, which weremore difficult to capture in the self-referring accounts of my self-analysis or feelings towards the participants. As Main (1957) stated

. . . the need for the therapist steadily to examine his motives haslong been recognised as a necessary, if painful, safeguard againstundue obtrusions from unconscious forces in treatment; but

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personal reviews are liable to imperfections—it has been said theproblem with self-analysis is the countertransference. [Main, 1957,p. 130]

The dreams I recorded became one of the least comfortable waysI used to approach a description and analysis of the study. Theywere often in response to an event and seemed to fall into differentcategories: those about the methodology and my supervisors, thoseabout the participants (therapists), and those about the clients I hadobserved in intimate treatment situations. Having decided to usethem as part of my reflexive account, I could not ignore them, andthey would often disturb my equanimity, but they did draw myattention to something I might have ignored or overlooked in doingthe work of data collection or in trying to give an account of theproject.

The following dream, “a staff retreat with a hidden cat”, illus-trates the process I used, linking a research event, a dream, associ-ations, and the subsequent action. The dream occurred early on inthe project and was provoked by a very difficult meeting I attendedto discuss the research with staff (i.e., potential participants). I hadtried to explain the purpose of the project and encourage individ-ual team members (the OTs) to volunteer to be observed and/orinterviewed. However, after I spoke, a small number of staff beganto dominate the meeting and said they did not agree with theprocess I was proposing to use, as they did not think I would beable to understand what I saw. I found that I quickly becameconfrontational (and competitive) and I tried to use many theoreti-cal terms to prove that my methodology was sound and my workwas so significant it would contribute to new theory in OT!

I left the meeting knowing something had gone wrong and thatI had “behaved badly” (i.e., been pulled into an argument), but Icould not think about what had happened as I was still aggrievedat being confronted by the staff. That night I had the followingdream, which helped me to understand the anxiety that the projectproposal might have generated and provided me with a usefulunderstanding of the conflict that had occurred.

The dream had two parts: in the first part, I was in a day centre work-ing with mental health clients. The members of staff were in a separateroom from the patients, a staff room with a couch and comfortable

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chairs. Among the staff I recognized LB (a nurse and friend of minefrom many years previously), and RG (a more recent South Africanuniversity colleague, who is an OT). The staff were saying they didn’tfeel well; some were lying on the couch and others sitting slumped onthe chairs. The room was darkened and it felt as if the patients werebeing neglected, as if the hospital was a refuge for the staff.

In the dream I was reminded of a day centre where the staff’s illnessesseemed to dominate the culture of the unit and the patients would beneglected. A senior nurse would come to work and lie in a darkenedroom, avoiding any contact with the patients by saying she was“unwell”.

It was time for me to go, and I tried to leave the staff room by gettingout of the window in the rest room. It was on a horizontal hinge andopened by half the pane going outside and half coming into the room.

In the second part of the dream, I was in a room full of metal beds; theywere old-fashioned, with the mattress held on a framework of visiblesprings supported by the metal bars under the bed. I knew there was acat hiding in the room, but I couldn’t see it. I realized the cat was sittingbetween the springs above the bar under the bed. There were quite fewbeds in the room and it was difficult to move around.

In remembering and recording my associations to the dream, Ibegan to think about the “retreat” I had unconsciously seen the staffas enacting and my strong association of the atmosphere of thedream to a previous work experience. I also had known of Steiner’s(1993) work, Psychic Retreats, and Armstrong’s (2005) use of thisconcept in organizational work.

I began to wonder if some anxiety had been at stirred in theteam at my request to observe them doing their work. They mayhave been afraid that I, an academic OT, would see them NOTdoing something they felt they should be doing. My reaction totheir questioning of the project could also have mirrored (a coun-tertransference response) the very anxiety they experienced aboutmy request to observe them. Perhaps they felt what they weredoing in the acute care setting was not real, good, or proper “OT”,similar to my feeling that my research (in their eyes) was not real,good, or proper research.

The “dream” window being half in and half out reminded methat every defence has another side, perhaps one of thwarted

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desire: a desire to care for clients that was fulfilling for the thera-pists, a theme I returned to in the interviews. The cat could havebeen a curiosity that was hidden from view (i.e., had not beenawakened) in the staff group and/or myself. Perhaps I had seen thestaff like the metal beds, difficult to move and old-fashioned.

As a result of the dream, I was able to think about the confronta-tion that had occurred in the meeting, and I wrote a letter to theteam, thanking them for the meeting and attempting to assuagesome of their anxiety about being observed. The project did goahead and one of the themes that emerged from the study was thatjunior OT staff often felt a sense of failure for not working withclients in the way they thought an OT “should”. They interpretedthis as a personal failure rather than viewing the system, hospital,and OT profession as not being able to accommodate the needs ofthe older adult clients who were approaching the end of their lives.

Conclusion

I have realized that the research process, observation, internalreflections, dreams, interviews, and group inquiry sessions were all“grist to the mill”. It was then up to me to turn these fragments andmusings into a coherent account so that readers could reach theirown conclusions. There was never a single or correct interpretationof the events that occurred, but if I provided sufficient viewpointsalong the methodological map, the reader may enjoy their ownjourney through the research process and share in some of theinsights gained while developing their own. In ending this chapter,I want to use the quote that starts Pillow’s (2003, p. 175) article onreflexivity. “All ethnography is part philosophy and a good deal ofthe rest is confession (Geertz, 1973).”

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Ogden, T. (1979). On projective identification. International Journal ofPsychoanalysis, 60: 357–373.

Pillow, W. (2003). Confession, catharsis, or cure? Rethinking the uses ofreflexivity as methodological power in qualitative research.Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(2): 175–196.

Popper, K. (1966). The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume 2. Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press.

Reason, P. (1988). Human Inquiry in Action. London: Sage.Segal, H. (1973). Introduction to the Work of Melanie Klein. London:

Karnac.Segal, H. (1986). The Work of Hanna Segal: Delusion and Artistic Creativity

and Other Psychoanalytic Essays. London: Free Association/Maresfield Library.

Sinding, C., & Aronson, J. (2003). Exposing failures, unsettling accom-modations: tension in interview practice. Qualitative Research, 3(1):95–117.

Skogstad, W. (2004). Psychoanalytic observation – the mind as aresearch instrument. Journal of Organisational and Social Dynamics,4(1): 67–87.

Steiner, J. (1993). Psychic Retreats. London: Routledge.Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and Reality. Hove: Brunner-Routledge.

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CHAPTER NINE

Autobiography as a psycho-socialresearch method

Rumen Petrov

The author and his context

Ihave been a PhD student in the Centre for Psycho-SocialResearch Studies at the University of the West of England since2002. Perhaps the first assignment my supervisors gave me,

after I described the problem that I wanted to study, was to writemy autobiography. I did not know why I had to do it, but still I tookthe assignment readily. Looking back through the years of my PhDstudies, I feel amazed by the very experience of writing mypersonal autobiography. It is this amazement that led me to writethis text. I wish to understand the “magic” of the autobiographicalexperience in the course of my PhD studies. In my research project,the critical and reflexive autobiography is, on the one hand, a means togenerate information and hypotheses for my research as well aspart of the general process of mourning and working through,something I actually consider the whole PhD study to be like.

The research object of my PhD studies is actually a part of mypersonal biography. Recently, when writing a letter of recommen-dation, I was surprised to call this period an “experience thatchanged my life”: a transformative one. It concerns a period of time

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193


during which I was working on a project in Bulgaria, funded by theWorld Health Organization. The goal of the project was to involveand train young people for the role of community mental healthvolunteers.

I graduated in Medicine in 1993. At that time, I was already partof a small community of specializing psychiatrists and psycho-therapists, joined together by their interest in psychotherapy andpsychoanalysis. During the time before the fall of communism,these practices were considered by most of the people here to beamong the benchmarks of democracy and the “western” culture,just like the English language, rock music, the supremacy of privateproperty, and the strong interest in football.

Studying and practising psychotherapy was controlled by theapparatus of the Communist Party. That control was also exercisedover all other products of the strictly-monitored exchange throughthe “Curtain”: goods, cultural exchange, technological know-how,sport, etc. After a special resolution of the highest-ranking manage-ment of the Communist Party (Politburo) and under the patronageof the daughter of the party leader, the 1980s saw the creation of aprogramme for “neurosciences and behaviour”. In the form ofresearch studies and trainings, that programme introduced theknowledge of the modern neurosciences, psychiatry, and psycho-therapy. Some of the people involved in that programme were thefirst systematically trained psychotherapists and reformists ofpsychiatry in the country. Led by my interest in psychotherapy, Ibecame part of that group as a kind of apprentice. I was not veryfond of psychiatry; I was considering it as a transition and a help-ful tool towards psychotherapy. I had intuitively felt that psychia-try had more power than psychology and promised a more reliable“entrance” to psychotherapy (I called it psychoanalysis at thattime), and, although medicine was not my personal favourite for acareer, I chose it despite the opposition of my confused parents.

Apart from that, some of the people involved in the programmehad a lasting interest in the radical modernization of psychiatrichealth care in Bulgaria. I was not striving for that. The psychiatricinstitution scared and repulsed me more than the other hospitalswhich I was visiting as a student. The reform in psychiatry was anagenda for which I was not prepared, and it took me a long time to find my place in that. Perhaps I have not, even now. It was a

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political agenda (I did not realize it then) and it presupposed a levelof competence, which I was to reach at a much later time.

With time going by, my personal agenda of striving for the“forbidden fruit” of psychoanalysis was beginning to broaden withthe notion of community psychiatry, which was at the time makingits first steps in the form of a single dispensary unit (called theDepartment of Social Psychiatry with Dispensary) in Sofia. Just likemany other things in the totalitarian state that were privileged, thiswas no exception. The unit was part of the leading universitypsychiatric hospital in Sofia, and it was managed and protected bythe same people, who had the trust of the communist authority tohandle other “imported” products such as psychodrama, grouppsychotherapy, psychoanalytic theories, art therapy, etc. It was inthat dispensary and under those circumstances, during the decadebetween the mid 1980s and the mid 1990s, when phenomena like“case work”, “team work”, “clinical social work”, “mental healthnursing” and “patients’ clubs” took their first steps. It was totallydifferent from anything else that had been done in psychiatry: itwas special, it was modern. It looked very privileged, especially inthe eyes of the other psychiatrists from my generation, and inspir-ing. Its manager was one of the founders of the new psychiatricassociation; it was he and (only) a few other people from his gener-ation that set the agenda of the reforms of psychiatry in Bulgaria.He was the head of the Psychiatry Department in Sofia, the depart-ment that would set the trend for everything in the field of psychi-atry in Bulgaria. Like almost all top psychiatrists and top medicalprofessionals at that time, he was also a member of the totalitarianintellectual nomenclatura, a background of which I felt twicedeprived (having neither communist nor intellectual origins) andpossibly much coveted.

My parents were not members of the communist party. Theirown parents had been either slightly (in the case of my father) orheavily (in the case of my mother) distrusted by the regime. Myfather’s widowed mother’s reluctance to immediately join thenewly established rural co-operative after 1944 resulted in an“unfavourable mark” in his “biography file”, which did not allowhim to study shipping . . . something he seems to be regretful abouteven today. My mother’s father spent nine years in a jail in the1950s. He had been given one of the lightest sentences in a big

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS A PSYCHO-SOCIAL RESEARCH METHOD 195


communist chistka (political purges) in the agricultural ministrywhere he was serving as a janitor.

Thus, approaching psychiatry and psychotherapy turned out tobe a double or even triple challenge:

● to my own “class” and family origins which did not provideda “good enough” background’’;

● to my social and political experience, because the period I amreferring to (1988–1992) coincided with the fall of communism;

● to my intellectual, personal, and cultural achievements,because I had to struggle with quite novel theories, concepts,and even foreign languages.

Now, looking back, I see that time and space in a way as a “bigbang”: in the small shed in the yard of the psychiatric clinic manynew practices rapidly emerged as if out of the blue; practicesunknown to our culture, which gradually “stuck with” people, andthose aggregates started to live their own separate lives. Some10–15 years ago, everybody was everywhere, and in everyone’sproject. Today, distances between us and our projects, services, andcentres increase, boundaries become elaborate and “professionallymanaged”, competitiveness is frank and often ruthless. The age ofenthusiasm and innocence has gone.

The New Bulgarian University (NBU) emerged alongside thepost-totalitarian birth of the supernova called “Department forSocial Psychiatry with Dispensary”. The senior psychiatrists andprofessors from our circle actively participated in it. They had seenin the University the appropriate environment for introducing amuch wider basis for the development of professions and practicessuch as psychodynamically-orientated clinical social work, familyand marriage therapy, and psychoanalytic research. I graduated inmedicine in 1993, and I had already been actively working with thiscircle of people when I was invited to join both of these projects (theDispensary and the NBU), something I wanted at the time. I wasabout to live a few stormy years of meeting many new, interestingpeople, people of authority from the Tavistock mileu in the UK,who provoked not just my intellect, but aroused something else,something which I still find it hard to define, a hunger for a certaintype of relationship with people of reputation.

Human, perhaps, who knows?

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In the mid 1990s, following models from MIND and the HamletTrust in the UK, first the Sofia Association for Mental Health andthen the National Mental Health Association were established inthe dispensary. The organizations were far from being big or repre-sentative, despite their accurately translated (and thereforebombastic, in the context of their actual scope and membership)names. The focus was more on the “trademark”, on the name andthe form, rather than on the content. These were civil associationsclaiming to stand for public action in support of the rights of thementally ill. In fact, they were run and managed by professionals.The mentally ill people recruited in these organizations waveredbetween blind dependency and idealization, or sporadic outburstsof paranoid claims of mischief on the part of the psychologists andpsychiatrists that presided over them. Possibly they were right.Possibly we—the new generation of professionals—were toounconvincing politically and selfish. Although unwillingly, I tookpart in these initiatives; I became involved in their management,and I even became the chairman of Sofia Mental Health Associa-tion. There, I had the strong feeling of being out of place. I felt thatactually I was doing a favour for the “founders” of those organiza-tions. I felt painfully inauthentic in this role, as inauthentic as I feltthese same organizations were. I felt that we somehow had to havea mental health association, a social workers’ association, a psychi-atric association, and a psychotherapists’ association. The thrill wasin the experiment with the role rather than in its usefulness in rela-tion to some identifiable end. I had experienced these organizationsas part of some invisible catalogue of democratic prerequisites,“envelopes” without their proper “stuff” of a voluntary civil/polit-ical upheaval. Someone had said we should establish them and wejust followed. Nobody had experienced this kind of political activ-ity before. Neither the National Mental Health Association nor TheSofia Mental Health Association exists today. They collapsed assoon as those that had established them moved on to other things.After a few public conferences, their existence just faded away, theirleaders quarrelled, and stepped down from the “stage”, the nextgeneration did not embrace the cause as their own, and nownobody even remembers them, although the problems of those withmental health difficulties in Bulgaria have not been particularlyrelieved during the past ten years.

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Post-totalitarian arrogance of the newly born democrats and the hidden assets of communism

The “West” was funding the emergence of civil participation in theformer communist countries. Practically all the financial resourceswith which those new forms and practices were being created camefrom external sources. I do not know how, but this fact is an impor-tant part of that metabolism of social change, part of which is theobject of my research. At that time we did not think or talk aboutpolitics, except for the “great” politics of the frequent parliamentaryelections and about the retreat, the revenge, and the metamor-phoses of “them”: that is, of the “communists”. Everybody aroundme distanced themselves from “communism” and “communists”.It seemed natural that we all would have voted for the so called“right”, which meant we voted for the post-totalitarian freedoms(of speech, of thought, of travel, of associations) we enjoyed somuch. Despite this, we never discussed socialism between us. Eventoday, we tend not to speak about those times as something experi-enced and lived through. Very strange . . . for most of the twentyyears since 1989 I have participated in very, very few personalconversations with people I know about our own common socialistexperience. I believe that everybody with some conscious socialistautobiography should consider him/herself as a co-author of thisregime. The number of scientific investigations of our totalitarianpast increases, yet the time spent on (dedicated to) personal reflec-tions about it and its meaning for the individual is still insignificant.We founded radically different NGOs and participated in a radi-cally different political culture, but we never communicated thisnovelty between us. I am afraid we could have left the impressionof a kind of post-totalitarian arrogance, as if this kind of (democra-tic) behaviour has always been available to us, and as if it wasEnglish fluency that was the only prerequisite for the new identityand competences.

As new converts to democracy, we quickly realized what we hadknown all along: that despite that fact we were all sakooperatori(a Russian/Soviet term for people living in one kooperatzia, a blockof flats, usually small and ugly, which became one of the culturalepitomes of urban communism for me), “shareholders” and mem-bers of the monolithic, homogenous, and victorious class of workers

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and peasants when the regime fell, some people turned out to havea quite different number of “shares”. The zenith of the “redistribu-tion” of state property into selective private ownership corre-sponded to the economic crisis in the mid 1990s. The banks turnedout to be empty. They were emptied by privileged businessmen,reared by the former regime. The State, lead by successive govern-ments of ex-communists, went bankrupt. Then we lived throughhyper-inflation and impoverishment. The government fell. A coali-tion of pro-western orientated parties came to power. A currencyboard was introduced. The new government provided an air corri-dor for NATO aircraft during their attacks against Belgrade. Itopposed Russia. The impoverished Bulgaria began the journeytowards Europe: NATO first, and then the EU.

The poverty and the opening of the borders have made us anobject of international help and interest. The processes of “projectwriting” and “project winning” directed by the internationaldonors or their local representatives (e.g., Open Society) began tospeed up. The already democratic Bulgarian State was not allocat-ing funds for such things. This is, of course, strange and veryimportant, but then, thrilled by the opening of the borders, we didnot seem to think about that. We were rushing to win projects, wedeeply envied each other for each “acquisition”, be it training, abook, travel abroad, or just being close to a bearer of the cherishedknowledge: psychotherapy. The word that could best summarize allthis is unauthenticity. A democratic unauthenticity.

The Vrabnitza project

It was then my turn to win a “project”. There was not too muchcompetition. In the Netherlands, during one of the many meetingsbetween the sponsors (they were more like “guardian angels”) andthe infant mental health reformists from Eastern Europe, I wasinvited to apply for some funding by simply filling in a form. Therewas no competition; we were invited to spend money. Money thatwas not ours. And we could spend it on things that were “interest-ing”, things we did not especially strive for.

But there was excitement. At least, I was very excited. The era ofthe “dispensary” was coming to an end. Private psychotherapeutic

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practices were beginning to emerge, additionally supported by bigpharmaceutical companies. With the considerable financial supportof an international organization for reforms in psychiatry in EasternEurope, the Institute for Human Relations was set up at the NBU.Each of us—some recently graduated psychiatrists with a psycho-analytic orientation and some newly recruited assistants in theuniversity—got “his/her” project together with the fundingcoming from the West. It happened just like in the fairy tales, whenyou wait for your fairy godmother to ordain what you can do andwhat not. My “fairy godmother” presented me with a project called“Adolescents as Community Mental Health Volunteers”. Its mainactivities had been tested in Latin America (Costa Rica?). The objec-tive was to win young people over to the cause of mental healthand get them involved in non-formal activities within the neigh-bourhood they lived in. I developed a team and started leading theproject in a suburb of western Sofia called Vrabnitza. I wentthrough contacts with various important people from ministriesand schools. I managed to get the required number of “highest”permissions (yes!) and recommendations, something I had neverdone before. It felt different from all the things I had seen so far. Iwas feeling as if I was an author, a leader.

The health care and social system at that time (1998 onwards)was just beginning to awake from the totalitarian model. Thegovernment of the democratic forces was writing a new law, whichconstituted the Health Insurance Fund, inaugurated general prac-tice in medicine, the Child Protection Act, and local offices for childprotection. All that started not earlier than 2000.

Soon came the first disappointments: we did not manage to winover young volunteers to my project. We were not accepted as“locals” in Vrabnitza, we were doing “piecework” in between ourmany other commitments and ambitions (medical examinations,therapeutic sessions, administrative jobs in the university, lecturing,conferences on group relations, etc.). We could not and did notwant to afford more time, perhaps because the project paid verypoorly. We were foreigners and newcomers in the western end ofSofia, an area full of ugly panelled blocks of flats from the last yearsof socialism, which had destroyed the village houses and hadattracted migrants from the country to serve in the industrialproduction facilities around the enormous police and military

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apparatus of the State, already shrinking and making a number ofits officers redundant. I gave up the project (Petrov, 2000) after Iconsulted with the Director of the Institute, who was responsiblefor all the links with our Western partners, and I was grantedpermission and given encouragement to start again. What I nowwanted to do was to test in practice non-formal mental health carefor local people and then to train adolescents to do it. The peoplefrom my first team had left me. I drew in my students and startedto invite colleagues to contribute their own mental health projectsin the area. Step by step, I became more “local”. I used to spendmuch more time in Vrabnitza and less and less in the Institute. I gotto know the neighbourhood more closely, and made many friends.We liked each other. I worked with my colleagues on preparingtheir own projects; we set up an NGO of local enthusiasts and exter-nal “experts”, newcomers like us. The first project brought forth asecond generation of three other projects. A network of potentialpartners and local specialists emerged; a system for social workwith children was created, a local psychiatrist, sharing our visionappeared. I was dreaming of a community and a network of localand non-local people and institutions. It seemed that my efforts forsustainable development—out of the frame of the usual project’srange—might still turn out successful.

However, the project, which I had managed and which led tothe creation of that network, came to the end of its funding. I wasno longer in the centre of the things. The second generation ofprojects did not embrace the aims of my initiative or the model. Theenthusiasm faded with time going by, tension and dislike devel-oped into open resentment. The project and the relations thatsustained it just died.

That was the case, in brief: my version of the story.

The PhD study

I was very engaged with all this. Some people suggested that Imake this experience a subject of a doctoral thesis. I wanted tocombine that with my interest in psychoanalysis. I already hadexperience with the practice of Group Relations, gained in confer-ences, which our newly-established Institute used to organize in

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Sofia with the co-operation of our English partners from Sheffieldand London. I envied my colleagues who could find funds andstarted private analysis in the nearby countries, or managed to“enter” the quota of the analysed in Bulgaria with the assistance ofthe European Psychoanalytic Association. I wanted to open myown connection channel with the “promised land”. I was alreadyoutrivalled in the “queue” for a Master’s degree in group relationsin Bristol, or at least, that was the way I felt about it. When I knewthat “Bristol” was opening a PhD programme, I saw in that a newopportunity. Somehow, I was going to transcend the disappoint-ments and the envy there. I had a new plan for myself: first, I wasgoing to study Group Relations, and then I would start my personalanalysis. I was “back in the game” again. I had found self-confi-dence. But somehow, without even knowing how, I had gained thisconfidence in the course of my work in Vrabnitza. During thatperiod, I married, I left the neighbourhood where I grew up, nearmy parents, I was leading for the first time a group for personalanalysis, I was a director (for the first time) of a conference on grouprelations. It sounds like a story of growing up. Perhaps it is.

The title of my thesis passed through several stages. In 2001, itwas “Institution-in-the-mind (D. Armstrong) and its reflections onthe inter-institutional co-operation in the community”. I abandonedthat title even before applying to do the PhD. In 2002, when Ienrolled on the doctoral programme, the title of my thesis was“Collaboration and vulnerability. Psychodynamic exploration ofinteragency collaboration in mental health and child welfare fieldsin Bulgaria”. In 2004, the title was “Collaboration and vulnerability.Individuals, groups and institutions within community working forthe benefit of community mental health and child welfare reforms.A Bulgarian case.” Step by step, the separate subjects emerged: indi-viduals, groups, and institutions. Then I started to comprehend andto slowly grasp the notion of “community development”, whichwas really matching the spirit of the projects we were developingand the vision that was penetrating them. The occasions for makingcomparisons between the two cultures—Bulgaria and the UK—were becoming even more regular. A distance was created, a kindof space for more objective assessment of my personal context, myprojects, and assessment of myself in that context. The last (fornow) title is: “Collaboration and vulnerability. The emerging

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concept of community development. A Bulgarian case.” It bestreflects my journey in this dissertation. All three sentences have onekeyword each. And one still stays unclear.

● Collaboration—why did we fail to collaborate in Vrabnitza?Why did frustration prevail so that leaving the neighbourhoodbecame just a matter of time?

● Community development—that was one of my biggest discover-ies in the course of the project. I understood that I was doingand not doing community development at the same time. I knewthat the specific way I related to that community provoked “byitself” community development, regarded as a way of enhan-cing human links and managing social changes in specificdemocratic communities. At the same time this was a projectthat was not planned or initiated by anybody within the exist-ing public institutions, local or “central”.This is why I considercommunity development as an emerging phenomenon in mycase. I had come across it without looking for it, perhapsbecause it was something completely missing in the culture ofmy country, not only since the establishment of the SocialistRepublic in 1994, but perhaps since the collapse of the Otto-man Empire and emergence of modern Bulgaria in 1878.

● A Bulgarian case—the research is a single case study. But whatthe title does not say is that the researcher is also an agent: anagent of change. That actually puts the research in the genre of“action research in the past” (Chandler & Torbert, 2003). Thus,I soon became a subject of my own research. The focus of myattention was on the influence of the different contexts on theproject and the possible relations between these contexts andits results. The exact research genre is psycho-social actionresearch. My role is that of a participant in a case of practicalaction with unknown ends. From the perspective of my role,what I am studying is the meaning that people I have involvedin working in Vrabnitza ascribe to their experience in this jointendeavour. What I am discovering through this research areideas about possible internalized cultural/social models thatgovern Bulgarians’ public (civil, political) selves, including myown and that of my colleagues. And my reflexive autobiogra-phy was the first source of possible psycho-social hypotheses Ilater checked against the data from the interviews.

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● Vulnerability—why, in Bulgaria, are public co-operative endea-vours so vulnerable and fragile, and why do they so easily fallapart after the withdrawal of figures who seem to be like“founding fathers”? Why do groups do not provide for thesecurity and confidence needed for a prolonged and sustainingpolitical action?

In my personal autobiography, I detected moments of a strongneed for close relations with a figure of authority while in profes-sional and political roles. My point is that this need is a need of mygeneration, and not only a personal need. I reckon that, in variousforms, the problem manifests itself in the thinking and behaviour ofmany of my colleagues in the fields where I have operated. I wouldassociate this sentiment with a kind of orphanage: an almost palpa-ble feeling of longing for something like a parent, especially in thesocial field in which I was operating, that of psychotherapy and ofsocial change. Very often we seemed to be preoccupied not so muchwith social change and reform, but, rather, with our own personalposition (of survival?) in relation to the “parents” that appeared tobe trying to accomplish this same social change whereas “democ-racy”, “democratization”, “social change”, “liberalization” wereand still are concepts seldom mentioned in our discourses.

I assume that my personal authority in situations such asVrabnitza provided is an expression of my own relationships to thefigures of authority I have established and sustained. Our collabo-ration faded before it was born out of an insufficiency of our ownauthority. In trying to explain this, I was looking for the possiblesocial and cultural “factors” for it. What cultural traits couldimpinge upon our trusting relationships to authority that inhibit the development of our trust in our own authority? In the course of my work I have found reasons for this weakness, both in my rela-tions with my own father and also in two powerful social andcultural features of my context.

● The exposure of a totalitarian culture, which does not allow anintersubjective (Fonagy & Target, 2007) relation with authority,one through which everyone can develop his/her own subjec-tive authority.

● The provincialism (Lounsbery, 2005), the endless pursuit of, and deference to, an elusive “centre”, a culture which is invoked

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and maintained by the regimes of the super-centralizedgovernment and authority and cultural construction of rela-tions between the vast, envious, deprived, and suppressed rural “periphery and the arrogant, young, fragile, anxious, andbureaucratically merciless urban “centre”.

What is authority?

When in groups, institutions, or communities, we are subject tomulti-directional pressure(s) on our minds, minds which areconstantly in the process of elaborating a relational “map” withinwhich we can orientate ourselves to others. We need something thatcan help us override the heterogeneity of the “data” we receive, ofthe pieces of knowledge we work with, in order to overcome uncer-tainty when making decisions. In the case of authority relations, thething that connects these pieces of knowledge is not “rational”. It isa faith, a trust in our capacity to create such maps and to edit them.We acquire this faith in relation with a specific Other. In this rela-tion, we believe in the knowledge of the “knowing Other” and wefollow it not because we have tested it (this would take too long),but because we trust it. In order to exercise our own authority (tobe able to make decisions and to learn from the experience), weneed to feel a primordial trust in the benevolence of those who aremasters of the power/authority/knowledge.

These may be individuals as well as groups and institutions.Feeling trustful of knowing Others enables us to learn. A reliablepersonal authority means a capacity for learning from experience(Bion), and such a capacity requires trust in the not-knowing, in theasking, in the trial and error that will bring not pain, but joy andbenign excitement instead. When we feel we are the authors of ourown thoughts and choices we can feel we are the agents (authors)of the actions we take. Then we can bear responsibility for them,because we are their authors. The capacity to be authors of our ownactions, to accomplish them with authority, is developed throughtrial and error in the “company” of an “author” (someone whoseknowledge and power we trust and follow) (Sennett, 1980). Thisexperience of “first-person” authority means that I trust my ownnot-knowing and that I believe in my own learning. This belief in

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my own learning capacity is built into my relations with the know-ing Other(s). To be an author requires relatively trustful relation-ships with other authors. The healthy trust in authority (as aprerequisite for democratic leadership and followership) differsfrom the slavish dependence on authority (which is no doubt alsovery ambivalent) by the level of intersubjective recognition it allowsfor. Personal authority is manifest in the course of learning from theexperience, which, when successful, helps us to risk with a per-sonal, idiosyncratic picture of the world. The trust in the knowledgeof the knowing Other and in our ability to learn in his/her presenceleads to the ability to trust our own knowledge and learning. I thinkLev Vygotsky speaks of the same process through his concept of the“zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1978).

Thus, we can be open to the authorship of others, because theywould promise us learning and not just survival, or traumaticimprinting. Our capacity to exercise this type of authority here inBulgaria is low. The relation of trust in the power/knowledge of the knowing Other is often desecrated by the usage of the power,which does not leave room for trust and creative followership.Many of our institutionalized and public authority models implythat we must either assume the “mighty” (imposing power) or the “weaker” (subordinate and distrustful) side of the relationship,but not the equal one. In a world that is built and experienced inthis manner, there is only a place for an aggressor, for a victim, andfor a saviour (Karpman, 2007). In such a world, groups are difficult(Lawrence, Bain & Gould, 1996) because every group impliesauthority over its members: collaboration, too. That was the pic-ture that emerged before my eyes after the analysis of the inter-views (individual and group) at the second stage of the researchwork.

In the case of our communal project, our Civil Association forCommunity Mental Health failed to sustain the emerging mixedgroup of “locals” and “foreign” citizens and appeared to be still-born. I think we failed to acknowledge the political, the public–civilside of our activities, and to exercise our personal authority in the“open” and much less protected scene of the community and/or ofthe potentially collaborative space between different projects as apolitical act. We all knew that, with separate projects, piecework,and work “from the outside”, we could not make a lasting change

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in the culture of the local community in the direction of increasedtrust in mental health issues such as child welfare, good family rela-tions, and elderly people’s care. Nor could we encourage people tovolunteer for the benefit of the vulnerable, or to be sensitive to thevictims of violence in the family or at school, and to trust possiblecollaboration with a university such as the NBU. We felt we had togo beyond the expert position and to enter the field of politics, andwe avoided this choosing to dissolve the whole into several welldefended and suspicious-towards-each-other parishes: the socialwork one, the family therapy one, the local child welfare depart-ment, the local psychiatric cabinet, and school parents’ associations.

Attachment theory indicates that past relations of reliableattachment to a security-providing figure allow us to build reliableattachment to others in our mature life. The victims of violenceoften do not succeed in building this. Our political past alsocomprises experience of relations with public figures of authority. A“secure” attachment to these public figures allows us to be authen-tic and authoritative public actors: citizens. Secure attachment (asdescribed by John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, and Peter Fonagy) tothe public/political knowing Other is, in my opinion, a prerequisitefor reliable personal authority when undertaking a public/politicalact. This creates the possibility of learning through experience andbeing confident that we can act politically (to challenge and changethe public authorities) without this leading to a mortal threat. To protest against the “system” under conditions of democracy also means to trust that the authority system, which I am part of,accepts my protest as a legitimate dimension of our relations. It is arelation of trust, a space that is safe enough for both parts to belongto and to change each other. Our totalitarian experience is the exactopposite of that.

Additionally, provinciality is strained to the end by the existingdeep inequalities between the industrialized and urbanized“centre” and the poor and often ultra-traditional countryside. InBulgaria there is only one “centre” (Sofia), to which the provinceshave always existed in a relation of subordination. When the “rulesof the game” are totalitarian, provincial reciprocity with authorityis unachievable. Civil participation is then nonsensical; “politi-cal” is then an empty word, a non-concept. Individuals are doomedto live inside someone else’s authority and this “captivity” makes

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them feel and behave inauthentically and in isolation from eachother, a kind of cultural production of false selves (Winnicott, 1971).

My point is that, in Vrabnitza, our group of some ten enthusias-tic, newly-converted social workers, family therapists, and psychol-ogists became victims of our own past and internalized culture. Wewere unable to generate the leadership that Vrabnitza required. We,somehow, simultaneously admitted and denied the need to engagewith the local community as citizens with citizens (instead of asprofessionals with “recipients”) and invest in these engagements inas many ways as we could imagine. A kind of “belief” that we mustnot do the obvious: a case of “bad faith” (Santoni, 1978)?

When analysing the interviews, I came to the conclusion that we look at the world mainly from the positions of the “aggressor”,the “victim”, the “saviour”, rigid and limiting roles, described byStephen Karpman in traumatogenic families. These “roles” or“perspectives” especially dominate the way my colleagues and Icomprehended the public, the political, and the group experience.

I think that our collaboration failed because it required us tomake a political and civil commitment to local citizens. This, I think,scared most of the professionals involved and the moment I steppedout of the role of the (over-)active promoter of our engagement withthe local community they withdrew inside the safe frontiers of theirprojects and institutions, which gave them their sense of legitimacy.Everyone felt safe there, in a position from which to be patronizingor patronized. When the funding of the projects ended, the practi-tioners either left the community, returned to their institutionalroles, or established their “own” NGOs, which rapidly faded away.

And I was not able to see things through the eyes of those whowere not in the privileged position of being visionaries or primemovers. Having once been the “saviour”, there was nothing left forme but to be the one who “leaves the scene last and switches off thelights”. And that is what I am doing in my PhD studies.

What is the place of my autobiography in this process? How did it help me?

My autobiography is critical (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001) andreflexive (Powers, 1998). Apart from the critical and reflexive auto-

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biography, my methodology also included my reflexive diary, thedescription of the case (the project background, as seen through myeyes), interviews with my Vrabnitza colleagues, and a group dis-cussion with them of my emerging findings. My autobiographyhelped me to learn from the case I was researching. Research, basedon single cases, has the power to raise context dependent know-ledge (Flybjerg, 2006). According to Flybjerg, it is the only know-ledge suitable for studying human relations. Being Bulgarian, andstudying (part-time) in a British university, I met academic super-visors who are not part of my culture. My autobiography helpedthem to understand better the dilemmas I face, but it also surprisedthem. That surprise of the outer observer raised naïve questions,the answers to which helped to critically evaluate some of my ownpersonal myths. For example, the question “Why were you occu-pied with administrative work such a long time?” made me lookthrough really different eyes at a period of my life in the Institutethat until then I had accepted utterly positively. I tried to look fromaside, and I saw the many secondary benefits which that positionhad given me for a (perhaps unnecessarily) long time: avoidingignorance and incompetence in many knowledge fields, feelingprotected and privileged, powerful, and safe at the same time. Andnot alone, of course.

Jurgen Habermas differentiates three types of knowledge, whichcorrespond to three human interests:

● the instrumental interest to control and manipulate (put underone’s own power) the non-human (non-living) environment towhich corresponds the technical/instrumental knowledge;

● the communicative interest: to involve (oneself) with otherpeople in the tasks of the instrumental interest. It correspondsto practical knowledge;

● the emancipatory interest: to be able to examine the two previ-ous processes (types of knowledge), to reason on their natureand on their results. It corresponds to emancipatory know-ledge.

My autobiography gives me the opportunity of developing mainlythe third type of knowledge. Emancipative knowledge is a kind ofknowledge that changes the form of communication with others

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and casts doubts on our personal beliefs and attitudes. The firstsuch challenge came from my supervisors. The autobiography wasnot just a text about me written by me. The autobiographicalprocess had a flesh-and-blood third party. That third party gave methe opportunity to experience what Ronald Britton calls “triangularspace” (Britton, Feldman, & O’Shaughnessy, 1989), a space to reflecton myself as an author, reader, and interpreter of my own auto-biography. The achievement of that “third position”, in the case ofmy autobiography, becomes possible if I can identify with andaccept the viewpoint of the Other, the third, the “audience”, that islooking on me in the process of writing and making sense of myautobiography. That is why, in this case, I cannot separate my auto-biography from the live situation of sharing it with specific othersin the context of academic supervision. It has transformed the “two-party” relation between me and my history into a “third party”,myself observing me in relations with others in the case. Pers-pectives were born. A kind of mental space (Young, 1994) wasbeginning to emerge. I think this found expression in the momentwhen, to my surprise, I came up with the idea of interviewing theprotagonists in the Vrabnitza events. I could remember how, whileI was writing the descriptions of the case, I was struck by the ideanot to “interview” respondents, but to go and ask my fellows in thatstory for their point of view on what was going on there. Whatsurprised me at that time was my inner conviction that I was doingexactly what I had to do in that particular moment (I hope this isnot a confabulation, I think that I was writing my reflexive diary atthe time). I did not need to check that feeling or the correctness ofmy decision. After that, I was no longer the person who “knew”.From then on, I had the need and the desire to ask. I was curious.Not knowing. I needed to hear the other as a separate, personalpoint of view. I think that this was made possible from the “thirdposition”, as I understand Britton’s idea.

Recently, one of my supervisors pointed out that many Doctoraltheses are various forms of working through (Rosenblatt, 2004). Idid not forget that. The original idea of Sigmund Freud is that if thepsychic processing and the process of remembering are notperformed, the individual stays captive to the repetition and to thesymptom. Insight is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for thepsychic working through. According to Rosenblatt, it is the process

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of transforming the insight into action that must be regarded asworking through. Just like any other change related with brainstructures, it also requires time and practice so that the new neural“chains” consolidate in the context of appropriate human relations,in the transfer of the therapeutic situation, in the first place. In thissense, I regard the present text as another part of the continuing andcontinuous process of working through. Rosenblatt points to thefact that another element is also required: applying the insight in acontext similar to the psychic conflict, so that “a new patternbecomes progressively more consistent, automatic, and resistant todisruption” (ibid., p. 197). Lansky (2001) reminds us of the relationbetween working through and the process of forgiveness. It relatesto the rebuilding of the connection with the other after the hurtcaused by the feeling of betrayal. It is about handling the narcissis-tic rage and the feelings of shame that this rage defends against. I must admit that I am quite familiar with these feelings in thecontext of my experience from the work in “Vrabnitza”. I am alsosure that those feelings are not completely gone, although I keep onhoping.

The whole thesis, as well as the present text, may be consideredalso as an attempt to process certain experience through creativework (Barone, 2005) and work in the “transitional space” (Winnicott)between my version (fantasy) of things and the personal truth ofmy partners in those events. This process is yet to develop: my PhDwork is still not completely finished and my final text has still notreturned to its heroes in order to resonate with their “truth” forthose same events. In any case, that provides even more opportuni-ties for continuing the connection and the discussions between us.

Clewell (2002) assumes that, practically, the process of grievingnever stops. She describes the evolution of Freud’s thinking onmourning and grief for the real or symbolic objects that have beenlost. The loss is not overcome by forgetting it, but through the abil-ity to live with it. Our personal subjectivity is constructed by lettingourselves be “populated by the otherness”. And loss is one of thekey features of experiencing difference and otherness. Grief doesnot stop, it builds us, that is how I understand Clewell. I have notbeen to Vrabnitza for a long time. Perhaps many of the old peoplewe have visited as part of our improvised befriending programmeare no longer with us. I do not know why, but I still keep the

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address and the personal data for the ID card of one of thosewomen: I think I needed them at that time in order to sort out someadministrative formality for her. I realize that, apart from guilt, Ialso feel gratitude to that woman and the other older people fromthe neighbourhood for giving me the opportunity to developmyself in a role, for which I was neither prepared nor encouragedto take, and in which I was authoring myself in the only way Icould. I hope that they have forgiven me and my colleagues forleaving them in a way which must have confirmed the pessimisticoutlooks at that time. At least I know that this will not be my onlyexpression of care for the people of their generation.

Conclusion

Is my research psycho-social? I think so, because I was trying torelate my subjective experiences to the time and place in which theyhappened. I tried to search not just for “causes and sequences”, but,rather, for some isomorphism between “inner” and “outer”,between intersubjective and “intrasubjective”. I think I saw how,practically, research into one’s own subjectivity is not only a processof putting that subjectivity in its contexts, but also a process ofreflection that inevitably leads to change and further evolution.

Which are the “surfaces” that I am researching beneath? One of them is the surface between “personal” and “public”. Here—inBulgaria—this boundary is rather rigid, to the extent that thepersonal is experienced solely as private. Another surface is that ofsome of the traditional concepts we are operating with in Bulgaria:e.g., what is “political”, “civil”, and what does “power” mean? I canfeel how uncanny they are when I have to quit the comfortableposition of an expert and to participate in the public space as a citizen. It is not inherent to me, I feel unsafe and uncertain in anunknown way.

References

Barone, K. C. (2005). On the processes of working through loss causedby severe illnesses in childhood: a psychoanalystic approach.Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 19(1): 17–34.

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Britton, R., Feldman, M., & O’Shaughnessy, E. (1989). The OedipusComplex Today. Clinical Implications. London: Karnac.

Bullough, R., & Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines for quality in autobio-graphical forms of self-study research. Educational Researcher, 30(3):13–21.

Chandler, D., & Torbert, B. (2003). Transforming inquiry and action.Interweaving 27 flavors of action research. Action Research, 1(2):133–152.

Clewell, T. (2002). Mourning beyond melancholia: Freud’s psycho-analysis of loss. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association,52(1): 43–67.

Flybjerg, B. (2006). Five misunderstandings about case-study research.Qualitative Inquiry, 12(2): 219–245.

Fonagy, P., & Target, M. (2007). Playing with reality: IV. A theory ofexternal reality rooted in intersubjectivity. International Journal ofPsychoanalysis, 88: 917–937.

Karpman, S. (2007). http://www.karpmandramatriangle.com/.Lansky, M. (2001). Hidden shame, working through, and the problem

of forgiveness in the tempest. Journal of the American PsychoanalyticAssociation, 49(3): 1005–1033.

Lawrence, W. G., Bain, A., & Gould, L. J. (1996). The fifth basic assump-tion. In: W. G. Lawrence (Ed.), Tongued with Fire. London: Karnac.

Lounsbery, A. (2005). “No, this is not the provinces!” Provincialism,authenticity, and Russianness in Gogol’s day. Russian Review, 64(2):259–280.

Petrov, R. (2000). Adolescents as community mental health facilitatorsand the process of rejuvenating mental health in Eastern Europeancountries. In: Rejuvenating Mental Health for Youth in Europe (pp.31–35). Geneva: World Health Organisation.

Powers, R. (1998). Using critical autobiography to teach the sociologyof education. Teaching Sociology, 26(3): 198–206.

Rosenblatt, A. (2004). Insight, working through, and practice: the roleof procedural knowledge. Journal of the American PsychoanalyticAssocication, 52(1): 189–207.

Santoni, R. E. (1978). Bad faith and lying to oneself. Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, 38(3): 384–398.

Sennett, R. (1980). Authority. London: Secker & Warburg.Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and Society: The Development of Higher

Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and Reality. London: Routledge.Young, R. M. (1994). Mental Space. London: Process Press.

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CHAPTER TEN

Managing self in role: using multiple methodologies toexplore self construction and self governance

Linda Watts

This chapter examines the psycho-social research methodsused for a research inquiry into a “corporate” role in a localauthority in the UK, in the period 2000–2002. This corporate

role involved the design and dissemination of “modernizing” poli-cies and carrying out a range of projects. It involved joint workingwith managers who had a number of professional and technicalroles throughout the organization. The research inquiry was carriedout by myself as the practitioner who fulfilled the corporate role:the inquiry was, therefore, an in-depth exploration of “self in role”.

My research inquiry examined macro political and organiza-tional influences on cross-organizational relations in a local author-ity, a highly segmented, bureaucratic organization. My “uncritical”question at the outset of this inquiry was to ask whether there wereeffective means to foster more integrated ways of working acrossthe organization. No doubt this question was derived from mymanagement role, which promoted the discourse of integrativecross-organization working. The national political context washighly significant in that the government’s local governmentmodernization agenda was headlining the rhetorical discourse ofintegrated, or “joined up”, thinking and working in governmental

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215


agencies at national and local government levels. The implicationsof this political agenda at both these central and local levels neededto have a significant place within the “frame” of my inquiry, as didthe impacts on self-governance in my role as a corporate manager.The method employed for the inquiry needed to enable these multi-ple dimensions and interactions of macro politics, organization, andgovernance of self in role to be explored.

After embarking on my research inquiry, I inevitably becamemore deeply curious about the dualities of my managerial position.I exercised power, or, more accurately, power was exercisedthrough my acting in role, and I also experienced myself as beingsubject to power. So, was I merely a subject, a “transmitter” oforganizational power, or did I demonstrate agency in my role? Or, in acting out my multi-faceted role, was I both a subjugatedsubject and an active agent? Structurally, my organization was inthe ambiguous position of exercising power in terms of local gover-nance and yet being substantially subjugated to central govern-ment within central/local relations. How was this structural imbal-ance exemplified in my role? I had a corporate role, but was theorganization “corporate”? My intuition, or tacit knowledge, wasthat these questions caused my role to be a potentially fruitful site for an in-depth inquiry. But it was also clear that “conventional”research methods were not going to excavate this particularresearch site in any depth.

Probably the most significant ontological assumption that hasinfluenced my approach is the belief that, in most human inter-action, “realities” are the results of prolonged and intimate pro-cesses of construction and negotiation deeply embedded in theculture (Bruner, 1990, p. 24). This ontological position is reflected inhermeneutics, and it follows from this assumption that the epis-temological project is to make interpretations of the subjectiveworld (Greenwood & Levin, 1998, p. 68). This assumption has beena “golden thread” through my adult life, engendering a rejection of rationalist, authoritative meaning or “objective standards ofbelief”, and a developing acknowledgement of the “interpretiveturn”. So, Kirkwood’s observation is resonant for me:

Intellectual knowledge is vital, but it is partial. It contributes know-ledge from the standpoint of the observing thinker, but it is

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incapable of generating the knowledge that can only be achieved bypersons as agents through cultivation of their senses and their emo-tions, and through their encounters with other persons. [Kirkwood,2003, p. 190]

So, the assumptions underlying the epistemological approachesto my inquiry were, put simply, that we can achieve an increasedunderstanding of other’s experience by interacting with them andby empathically listening to their expression of their experience.Interpretive approaches such as ethnomethodology (see, for exam-ple, Cicourel, 1964; Garfinkel, 1967), phenomenology (see, forexample, Schutz, 1996), and symbolic interactionism attempt tounderstand the nature of social reality through people’s narratedaccounts of their subjectively constructed processes and meanings,as opposed to the measurement of quantity, frequency, and distrib-ution across a given population (Morgan & Drury, 2003, p. 4).Hence, a governing principle for the selection of my research meth-ods could be expressed like this:

a fundamental quality of the participative world view is that it isself-reflective. The participative mind articulates reality within aparadigm and can in principle reach out to the wider context of thatparadigm to reframe it. A basic problem of the positivist mind isthat it cannot acknowledge the framing paradigm it has created.[Heron & Reason, 1997, p. 275]

My research process was specifically situated in local govern-ment in the UK during a period within the development of the NewLabour agenda. More specifically, my inquiry took place in a periodwhen “performativity”, or performance monitoring, controls wererapidly escalating, when “corporate management” was a discoursein local government that was required by central governmentinspection regimes, and also when the discourse of “network”management or governance through partnerships was rapidlydeveloping. I was aware that these discourses were experienced bymanagers as being irrational in part, in contention and in manyaspects, lacking any sense beyond the rhetoric, in terms of their day to day management roles. Therefore, I anticipated that myinquiry would be highlighting issues related to interpretation andsense-making of contended discourse. My struggles as a local

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MANAGING SELF IN ROLE 217


government manager with policy issues and value conflict wellillustrated Hoggett’s view that the public sphere is the site for thecontinuous contestation of public purposes and this means thatquestions regarding values and policies saturate all public organi-zations (Hoggett, 2006).

So, in summary, my inquiry explored self-governance in roleand the workplace as an institution within a social, historical, andpolitical context. In this chapter, I now briefly examine the selec-tion of my psycho-social research methods before I go on to set outsome of the research findings that were generated by the methodschosen.

Selecting psycho-social research methods

“Fitness for purpose” was the principle used to guide the selectionof the methods for my inquiry, rather than a positivist position,where the epistemological approach may constrain creativity in theresearch process (Morgan & Drury, 1997, p. 4). Hence, methodsneeded to promote challenging reflection, to catalyse revealinginsights from myself and managerial colleagues, and to placemyself in role in a social and historical context: a tall order, indeed.One method would not suffice for these purposes; what wasneeded was a number of methods that could, in effect, intersectwith each other in relation to some of the data that they generated.Another consideration was that the selected methods must be prag-matic for me, as a part-time doctoral student with a full-time job.

In the event, the multiple research methods used in my inquirywere of substantial benefit in generating useful knowledge. Putsimply, the value of the combination of methods was greater thanthe sum of its parts. The methods used, after some dialogue insupervision sessions, were interactive interviewing, reflective jour-nal working, and autobiographical exploration. Texts on qualitativeresearching may caution that the use of multiple methods is a strainon the researcher’s resources (Mason, 2002, p. 60), but I experiencedthe reflective journal and the autobiographical exploration asadding significantly to my “reflexive capacity”, an advantagewhich has not been explicitly reflected in the literature on qualita-tive research methods. The iterative process of reviewing the data

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produced by the research methods had a “multiplying effect”, forexample:

● observations noted in the reflective journal were shared ininterviews;

● the autobiographical work generated reflection that con-tributed to the reflective journal;

● comments made about me in role in the interviews contributedto my sense-making of aspects of the autobiographical explo-ration;

● the interview content stimulated entries in the reflective journal.

The key benefit of the use of multiple methods was the use of thediffering perspectives or prisms that were intrinsic to the differingmethods. These perspectives were especially useful in periodswhen the data appeared to be relatively unstructured (Henwood &Pidgeon, 1993, p. 22). In combination, they could often provide a“bearing”, in the sense of metaphorical navigation, on a specificresearch issue. This is not a reference to “triangulation” as such, astriangulation is assumed to be associated with more positivistresearch methods. In the following section, I set out aspects of myresearch findings in relation to “experiencing self and organization”before going on to discuss the research methods more fully.

Experiencing self and organization

Images of organisations as solid, permanent, orderly entities runthrough many textbooks. But, in our view, they only tell half thestory. They obscure the other half: the chaos which looms behindthe order, surfacing from time to time. [Sims, Fineman, & Gabriel,1992, p. 1]

The opening question to the managers who participated in theinteractive interviews was: “How do you see the council as an orga-nization, or what sense do you make of the council as an organiza-tion?” An immediate supplementary question concerning sense-making was important in facilitating responses because of thereaction of all interviewees to the word “organization”. The term

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“organization” had no resonance with most interviewees in theirprocess of making sense of their experience. There was no general-ized recognition of the council being an “organization”. The onlycommon view of the council, as expressed by the interviewees, wasa view of a substantially segmented or fragmented “entity”. Theterm “entity” was introduced after the early interviews, as it wasmore resonant with the interviewees than the term “organization”.

During the period in which these research interviews took place,there was an emphasis on defining and maintaining corporate iden-tity across the local authority. Seivers rightly observes that

The obsession with corporate image, with constructing a glowingidentity for the enterprise, serves to suppress its internal chaos,ugliness, madness and unrelatedness. Such organisational meaningconceals the actual experience of fragmentation, contempt, instru-mentalisation and meaninglessness. [1990, p. 129]

The research interviewees used the interviews to construct andexpress their subjective realities. In a number of the interviews, theinterviewee responded to my query about their view of the organi-zation by saying that they needed to tell me about their life historyinstead of, or before, responding to this question. They gave me anarrative account of their life, focusing on their working life. Thenarrative would be interspersed with a theme as expressed througha type of role, the theme being identified by the interviewee asbeing a continuous thread of meaning within their lives. So, somemanagers were concerned in the interviews to make sense of theircurrent experience and working lives by having recourse to theirlife stories. In the interactive interviews, managers consciously orsubconsciously made a connection between their relation to theirworking environment and their relation to the world as they hadframed it in their life story narrative.

In one interview, an image of a desired organization was sharedwith me in the form of an ideogram: the idea of a striking building,having visual power and impact. The interviewee referred to herideogram as being a significant concept in shaping her world view,dating back to her early childhood. She referred to herself as havinga strong “visual and spatial” sense. Visual and spatial themes,combined with a high value being placed on visual history, were

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expressed as influencing her professional career and being ofcentral importance in her current working life. She expressed herdifficulty in “seeing” the Council as an organization, as beingcaused by the lack of “physical expression”, or a clear single visualand spatial image. Her outline life narrative and metaphorical refer-ences gave me some vivid insights into her organizational worldview (Frost, Moore, Louis, Lundberg, & Martin, 1985, pp. 145–156).In this case, the metaphor was emotionally significant, and yet it was also subject to reasoning in the interview; there is a notabledifference here with the reductionist metaphor often used in amanagerialist context.

This interview led me to further explore my own ideogram/metaphor for a large organization. I am conscious that I have heldthis metaphor for some considerable length of time. This is a city atnight, a constellation of lights, blurred and obscured movements, amosaic of dynamic activity and inertness/sleeping. Linking thisback to my autobiography, on reflection, I had a powerful relationto the city that I was brought up in. In times of constraint or distressI would distance myself from family or other immediate surround-ings by thinking of the city at night. For me, the city, especially thecity centre, had a great life force. One of my manager colleaguesalso referred to a metaphor of the organization as a constellationwhere the stars were individual people, or souls. The metaphor oflights or stars representing people may have deep associations inthe sense of light representing a spirit. On further reflection, itstruck me that perhaps I, too, had been looking over the years forthe vibrant heart, or the spiritual light, in organizational life, to noavail. In the case of this interview, both myself and the intervieweehad sought “deeper meaning” from the organization withoutconsciously questioning why that meaning would necessarily beaccessible to us from organizational experience.

Another twist on this perception of organization is the attribu-tion of personal qualities as a way of making sense of the experi-ence of organization through lending it a character or, indeed, a“self”. Two managers interviewed described their perception oforganization wholly in terms of projected personal attributes thatthen shaped their relationship with that organizational “character”.Other managers used personal attributes on occasion when seekingto describe the organization.

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These research findings give us some additional insights in rela-tion to the rather crude observation that “Organisations get likenedto many things—machines, armies, rubbish bins, theatrical plays,the human body, and so on—there is even a ‘garbage can’ model.We find the analogy of a river helpful” (Sims, Fineman, & Gabriel,1992, p. 2). My research process illustrated how the self, an ideal-ized self and spiritual metaphor, might also be projected into theexperience and subjective representation of organization.

An example of a deep metaphor is the form where the organi-zation is represented as a human thinking entity (Grant & Oswick,1996, p. 7). My view was that the metaphors of organization thatsurfaced in the interactive interviews tended to be deep metaphors.My explanation for the use of deep metaphors would be that theorganization was, on an experiential level, too fragmented anduncertain an entity to generate cultural metaphors derived fromorganizational paradigms. The “irrational” experience of performa-tivity and other workload stresses compounded this experience. So,managers generated their own “making sense” metaphor derivedfrom their life history narratives because they needed to create asense of meaning for themselves about their “being at work”.

Thus, in summary, idiom needs can become more significant inthe relationship between self and an uncertain organizational envi-ronment that lacks sufficient cultural symbols. Life story narrativestake on a greater significance in making sense of the self at work bygenerating meaningful metaphors specific to individual selves:

We consecrate the worlds with our own subjectivity, investingpeople, places, things and events with a kind of idiomatic signifi-cance. The objects of our world are potential forms of transforma-tion. We are continually meeting idiom needs by securingevocatively nourishing objects. [Bollas, 1993, quoted by Phillips,1994, pp. 155–156]

Another manager interviewed chose to draw his image of hisworking environment. It consisted of a roughly circular shape, withthe boundary of the circle representing the boundary of the localauthority structure. In the centre of the circle was a heavily inkedand emphasized shape that, as we agreed, looked just like an eye.This centre/eye was described as being half hidden. It representedpowerful figures at “the centre”. I shared my understanding of

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Foucault’s “panopticon”, and we also concurred that the “eye at thecentre” could well represent, for him, the forms of corporate controlthat were developing in that period.

Many managers discussed the “breaking down of boundaries”between the local authority and other organizations that was cata-lysed, in their view, by increased cross-organizational working atmiddle manager level on issues where there were substantial affec-tive bonds, such as support to older people or environmentalissues. To my mind came the metaphor of an “undefended border”,and thus a boundary that exists more in the imagination than infact, thereby exposing the “taken-for-granted boundaries estab-lished between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ as an act of representation”(Inns & Jones, 1996, p. 118). Working at the boundary suggests aneed to be able to manage the internal strengths and weaknesses ofthe local authority and, at the same time, lead in the midst of thedynamics that inter-agency work provides. This means being ableto hold several capacities simultaneously: buffering and boundaryspanning, “knowing” and “not knowing”, and leading and manag-ing (Broussine, 1999, p. 6). Or, to put it another way, “The bound-ary has been drawn but it is always in danger of being erased,which means that the researcher’s task is to describe how bound-aries are constructed and maintained, rather than taking them forgranted” (Czarniawska, 1997, p. 26).

Many managers expressed anxiety in the interviews about theaccumulated demands on management of the range of major devel-opment projects: too many “spinning plates”, operational demands,increasing performance management stresses, the government’saccelerating change agenda for specific services, etc. Looking at the“bigger picture”, it has been suggested that, although changes inaccountability, speed of decision-making, and flexibility have beensimilar across the public-private divide, the public sector has faceda far higher collapse in morale, motivation, sense of job security,and loyalty (Worrall & Cooper, 1999). It has been observed withgreater insight that managerialist reforms might generate the typeof fear that would engender “counter-productive, pathologicalresponses, notably, paranoia, a siege mentality, turf protection”(Dixon, Kouzmin, & Korac-Kakabadse, 1998, p. 173).

So, managerialists expect public managers to improve organiza-tional efficiency so as to reduce costs, while at the same time

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enhancing organizational performance by meeting the oftencompeting needs of a variety of stakeholders within a politico–administrative environment that punishes mistakes and rewardsrisk-averse behaviour (ibid., p. 175). In this context, most managersthat I interviewed referred to their “depression”, to “depressingsituations”, or to their situation being “painful”, and one said thathe felt “near to breaking point”.

My experience and the research findings of my inquiry, as illus-trated above, would indicate that psycho-social research methods are invaluable in exploring our “inner lives” and fostering a researchclimate where emotion can be expressed and held. These methodsgenerated data for me on these and other issues that were not solikely to surface if relatively “positivist” inquiry methods were used:

● projection of early experiences of authority on to managers andelected Members;

● countertransference related to management roles in groupswithin hierarchies of power;

● issues with containment in a setting where boundaries withother organizations are becoming blurred or being removed;

● anxiety and defensive behaviour associated with changingroles and structures;

● experience of loss of meaning in a setting where traditionalvalues of public service have been challenged and there is aloss of autonomy vis-à-vis central government;

● anxiety and defensive behaviour arising from contact with thepublic that is based on regulation activity or on rationingwelfare-based service provision;

● anxiety and defensive behaviour related to the experience ofthe audit/performance culture.

In the next sections, I examine more fully the research methodsthat I used in my inquiry: autobiographical inquiry, keeping areflective journal, and interactive interviewing.

Autobiographical inquiry

Naturally, I am in possession of my own subjectivity. I will recon-struct what I hear from the other and my hearing will differ from

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that of any other listener. My history as a subject makes me full ofmy own mental contents (Bollas, 1995, p. 25).

Autobiographical work and the placing of my self at the centreof this action research inquiry challenge the convention that issuesof identity, selfhood, and emotionality are often referred to, andthereby understood, in tangential and semi-detached ways in field-work (Coffey, 1999, p. 1). The work uncovered for me extensive andpowerful links between my values as a public service manager andthe values of my parents and social background. I found that auto-biographical inquiry exposed patterns and connections within self-identity that are not easily open to “radical reflection” (Taylor,1989). In relation to this aspect of the inquiry alone, the use of quali-tative research methods was justified, to enable the discovery ofpreviously “unknown phenomena” that were related to recalled lifeexperiences (Morgan & Drury, 1997, p. 5). My research perspective,put bluntly, is that people in organizations become mere cyphers ifqualitative research is undertaken without reference to the interac-tive effects of individual personality development, personal history,socio-economic context, and political dimensions at a structural andpersonal level.

Autobiographical exploration was initiated when the interviewswere in their early stages, and this work on the researcher as asubject of the research was sufficiently advanced to inform aspectsof the interviews, particularly when sharing life experiences withcolleagues. Essentially, my own autobiographical work comple-mented the inquiry by exposing the basis of the construction of myself at work.

I have been influenced by Goffman’s work, which incorporatesthe idea of each individual as having a moral career that incor-porates an internal aspect involving image of self and felt identity and an external aspect involving social location, style of life, and “is part of a publicly accessible institutional complex” (Goffman,1959, p. 127). Lacan explored the origin of these self concepts morefully in referring to a child’s self-recognition, where the perceivedself, or “me”, in the metaphorical mirror is a unified self, whereasthe inner experience is comparatively disordered or chaotic (Lacan,1949). These ideas, with hindsight in the case of my inquiry, pro-vide an accessible model for use in psycho-social research if aresearcher initially or nominally locates research in the relatively

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“comfortable” external aspect by using open questions, thus stimu-lating reflective forays that offer insights into the internal experi-ence of their interviewees and themselves.

My inquiry has substantially illustrated for me “the role of narra-tive in development, of ourselves and others, and as a way of under-standing issues which are complex, ambiguous yet critical” (Davies,1992, p. 207). What is the power of narrative in this type of researchcontext? One answer is to be found in the sequential drive of narra-tive, or its configuring plot (Bruner, 1990, p. 43). So, it might be theorganization of the configuring plot that generates more researchpointers for us rather than the specific components of the narrative.

Sennett (2000) observes that “The institution provides in timewhat the sociologist Robert Michels called a Lebensfuhrung, whichin English might be rendered as ‘life narrative in an institution’” (p. 165). Sennett’s view is understandable, although possibly oversimplistic, that this institutional narrative should, in principle, solvethe problem of anomie posed by Durkheim, by giving the individ-ual a sustained place in the world (ibid.). My research findingsshowed how managers presented their life narrative in a way thatillustrated their bonds of meaning to a profession or technicalspecialism in a highly differentiated working environment, asopposed to an identifiable institution. This principle applied to myown autobiographical work, in that I came to understand that myown “specialism” was driven by my struggle as a child to managemy fragmented family life on some level. It was to take a view ofthe fragmented organization and to work at that corporate level.Thus, my “place to be” was, untypically, carrying out a corporaterole in the centre of a fragmented public service organization. Theseconnections with childhood difficulty and developmental issueswere thus more distinctly made during a research inquiry, after aforty-year interlude.

So, work on my autobiography has served to reinforce themessage for me that “We are all prisoners of our personal history.Repressed feelings do not disappear from the psyche, but are heldin check through various mechanisms of defence which disguisethe conscious presentation of the feelings” (Fineman, 1993, p. 24).

A similar connection, made during the inquiry when reviewingmy reflective journal comparatively late in the course of theresearch process, related to my concern with integrity and my deep

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attraction to tasks where I grapple with contended issues in the roleof the “honest broker”. Lasch relevantly explores the relationship ofthe ego ideal to separation anxiety and identifies that

The concept of the ego ideal thus helps to remind us that manbelongs to the natural world but has the capacity to transcend itand, moreover that the capacity for critical self-reflection is itselfrooted in the biological side of man’s nature in the fear of death, thesense of helplessness and inferiority, and the longing to re establisha sense of primal unity with the natural order of things. [Lasch,1984, p. 180]

The research process and my resignation from my job, whichwas catalysed by the inquiry, brought about a distinct change in my “self recognition” and my corresponding emotional and psy-chological engagement with my work. I was very much aware ofthis change in experiential terms, but I had not identified a fittingtheoretical approach until I was introduced, through doctoralsupervision, to the work of Hochschild. She draws a vital distinc-tion between surface and deep acting (Hochschild, 1983, p. 33).Surface acting disguises our true feelings and presents feelings thatare false. The separation of a critical self from role is a “healthy”estrangement that avoids emotional burnout, and this maintainsemotionality as a central means of interpreting the world around us(ibid., p. 188). As Hoggett identifies, this appears to parallel Goff-man’s “front stage” presentation of self and “back stage” experi-ence of our true feelings (Hoggett, 2001, p. 6). Deep acting is moreakin to “method acting”, as developed by Stanislavski. The actorenters more deeply into role by imagining their way into the part.Stresses created by surface acting are lessened because the rolebecomes a part of their self, but not a conscious or “present” part oftheir self in the sense of “being present” in role. In my current work-ing role in another local authority, I am far more aware andconsciously critical of my self (or rather, fragmented selves) in role:I owe this development to my research inquiry.

It could be argued that my inquiry could be seen as being suchan “identity project”, although I would add that in my inquiry Isought to locate the “golden threads” between managerial identityand structural political conditions from a critical, modernist stand-point.

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Keeping a reflective journal

One creative way through is to allow the experience of inquiry itselfto speak thoroughly, to pay attention to dream and metaphor, tobuild fully on the representational knowing so that the words, logi-cal or metaphorical, grow out of this deep experience (Reason, 1993,p. 282).

Reflection is widely accepted as a learning tool, and is consid-ered integral to professional practice. Journal writing is advocatedin facilitating reflection, yet little is written about how to assessreflection in journals (Plack, Driscoll, Blissett, McKenna, & Plack,2005), or how to use selected journal content as raw research data.Reflective journal working is, thus, anxiety provoking: it can triggerthe “imposter syndrome” in terms of academic work. It can reflecta false voice rather than our authentic researcher’s voice (or, rather,“voices”), given our propensity to have fragmented selves withvarying degrees of agency and a capacity to enter into internaldialogue (Hoggett, 2001).

My own reflective journal was kept for over four years. I aimedto include at least one entry each week, exploring an issue that hadinterested or disconcerted me at work. I made a descriptive entry,sometimes in the form of a “vignette”, then returned to this entryafter a few days and entered an italicized reflective note.Sometimes, I added a further reflective note at a later date. Theseiterations were essentials in giving “reflective distance” to events.The reflective journal was not assessed as such, but I providedupdated journal entries to my doctoral supervisors in advance of,or at, each supervision session and we explored the contenttogether. In my thesis, I drew on journal content as raw researchdata by quoting from it and giving a brief reference to the journalyear as being the reference source.

The journal content itself showed a distinct trajectory over time,from rather stilted entries with a “rationalist” standpoint describingincidents at work, through more critical comment on issues, to adeeper reflection on personal process. A sense of increasing agencyor awareness of agency was demonstrated in fits and starts overtime as the supported research process built my capacity as a reflec-tive agent. I included dream content in the journal, where my inter-pretation made a connection between dream content and myworking life.

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As an illustration of the “play” of the unconscious mind withconscious experience, a dream can be useful as an exploratory tool.I understand a dream to be bringing together unconscious ideas ina dream event, and then it is useful to look at the relations betweenthose unconscious ideas, using free association, thus acknow-ledging the “necessary opposition between that part of us that findstruth by uniting disparate ideas (i.e. ‘condensation’) and the part ofus that finds the truth by breaking up those unities” (Bollas, 1995,p. 3).

I had a dream relating to the empathic experience of the inter-active interviews. There was a very pleasant “feel” to this dream.

I was wandering the corridors of the council offices and every now andthen would come across one of my co-researcher interviewees. Weimmediately took up the type of discussion that we had in the interac-tive interviews; in other words, characterized by more informal inter-action and greater “disclosure” than was demonstrated in othersettings at work. This also involved some empathic contact, such asplacing a hand on the other person’s arm or some expression ofwarmth.

I initially interpreted this dream as being a wish-fulfilment dreamabout making my “working” life generally more akin to the “life”of my research process. However, on further reflection, I see thisdream as saying something about my experience of the develop-ment of deeper empathic relationships with the colleagues whoparticipated in my research, although these deeper relationshipswere not acknowledged openly. I experienced (consciously andunconsciously) the interactive interviews as relatively increasingmy attunement with my interviewee colleagues.

In another dream, I was bemused to find myself wearing acomplex feminine garment with a series of cuffs progressing fromwrist to elbow, a characteristic metaphorical play on the word“cuff”. On reflection, I saw that this dream could have a feministinterpretation, as the cuffs were on a feminine style of dress and,thus, were a metaphor for gendered role. This led me to carry outmore analysis of the gendering of my role at work, and I came toshare Hollway and Jefferson’s concept of an anxious, defendedsubject as being simultaneously psychic and also social (Hollway &Jefferson, 2000, p. 24).

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So, I developed my practice in using the journal as a tool toexamine role and process. It became more political, not in a party-political sense, but in the sense of a place where the interfacebetween political issues and self-governance could surface. I fre-quently reflected on contention, irony, and the “madness” of somepolitical rhetoric. If we accept the notion that we have an “innerpolitician”, then our political self-awareness means understandinghow our political attitudes and commitments have been affectedpsychologically by family, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity,nationality, and socio-economic status, and, conversely, how ourpersonalities have been irradiated by the political times in whichwe live (Samuels, 1993, p. 1).

Interactive interviewing

My interactive interviewing method was to pose open questions toopen up a dialogue. The interviews in my inquiry took place withfifteen managerial colleagues on a self selected basis: theyresponded to my email invitation to participate in my researchprocess. The striking point for me was the speed and passion of theresponses, followed by the immediate depth of trust that was givento the interview process: I could barely suggest the “ground rules”for our interviews before my co-researcher managers plunged intocandid revelations of their feelings and views about their experi-ences at work.

However, while many managerial colleagues described withoutprompting the interactive interviews in this action research inquiryas being “therapeutic”, the purpose and boundaries of a researchprocess need to be carefully observed and respected, given the verydifferent purpose and skills involved in identifiably therapeuticinteractions. In my experience, the interviews provided a capacityfor a relatively higher degree of intersubjectivity or mutual recog-nition (Benjamin, 1995). The therapeutic effect appeared to arisefrom the rare opportunity to speak out and to be emotionallyexpressive. In addition, there is a common cultural association thatcorrelated such a private, emotionally expressive exchange withmanifestations of the “therapeutic culture”.

I had understood, prior to this inquiry, that research was a “ther-apeutic” process for the researcher. What I had not acknowledged

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was the potential therapeutic effect of even one single interactiveinterview for those participants engaging with the researcher in acollaborative process. Interestingly, Baum has remarked that mostpsychoanalytic views of organizations are written by actionresearchers (Baum, 1987, p. 29).

As stated above, the managers participating in my inquirytended to plunge into open discussion, with very little or norecourse to my introducing the niceties of ground rules. Their priorknowledge of my potential capacity to acknowledge and hold feel-ings, and, conversely, my knowledge of their potential capacity,shaped our assumptions about our jointly created capacity. Theessential shift in the nature of pre-existing relationships (Coghlan &Brannick, 1992, p. 41) occurred very rapidly between myself and allmanagers who participated in the interviews. My tacit understand-ing that this openness was related to the previously existing levelof trust between myself and the interviewees is borne out by thework of Andrews and Delahaye (2000), who found in their casestudy research that perceived trustworthiness—based on percep-tions of what colleagues were likely to do with sensitive informa-tion—was the factor that influenced knowledge-sharing decisions.

In interactive interviewing, both parties can create the capacityin the sense of a container to hold the generation of greater under-standing. Capacity is a “portmanteau” term in that “to hear themessage accurately requires the ability to pay attention to allaspects of one’s experience and depends on many things i.e. havingsufficient energy and emotional capacity” (Moylan, 1994, p. 53). Itis not always unconscious thoughts and feelings that need to beunderstood, but also the implicit: what is not being said. “Thoughtsconscious in some people or even shared in twos and threes, are notopenly shared with everyone in a work situation where they couldbe realistically and constructively used” (Menzies Lyth, 1989, p. 29).

The interactive interviews heightened my sense that the capa-city of the interviews for “holding” or “containing” was a deeplysensitive quality, related to Heron’s definition of the participatorypole of feeling (as compared to the individuating pole of emotion).

The capacity to participate in wider unities of being, to become atone with the differential content of the whole field of experience.This is the domain of empathy, indwelling, participation, presence,resonance and such like. [Heron, 1995, p. 16]

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The concept of “negative capability” speaks of the reality of thepower of the ego in personal interaction. It describes the capacity toexperience emotion, one’s own and others’, but also to contain it forthe sake of the work and, by doing so, to learn from and to useemotion to inform our understanding of the work. The “negative-ness” of this capability does not indicate negativity, deficiency, orinsignificance. Instead, it is a measure of the human capacity tocontain emotion, the ability to hold enough to be able to hold some-thing for another as well as for oneself (French, 2000, p. 1218). Thisresearch process has significantly developed my capacity to “hold”emotion that is “getting in the way”, and also it has freed myexpression of assertive feeling on issues where previously I mighthave “professionally” contained my feelings.

In the context of negative capability, my experience was that theclosing stage of an interactive interview was a delicate stage in deal-ing with the emotional access that had been opened by the inter-view. In each case, I found that I was seeking to express in a fewwords that I would “hold” the process which had been initiateduntil the next time that I met with the co-researcher. There was asense of something being mindfully held in suspense. My under-standing was that this “something” was a manifestation of theiridentity, or a fragment of their “selves”, that had not previouslybeen voiced in a workplace setting. It was, thus, important for meto demonstrate a “sensibility” or emotional delicacy in handling theclosing stage of the interview. My intuition was that the sensitivitywas related to the switch of roles, from our being co-researchers toour return to “business as usual” in our management roles, entail-ing the possibility of damage or loss of trust in a research processthat was jointly valued.

I have outlined above how the value of working with narrativein my inquiry was illustrated by interviewees resorting to their lifestory narratives in order to explain or explore their links to theirfields of work. This was a move away from facts and theories tostories, enabling ambiguity to be “on the table” and facilitatingserendipitous learning (Fineman & Gabriel, 1994, p. 375). Moreprofoundly, the value of narrative in a therapeutic context has beenrecognized as a means of facilitating self expression in relation tosensitive issues (White & Epston, 1990).

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“Deep” metaphor was used frequently by managers in the inter-active interviews. Deep metaphor was drawn from interviewees’life narrative, not from common organizational metaphors. Deepmetaphors are of substantial value in phenomenological research.In this case, they illustrated how interviewees related to, or werealienated by, the organization. Primarily, they were an expression ofcontinuity of individual meaning, whether conscious or subcon-scious, as opposed to a more “surface” metaphorical expression ofimmediate emotion. A “relaxed” narrative is illustrated by meta-phor. Metaphor as a “language” focuses on processes rather thanstructures, and enables us to see how “organization” is a state ofmind rather than simply an external “state” (Czarniawska, 1997,pp. 18–19).

An effective way to focus the subconscious is through imageryand visualization (Senge, 1990, p. 165). The use of metaphor ininquiry is recognized as a form of “knowing”, or, in other words,“presentational knowing” (Reason & Heron, 2001, p. 5). Thus,metaphor has a clear relationship to phenomenological methodol-ogy. So, in this inquiry, I found that metaphor was useful as anintersubjective “clue”, promoting a deeper understanding of theexperiential inner world of myself and others. Hollway andJefferson use the notion of the “defended subject” to indicate thatpeople will defend themselves against any anxieties in the infor-mation they provide in a research context. They suggest that tointerpret interviewees’ responses should entail developing amethod in which narratives are central, as should a strategy ofinterpretation in which interviewees’ free associations are givenprecedence over narrative coherence (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000).

Empathic inquiry

The contribution of empathy or emotional communication is under-played in accounts of qualitative research methodology. It is thecase that

to a large extent the quality of the research experience (for allinvolved) and the quality of the research data is dependent uponthe formation of relationships and the development of an emotionalconnection to the field. [Coffey, 1999, p. 57]

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Further, our experience develops the capacity to recognize andunderstand the manifestations of the unconscious mind “in theconscious thoughts, feelings, speech and behaviour of the peopleone is working with—and in oneself” (Menzies Lyth, 1989, p. 28).

But empathy is not often recognized as being a political issue.Power permeates all of our relationships and, in the case of thisinquiry, perceptions and experiences of power were present in theinteractive interviews. I placed a particular value on establishingrelationships of trust, and the previous existence of such relation-ships at work enabled engagement in the interviews. Throughoutmy working life, I have had a drive to explore the meaning of rela-tionships of trust because trust is, for me, a “golden thread”running through interpersonal relations into the socio-politicalcontext. Sennett has articulated this concept for us by linking theexpression of loose bonds of informal trust at a micro-political levelto a wider emancipatory purpose vis-à-vis a macro-political context(Sennett, 1999).

Concluding reflection on my research methods

We can, perhaps, begin to discern the cracking of our once securespace of interiority, the disconnecting of some of the lines that havemade up this diagram, the possibility that, if we cannot disinventourselves, we might at least enhance the contestability of the formsof being that have been invented for us, and begin to inventourselves differently (Rose, 1998, p. 197).

Research on perceived problems of modern life in a generalsense indicates that the most common answers to “What do you seeas the main problem of modern life?” include the decline ofcertainty and belief, unfulfilled expectations, and meaninglessness(Sloan, 1996, p. 9). Success, on the other hand, is equated with theillusory achievement of coherence and unity, of the “integratedpersonality” which ego psychology identifies with mental health(Barglow, 1994, p. 27). What underlies this drive to achieve integra-tion that I experienced as a “corporate manager”? Integrity can bedescribed as being an expression of a desire for wholeness and inte-gration of the self in the face of incompleteness and irresolvabledilemmas. Miller rightly identifies that this internal struggle

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involves “a debate about thought and feeling, desire and action,structure and agency, and the publicly concerned versus theprivately concerned self” (Miller, 1993, p. xiii).

My research findings finely dissected my role in its various parts,including corporate fixer, honest broker, empathic interpreter ofpower structures, critic of political discourse, etc. These parts weredistinctly relational and contrasted with other parts, such as corpo-rate policy maker and disseminator and corporate projects manager.

So, this inquiry has been an effective catalyst in enabling me tomove on by bringing to the surface, acknowledging, and process-ing the powerful contradictions that I experienced in my workinglife. In the lessening of this burden of paradox, the capacity forthought develops, allowing a more openly reflexive interpretationto emerge. What is this burden? A useful definition is that one ofthe purposes of reflection is to become aware, through inquiry, ofthe many layers of culture woven into experience which mightprevent adequate and contemporary action (Elkjaer, 2003, p. 137).Our conscious awareness of the “frontiers” of our knowledge isvital, to avoid limiting prior assumptions about the outcomes of ourinquiry and to give us enough conceptual freedom to follow up onwhat may seem to be the “red herrings” in our mapped outresearch streams. This awareness and capacity to learn is Bion’s“not knowing” (French & Simpson, 2000, p. 55). This takes us awayfrom a narcissistic knowingness into a risky terrain of potentialsurprises, some of them not necessarily very pleasant in the senseof their not being self-supporting for our contended and contingentmanagerial identities. Thus, this form of psycho-social inquirygreatly enhanced my capacity to be “surprised” or enlightened as aresearcher/manager.

Bion, following Klein, develops the concept of the episto-mophilic instinct, or the desire to “know”: this he calls “K”, beingone of three human imperatives, alongside love and hate (Bion,1962). This is very pertinent for my inquiry, as I can identify inmyself a deep curiosity that has driven this research process.Critical inquiry may serve to expose for us fragments of our“selves” that had hitherto been concealed by the limits of ourunderstanding or suppressed effectively by a “false consciousness”.The challenge to our selves associated with such critical inquirymay be counterbalanced by its liberating impact: the increased

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freedom to investigate, analyse, and then to understand in a waythat enhances our vital capacity for active agency.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Analysing discourse psycho-socially

Leslie Boydell

In this chapter, I describe an approach to psycho-social researchwhich combines discursive psychology, a form of discourseanalysis, with a psychodynamic approach, to identify what I

have termed the Partnership-in-the-Mind, based on Armstrong’sconception of the Organization-in-the-Mind (2005). I use discursivepsychology to link the imagery conveyed by metaphor, as used bymembers of an inter-agency partnership concerned with improvinghealth and reducing health inequalities within a geographical area,to the concept of the defended subject, using data generated by theFree Association Narrative Interviewing method (Hollway & Jeffer-son, 2000). I applied this methodology to a case study of a HealthAction Zone in Northern Ireland, which is described below.

The case study

This case study is an inquiry into what happens when people fromdifferent organizations and sectors decide to collaborate to pursuea common goal orientated towards the public good. Multi-sectoralpartnerships have become central to government’s approach to

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241


tackling complex policy issues, for example, neighbourhoodrenewal, social exclusion, community safety, child poverty, andother “wicked issues” (Newman, 2001). This is based on the needfor partnership between those involved in shaping policy and thoseaffected by its delivery. As part of the Labour government’s empha-sis on stimulating integrated local action, a wide range of area-based initiatives requiring partnership have been established since1997. An example is the Health Action Zone, set up to reduceinequalities in health through the co-ordinated activity of differentagencies (Barnes & Sullivan, 2002, p. 81). Health Action Zones(HAZs) were set up in England and Wales from 1998, and from1999, HAZs were set up in Northern Ireland. They were to “exploremechanisms for breaking current organisational boundaries totackle inequalities, and deliver better services and better healthcare, building upon and encouraging co-operation across the NHS”(DoH, 1997, p. 145). They were to set up partnership boards andengage local communities in deciding and implementing policies.

This case study is based on research funded by the Research and Development Office of the Health Personal Social Services inNorthern Ireland, as part of their New Targeting Social Needresearch programme from March 2003 to February 2006. Theresearch led to the development of a conceptual model showing therelationship between the context within which a partnership isworking, the benefits of partnership working, and inequalities(Boydell & Rugkäsa, 2007). The case study consisted of in-depthinterviews, group inquiry, observations of meetings, and documentanalysis. The analysis in this chapter is based on data derived frominterviews with ten partners in one Health Action Zone in Belfast.

Interviewing

The primary approach to interviewing used was the free associationnarrative method described by Hollway and Jefferson (2000), whobase their method on their theory of the “defended subject”. It isexplicitly based on a psychoanalytic understanding that threats tothe self create anxiety, which in turn precipitate defences that oper-ate largely unconsciously. They argue that “conflict, suffering andthreats to self operate on the psyche in ways that affect people’s

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positioning and investment in certain discourses rather thanothers” (ibid., p. 19). They do this to protect vulnerable aspects ofthemselves. Hollway and Jefferson draw mainly on Melanie Klein’stheories of psychoanalysis, and use her two developmental posi-tions, paranoid–schizoid and depressive. In the former, splitting ofobjects occurs so that bad parts can be projected outwards and goodparts preserved within the self. In the depressive position, it ispossible for the subject to integrate these two aspects and to see thegood and the bad in the same object. People alternate between thesetwo positions throughout life, depending on the threats to theirpsyche.

This approach to research depends on eliciting narrative fromthe research interviewee. Generally, people arrange their stories togive coherence. One of the key skills in this form of interviewing isto elicit stories, and several guidelines are presented to assist this:using open-ended questions, avoiding why questions, and follow-ing up interviewees’ ordering and phrasing. This is an unstructuredform of interviewing, and free association is seen as central toanalysis of the defended subject. This is the narrative of the psycho-analytic session, “the kind of narrative that is not structured accord-ing to conscious logic, but according to unconscious logic; that is,the associations follow pathways defined by emotional motiva-tions, rather than rational intentions” (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000, p. 37). In this way, the coherence of the narrative may be compro-mised, and it is by examining the contradictions and avoidancesthat the researcher might be able to discern the interviewee’s con-cerns, or, in other words, the presences and absences in the narra-tive. Kvale (1996) highlights the importance of Freud’s term,“evenly hovering attention”, for picking up these nuances withinthe interview. A key to eliciting this form of free association narra-tive is for the researcher to keep intervention to a minimum.Wengraf (2001, p. 113) suggests that what is required is giving upcontrol and maintenance of maximum “power-asymmetry againstyourself”. The advantage of narrative is that “precisely by what itassumes and therefore does not focus upon, narrative conveys tacit andunconscious assumptions and norms of the individual or of acultural group” (ibid., p. 115, original italics).

The free association narrative interviewing method involves twointerviews. The first interview is used “to interrogate critically what

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ANALYSING DISCOURSE PSYCHO-SOCIALLY 243


was said, to pick up contradictions, inconsistencies, avoidances andchanges of emotional tone” (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000, p. 43),while the second interview allows the researcher to follow up and“seek further evidence to test . . . emergent hunches and provisionalhypothesis. It also [gives] interviewees a chance to reflect” (ibid.).

While free association narrative interviewing, as developed byHollway and Jefferson (2000), is based on the biographical–inter-pretative method as described by Rosenthal and Schutze, anddepends on eliciting narrative, what makes it distinctive is the ideaof the defended subject and the psychoanalytic method of free asso-ciation. What is important is not the coherence of the narrative, butthe unconscious dynamics used to avoid or master anxiety andwhich lead to contradictions and avoidances within the narrative.The interpretation of this narrative requires sensitivity to emotionalexperience, and to transference and countertransference.

Metaphor

As I was carrying out the interviews in this case study, I becameintrigued by the range of metaphors used by interviewees whentalking about their experiences of working in partnership. Whilesome of these metaphors were highly individualistic and idiosyn-cratic, others seem to touch on recurring themes. Interviewees usedmetaphors frequently, without evident awareness that they werespeaking metaphorically.

Metaphors are pervasive in our language, thoughts, and actions,and underpin all our conceptual thought (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).Thus, it is not surprising that talk about partnerships is rich inmetaphor. Lakoff and Johnson define metaphor as “understandingand experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (ibid., p. 5).

Morgan (1997) refers to metaphors as a way of thinking and ofseeing. He also refers to them as a way of not seeing. Lakoff andJohnson (1980, p. 10) explain this in that “allowing us to focus onone aspect of a concept, a metaphorical concept can keep us fromfocusing on other aspects of the concept that are inconsistent withthat metaphor”.

Grant and Oswick (1976, p. 10), who studied metaphors in orga-nizational discourse, refer to the application of metaphors as either

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deductive or inductive. “The deductive approach involves taking ametaphor, imposing it on a particular organisational phenomenonand then seeing if it offers something of value”. Morgan’s well-known work, Images of Organizations, results from this approach(Morgan, 1997). In this book, he identifies eight metaphors based onorganizational theories, which he maintains “lead us to see, under-stand, and manage organizations in distinctive yet partial ways”,for example, organizations as machines, organisms, brains, orpsychic prisons. While recognizing the originality of Morgan’swork and its contribution to highlighting the value of metaphors inunderstanding organizations, Mangham (1996) criticizes Morganfor not developing metaphor as ways of thinking and refers to hismetaphors as idiosyncratic, suggesting that, as such, they areunlikely to become conventionalized into our thought. The induc-tive application of metaphors “seeks to discover those underlyingmetaphors that are already in use and which influence our ways ofthinking and seeing” (Grant & Oswick, 1996, p. 10). It is thisapproach to metaphor that I have used in this research, helping toidentify the “partnership-in-the-mind”. The notion of a partner-ship-in-the-mind is derived from the concept of the organization-in-the-mind, which is described in the next section.

Organization-in-the-mind

In this research I have used the concept of the organisation-in-the-mind as described by David Armstrong (2005). The term was firstused by Pierre Turquet in relation to an experience at a group rela-tions conference, as a way of understanding members’ behaviour“as reflecting and being governed by unconscious assumptions,images and fantasies they held about the conference as an organi-zation” (ibid., p. 3).

Armstrong and the staff of the Grubb Institute used the conceptwidely in their organizational consulting work. By the timeArmstrong left the Institute, the idea was formulated as follows:

“Organisation-in-the-mind” is what the individual perceives in hisor her head of how activities and relations are organised, structuredand connected internally. It is a model internal to oneself, part of

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one’s inner world, relying upon the inner experiences of my inter-actions, relations and the activities I engage in, which give rise toimages, emotions, values and responses in me, which may conse-quently be influencing my own management and leadership, posi-tively or adversely . . . “Organisation-in-the-mind” helps me to lookbeyond the normative assessments of organisational issues andactivity, to become alert to my inner experiences and give richmeaning to what is happening to me and around me. [Hutton,Bazalgette, & Reed, 1997, quoted in Armstrong, 2005, p. 4]

This description focuses on what Armstrong refers to as “mentalconstructs” held by individual clients. In terms of my methodology,I envisaged being able to explore the organization-in-the-mindsuggested through the metaphors that partners used about the part-nership during interviews. However, Armstrong, in his own prac-tice, has taken the concept further. He began to develop the ideathat the organization-in-the-mind might be something belonging tothe organization as a whole, as one “psycho-social field”. “Fromthis perspective, each individual’s internal model or construct, con-scious or unconscious, might perhaps better be seen as a secondaryformation, a particular, more or less idiosyncratic response to acommon, shared organizational dynamic” (ibid., p. 5). Within thisframe of reference, “processes of projection in organizationalsettings [can be] seen as a response to something elicited by theorganization and not something simply imposed on it” (ibid., p. 5,original italics). Attending to the organization-in-the-mind involvesattending to the emotional experiences which occur between theconsultant (or the researcher) and the client (or organizationalresearch interviewee). As well as thinking of a partnership-in-the-mind in terms of the mental models individuals partners holdabout the partnership, Armstrong’s development of the conceptallows for consideration of my emotional experience in relation tothe partners I interviewed or observed in groups, and what thismight reflect about the “inner world” of the partnership.

Discursive psychology

As my interest was in the implicit, what is beneath the surface, thatwhich is not easily available to conscious thought, I decided to use

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the imagery offered by the metaphors used by the partners I inter-viewed as a way of going beyond the immediately denotativeaspects of language. This in turn led to the decision to use discur-sive psychology, a form of discourse analysis, as a theoretical frame-work for analysis using metaphor.

Discursive psychology began to develop in the 1980s with thework of Potter, Wetherell, Edwards, Harré, and Gillett (Wetherell,2001, pp. 188–189). It draws on a number of strands. One is socialconstructionism, which provides the context for discursive psychol-ogy. Social constructionism developed as an alternative to experi-mental and other quantitative methods of which it was highlycritical, and led to new thinking on subjectivity and the self. Asecond strand draws on critical psychology and Foucault’s work onsubjectivity. Wetherell (1998, p. 394) refers to genealogy, a termintroduced by Foucault, as requiring the analyst “to render strange,usual or habitual ways of making sense, to locate these sense-making methods historically and to interrogate their relation topower”. In fact discursive psychology is not a single strand ofstudy, but a complex field informed by a range of different andsometimes contradictory ideas and arguments (Edley, 2001, p. 189).

Wetherell (1998, p. 388) proposes that a clear distinction is oftenmade between “a discursive psychology offering a fine grain analy-sis of the action orientation of talk” consistent with ethnomethodol-ogy and conversation analysis, and “investigations concerned withthe imbrication [overlap] of discourse, power and subjectification”according to a Foucauldian analysis. Wetherell and her co-workershave developed a more integrated approach to discursive psychol-ogy, which is the main method described in this chapter. Wetherell(1998, p. 393) draws on Laclau and Mouffe, who regard discourse as“an unceasing human activity of making meanings . . . from whichsocial agents and objects, social institutions and social structuresemerge configured in ever-changing patterns of relations”. Meaningis never finally fixed, but is always in flux, unstable and precarious.Within this view, power is seen as “the capacity to ‘articulate’ and tomake those articulations not only ‘stick’ but become hegemonic andpervasive” (ibid.). Laclau and Mouffe appear to allow for both theactive and passive role of social agents in that they are activelyinvolved in meaning making, but, at the same time, may becomedecentred, and not the authors of their own discursive activity.

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We can . . . conceive the social agent as constituted by an ensembleof “subject positions” that can never be totally fixed in a closedsystem of difference, constructed by a diversity of discourses . . . the“identity” of such a multiple and contradictory subject is thereforealways contingent and precarious, temporarily fixed at the inter-section of these subject positions . . . it is therefore impossible tospeak of the social agent as if we were dealing with a unified,homogeneous entity. [Mouffe, quoted in Wetherell, 1998, pp. 393–394]

This is consistent with Hollway and Jefferson’s view of thedefended subject, combining the psychic and the social.

Two key underpinning concepts in discourse analysis comefrom Wittgenstein and Austin. Wittgenstein said that “language isitself the vehicle of thought”, rather than a description of someinner mental state (Wittgenstein, quoted in Potter, 2001, p. 42). Forhim, meaning does not originate in some private space in the mind.Discursive psychology does not involve the study of discourse as away to develop understanding of internal attitudinal systems, butfocuses on the way in which phenomena are constructed throughsocial interaction and utterances. Wittgenstein referred to languagegames, in that people learn how to use particular words by observ-ing how these words are used. This applies to psychological words,such as “remember”, “feel”, or “see”, as well as to words for phys-ical objects such as “chair” or “table” (Billig, 2001, p. 211). “Thesewords are used in various ‘language games’ and their sense mustbe understood in terms of the practices of their usage”. Wittgensteinused this to argue that these words do not refer to some internalprivate state. Based on this, Billig argues that if we want to studymemory, perception, or emotion, we can do so by investigating theuse of language. According to Billig, psychology is constituted inlanguage and it is possible to study processes of thinking directly(Billig, 2001). This provides a possible link between discursivepsychology, which is a study of language in use, and analysisinformed by psychoanalysis, in which we are concerned withemotional experience.

Austin introduced the theory of speech acts, based on the ideathat language is used to do things. He talked of utterances havingillocutionary force, which depends on the choice of words, the wayin which they are spoken, the context, and who speaks them (Potter,

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2001). Discourse analysis focuses on the function of language andspeech, and recognizes that when people use language to persuade,request, accuse, or influence, they often do so obliquely. This meansthat, as well as the looking at the actual words used, it is also impor-tant to understand the context of use in that the meanings of expres-sions change with their context of use (Potter & Wetherell, 1987).

A key function of language is self-presentation, which mayinclude presenting oneself in a favourable light or someone else ina less favourable light. Thus, descriptions of people, events, orthings will vary according to the purpose of the person who isspeaking of them. People use language to “construct versions of thesocial world” (Potter & Wetherell, 2001, p. 199). Accounts of eventsare constructed from a variety of pre-existing linguistic resources.This implies active selection on the part of the person doing theconstructing. This process is not necessarily performed consciously,but is the result of the speaker trying to make sense of the phenom-enon about which they are speaking or engaging in social processesof blaming or justifying. The person offering a description will offerone that seems right for the occasion and are just “doing whatcomes naturally” (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 34). Accordingly, alllanguage is constructive and consequential (Potter & Wetherell,2001). The importance of this for research is that language use ishighly variable and cannot be taken as a realistic or unambiguousaccount of the phenomenon being described. For my research, thismeans that the descriptions provided by interviewees cannot betaken as a definitive description of the partnership, and that eachpartner is using language to perform some function in relation tothe partnership or themselves. Thus, in discourse analysis, the topicof study is language use and the function performed by language,rather than language as an accurate reflection of something else.This appears to point to contradiction in my intended use oflanguage to explore the unconscious. However, I believe a keyword here is the rejection of language as an “accurate” reflection ofwhat the speaker is describing. Both discursive psychology andanalysis of the defended subjects or groups use interpretation tospeculate about the purpose or motivation of the speaker from theirchoice of words and the way in which they speak, and bothapproaches seek to understand underlying motives of which thespeaker might be unconscious. My choice of discursive psychology

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over other forms of discourse analysis is, in part, based on its accep-tance of individual agency; in other words, that there is a subjectwho uses language to achieve certain ends.

Edley (2001) identifies interpretative repertoires and subjectpositions as key concepts in discursive psychology. These areexplained in the next two sections.

Interpretative repertoires

The concept of “interpretative repertoire” was adopted by Potterand Wetherell (1987, p. 138) to mean “a lexicon or register of termsand metaphors drawn upon to characterize and evaluate actionsand events” Wetherell (1998, p. 400) describes them as “culturallyfamiliar and habitual line(s) of argument comprised of recognisablethemes, common places and tropes”. They comprise the methodsused for making sense in a particular context, organizing account-ability, and they “serve as a backcloth for the realization of locallymanaged positions in actual interaction” (ibid., pp. 400–401). Inter-pretive repertoires provide “a range of linguistic resources that canbe drawn upon and utilized in the course of everyday social interac-tion” (Edley, 2001, p. 198). This does not rule out the construction ofsomething original in conversation, but it is more usual to draw onwhat is already available. This places conversation within a histori-cal context, building on what is taken to be common sense. Potterand Wetherell give the example of a “community repertoire”, basedon an analysis where the category “community” involves a clusterof terms and metaphors which were selectively put forward toprovide evaluative versions of the events under study (1987, p. 138).The terms included in the community repertoire described a certainstyle of cohesive social relationships, such as “closeness”, “integra-tion”, and “friendliness”, and metaphors such as “close-knit” and“growth” (Potter, Wetherell, Gill, & Edwards, 1990, p. 212).

There is no simple guidance to recognizing interpretative reper-toires. Edley (2001) suggests that this comes with practice and ismade easier by familiarity with one’s data. Of interest to myresearch is the suggestion that common metaphors may emerge.“By interpretative repertoire, we mean broadly discernable clustersof terms, descriptions and figures of speech often assembled

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around metaphors or vivid images” (Wetherell & Potter, 1992,quoted in Phillips & Jørgensen, 2002, p. 107). With regard to thepartnerships in my research, I am interested in exploring whatinterpretive repertoires are being used and what functions theserepertoires appear to perform.

Positioning

This concept plays an important part in discursive psychology.Davies and Harré (2001) state that “an individual emerges throughthe process of social interaction, not as a relatively fixed end prod-uct but as one who is constituted and reconstituted through thevarious discursive practices in which they participate” (ibid., p.263). Who one is depends on the positions made available withineither one’s own or others’ discursive practices.

Davies and Harré use the concept of positioning to explore thediscursive production of a diversity of selves. They define posi-tioning as “the discursive process whereby selves are located inconversations as observably and subjectively coherent participantsin jointly produced story lines” (ibid., p. 264). Interactive position-ing occurs when one person positions another, and reflexive posi-tioning when a person positions him or herself. In either case, thismay occur unintentionally or unconsciously.

One person can position others by adopting a story line whichincorporates a particular interpretation of cultural stereotypes towhich they are invited to conform, indeed are required to conformif they are to continue to converse with the first speaker in such away as to contribute to that person’s story line. [ibid., p. 50]

Positions are identified from autobiographical aspects ofconversation, exploring how each person appears to conceive ofthemselves and of others by what position they take up and in whatstory. The speaker assigns roles within the episodes described,which other conversants can either take up or reject. Of particularrelevance to my research is the recognition that words used to posi-tion others “inevitably contain images and metaphors which bothassume and invoke the ways of being that the participants takethemselves to be involved in” (ibid., p. 265). These images may be

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very powerful, and yet individuals might not be conscious of howthey are using them.

Analysis of the defended subject

The concept of positioning provides a valuable link between discur-sive psychology and a psychoanalytically informed analysis of thedefended subject, since both approaches are concerned with subjectpositions and positioning of others. In psychoanalysis, the splittingof objects into good and bad, so that the good object can be inter-nalized and the bad object split off and projected on to someoneelse, performs a defensive function and is the mechanism by whichpositioning is explained in psychoanalytic theory (Hollway &Jefferson, 2000). Unconscious intersubjective dynamics, includingtransference and countertransference, affect the research relation-ship. As such, positioning in psychoanalysis is achieved throughprocesses such as projective identification. In this way, the twoapproaches I am using, that is, discursive psychology and a psycho-analytically informed analysis of the defended subject, are comple-mentary, because both allow for disavowed experiences to beplaced in objects. Through developing a reflexive approach, Ilooked at how I positioned myself as a researcher and tried tobecome aware of my own countertransference and experience ofprojective identification to help me develop a psycho-social under-standing of the partnership (Boydell, 2005). I tried to understandwhat it is about the partnership that makes people take up certainpositions and what this says about their “partnership-in-the-mind”.

Analysis of free associate narrative interviewing as used byHollway and Jefferson involves looking for evidence of defensiveorganization to give clues to underlying anxieties which might helpexplain motivation, positioning, and actions. Hollway and Jeffersonare critical of what they refer to as a “tell it like it is” approach toresearch interviews committed to representing interviewees’ voices(2000, p. 58). Through their use of the theory of the defendedsubject, they explore the motivation for investment in particulardiscourses as a means to defend against feelings of anxiety. Theyemphasize the importance of using one’s own subjectivity to assistin analysis as part of a reflexive approach.

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Analysis of interpretive repertoires

Having described my methodology, I will now illustrate theapproach using two examples of the interpretive repertoires identi-fied from this case study based on the use of metaphor. These havebeen developed through analysis of interviews with ten partners ofthe Health Action Zone described earlier.

“On the ground”

This term was used with reference to what happens locally andappears to be closely associated with talk about “community”. Itwas used over fifty times by eight partners. Terms such as “deliv-ery on the ground”, “down on to the ground”, “down on theground”, “people on the ground”, “what happens on the ground”,“community at ground level”, “message from ground up”, “realityon the ground”, and “issues on the ground”, are all used.

A manager, describing the pressures on the partnership todevelop their first action plan, talked of the imperative to be seento be delivering something tangible for local people. “We have toshow delivery on the ground.” Similarly, another partner expressedhis frustration about whether they were “making a difference onthe ground”. A partner from a statutory sector organization high-lighted the perceived distance between decision-making and theground where communities are, and referred to their “attempt toget sort of further out down on to the ground . . . to make the down-on-the-ground connection”.

A partner who was a civil servant expressed his concern aboutthe distance between the ground and the partnership, referring tothis as one of the fundamental measures of partnership working:“The Health Action Zone will not be able to address inequalities inhealth, inequalities in unemployment, or anything else, unless itgets the message from the ground up.”

The need to deliver something “on the ground” is a form ofwords commonly used. However, more explicit references to theneed to connect to people on the ground, to get the messages upfrom the ground, and, particularly, to reach down to communitieson the ground, emphasizes the distance between the community

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and those working in statutory bodies. I interpret this as represent-ing a great perceptual distance between the community and thestatutory sector and the view of community as something otherthan “ourselves”. It highlights a perception of statutory bodies andprofessionals as not grounded, not on the ground or of the people.Inevitably, this means that they are always in the position of doingsomething to and for others, despite the aspirations of engaging thecommunity fully in the process. For me, it mirrors the idea ofgetting down on the ground to be at the same level as a child, andis perhaps even a place where one might get dirty. There is a shortstep from there to tacitly assuming that “the community” is at aninferior level and is infantilized.

As one aspect of a repertoire of community, there was veryfrequent reference to community by partners. The terms “commu-nity” and “communities” were used over 400 times, and were usedin many ways. The term “community” was juxtaposed to a rangeof other terms: community sector; community networks or forums;community participation or involvement; community representa-tion; community organizations or groups; community ownership;community level; community based; community perspective,opinion, or point of view; community infrastructure or capacity;community partners and partnerships; communities of interest;community workers; community people or folk; community voice;and community action. It is as if, by adjoining various relationaland doing words to the word community, the partners can gaingreater legitimacy.

One of the things which is striking is the disconnected way thatsome partners referred to the community. The following quote froma statutory sector partner conveys an idea of working with commu-nities as being very difficult:

“I think we are . . . not wonderful on really connecting with thecommunity, really, really connecting . . . and that’s a difficult thingto do anyway, it’s difficult to get past the spokespeople for thecommunity and it’s difficult just generally.”

The following quote from another partner conveys the exhaust-ing nature of working with communities: “I mean, the wholecommunity gets [to be a] very exhausting thing for people to do.”

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“Community” is a complex area in which a plethora of terms areused. The topic is emotionally charged and politically challenging.It seems that a sharp distinction is drawn between those whounderstand about communities and community development, andthose that are dismissed by those who do understand for not under-standing. Nobody wants to be perceived as not understanding theconcept. It is important to demonstrate, by use of language, that oneembraces a community development approach. However, in thecase of some partners, the language used is abstract and discon-nected from experience and the “community” is talked about in adepersonalized way.

There does seem to be a strong tendency to talk about thecommunity as a homogenous group, which is inconsistent with theexpressed goal of encouraging diversity and inclusion. Communityis seen as “other”. Although several of the partners come from thecommunities in which they work and some of the statutory sectorpartners have grown up in local communities, there was a strongtendency to talk about the community as an “other” group to whichnone of the partners belongs.

In summary, what is portrayed here is a community repertoirethat sees community as “other”, as a homogenous and disembod-ied group with whom they must engage, reach down to, and givevoice to. That this group can be difficult is recognized, but it is alsoidealized. Their involvement is seen as key to the success of thepartnership.

Partnership as what happens “round the table”

In talking about the partnership, interviewees very frequentlyreferred to the partnership “table” and what happens there. It wasused in virtually every interview, although with varying frequency,up to sixteen times in one particular interview.

Reference to the partnership table seems to be pervasive in talkabout partnerships. The implication is that when partners think ofthe partnership, they think of what happens at meetings which takeplace around a table. The most frequent reference is to “round” or“around” the table, having been used approximately forty times inseventeen interviews.

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There were many references to people or partners coming roundthe table to discuss issues:

“The possibility and potential of the range of people who wouldcome round the table to talk and share about those issues.”

“I think the difference is that on a . . . six-weekly basis, because weare all sitting round the one table, what the Health Action Zonedoes is give a new context for those connections.”

“But the real value, I think, of it has been very much in the discus-sions that take place, the analysis of the causes of health inequali-ties, the analysis of what needs to be done, in terms of how thepartners around the table need to change how they do their busi-ness.”

“The Health Action Zone has . . . tried to make sure that it’s takingevery opportunity to use the fact that people are around the table,to bring people together, and there has been a lot of debate about itbeing a kind of marketplace for these transactions going on.”

Although the above four quotes are similar, they signify severaldifferent qualities in relation to partnerships and partnership meet-ings. This first quote evokes an image of a place where people fromdiverse perspectives meet with a common interest in place, thetable providing a place for conversation, of possibility and poten-tial. The second quote refers to the “one” table, and conveys theidea of equality. The third refers to action, and how partners aroundthe table might change what they do. The last refers to the oppor-tunity provided by having people around the table to engage intransactions.

Interviewees also referred to agencies or organizations sittingaround the table, rather than individuals: “There were no otherresources other than the agencies sitting around the table.”

This is a strangely depersonalized view of the partnership, inthat, rather than people representing their organizations, it is theagencies themselves that sit there. Of course, thinking of an organi-zation-in-the-mind, each person comes as a person in role repre-senting their organization, and, therefore, can be expected to reflectthe psycho-social field of their organization. So, in one sense, theorganizations are all around the table, creating a new and complexpsycho-social field for the partnership.

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Reference was also made to bringing “voices” to the table.Frequent references were also made to bringing “communityvoices” to the table. While this was raised to emphasize the impor-tance of having different perspectives at the table and all the neces-sary knowledge and expertise, it suggests a disembodied voice, thatpartners come to the table to communicate a “voice” for an absentgroup, rather than as individuals.

Issues can be brought to the table or put on the table:

“Suicide is a very big issue for us here . . . so, you know, those kindsof issues we would like to see brought to the table.”

“We weren’t really sure why we were there . . . there’s nothingreally on the table here for us to deal with.”

“I’m sure if we all took our fifty most difficult cases and we setthem all on the table . . .”

This conjures up the image of the table being not just a bare tablearound which people sit and talk, but one that has things on it,which may or may not be of interest to individuals around the table.It does convey an instrumental attitude, in which people go to thetable to put things on it, or to find things on it that are of relevance,or, failing that, question whether they should be at the table. The last quote, suggesting that they put fifty cases on the table creates animage of fifty sets of case notes, or even that the clients themselvesare placed on the table. Metaphorically, the table is laden, withexpectations, values, topics, and ideas. People come to the table toshare not food, but ideas, values, priorities, and strategy.

Two partners, when asked a question about the partnership,were evidently viewing a mental image of the partners sittingaround the table in considering their answers:

“I am kind of, you know, I am just thinking around the table.”

“Just sort of mentally, sort of looking around the table, as it were.”

This highlights the fact that the main forum for connection is atpartnership meetings, and for several partners, this may well betheir main mode of engagement with the partnership.

One partner very eloquently expressed what I think severalpartners would have said if specifically asked about whether they

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saw the partnership as what happens at the table. This was inresponse to a question I had asked using the term “around thetable”. However, he had already used the term several times:

“But, you know, this is so much more than, when you say aroundthe table, I think immediately of a Health Action Zone Councilmeeting, you know, which is a set piece thing every six weeks orsomething, where there’s an agenda. It’s what happens in betweenthat’s important.”

This could be viewed as a defensive statement, since, havingspoken frequently in the interview about the partnership as thepartnership table, he quickly contradicted the idea that this is allthere is to the partnership when I used the term.

The use of the term “table” in talking about partnerships is socommonplace that it was used with little awareness. I was notaware that I was using the term myself until I started analysinginterview transcripts. Things can be put on the table but, presum-ably, it is not acceptable to do things under the table (althoughperhaps it is permissible away from the table). Having a place at thetable also implies that some people do not have a place at the table,and can therefore be excluded. If you have nothing to put on thetable, can you be a full partner? If there is nothing on the table foryou, is there any reason for you to be there?

Anxiety and psycho-social defences

In the preceding section, I have provided just two examples of theinterpretative repertoires indentified from this partnership. In whatfollows, I provide a brief overview of what is anxiety provokingabout the partnership, and in what way individuals appear todefend themselves against their anxiety. While the anxiety experi-enced by any individual will be determined in part by their ownbiography, I have interviewed them in their role as partners and aminterested in what it is about that situation that causes anxiety andrequires defence. Using Armstrong’s conception of organization-in-the-mind, I am looking for how individuals in role express some-thing about the collective psycho-social field in which they all

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participate: the partnership. In brief, the anxieties and psycho-socialdefences identified are summarized as follows.

Anxiety. There are several indications of what causes anxiety forthose working in the partnership. One of the most marked of theseis the concern about whether they are making any difference topeople living in North and West Belfast, in other words, fears abouteffectiveness and failure, which can be viewed as depressive anxi-ety in Kleinian terms.

Impact of the conflict in North and West Belfast. Several intervieweestalked with strong emotion about the way in which NorthernIreland’s “Troubles” have affected people living in this area, as wellas expressing indignation about inequalities and the deprivationexperienced by local people. This pain and suffering appears to bereflected by the partnership.

Ambivalence towards community. The community was mostlytreated as a depersonalized, homogenous entity, and I suggest thatthere is strong idealization on the one hand and enormous fear ofcommunity on the other.

Splitting and projection. There is some evidence of splitting andprojection. One partner has been seen as unsupportive of the part-nership based on several decisions made by his organizationregarding funding for some initiatives. There is considerable angertowards this partner, and I consider what is being projected intohim. In addition, there were many criticisms of government depart-ments, particularly the department responsible for health, for theirsilo mentality and their lack of appreciation of, and responsivenessto, the work of the partnership. I consider what might be beingprojected into the Department.

Positioning. I am aware that, in undertaking these interviews, I positioned myself as researcher and interviewees as researched.This gave me legitimacy to ask questions that I would not normallyhave the opportunity to ask people in senior positions and whichthey were expected to answer, even though these are questions they are not normally asked. While this created an unusual andpotentially anxiety-provoking situation for both parties, I wasstruck by the extent to which interviewees positioned them-selves, for example, in terms of their roles within their ownorganizations, their past experiences, or how they wanted to beseen.

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Identification. Several partners drew on their own backgrounds,either having grown up in the area and/or coming from working-class backgrounds. I understand this as an attempt to express someidentification with the people of the area.

Projective identification. I am aware of the pressure I have felt toproduce something of value for the partnership out of this researchand to identify with the struggle of the partners. It is hard todescribe in words what this felt like, but it was brought home to mejust what it feels like to work with this partnership when I re-engaged with the partnership in 2006 to undertake some furtherwork at their request.

Optimism as a defence. Several partners expressed incredible opti-mism and hopefulness about the ability of the partnership toachieve change. There is something magical about this. I interpretthis as evidence of basic assumption pairing.

The partnership-in-the-mind

Based on the interpretive repertoires identified, I developed myanalysis of what these said about the partnership-in-the-mind,focusing particularly on the apparent assumptions about thepurpose of the partnership, its ways of working, and what is rarelyopenly challenged or questioned in partnership discussions. Iwould suggest that these are “unthought” assumptions rather thanunconscious ones. It is possible that they are a reaction to theprimary process of the partnership, which I propose is related todealing with the “awfulness” of working in North and West Belfast.A brief summary of the implications for a partnership-in-the-mindbased on the two interpretative repertoires described above follows.

● The purpose of the partnership is to work for the benefit of thecommunity. What matters most is having an impact “on theground’

● The partnership should engage “the community” and shouldnot address issues affecting communities without involvingthem. Communities give the partnership legitimacy.

● The community is “on the ground”. The partners are not.

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● The community should respond to that by accepting the helpoffered and by helping themselves. Communities should begrateful, or, at least, not ungrateful.

● The community is powerless and partners want to empowerthe community, but also fear the power of community repre-sentatives to harm them.

● The community should be offered the opportunity to speakand be heard.

● Partners embrace the idea of diversity, but expect the commu-nity to speak with one voice.

● Partners know that communities should be able to call them toaccount, but do not like it when they do, if it seems like anattack on the good intentions of the partnership.

● Engaging the community is hard work. Not just anyone canrepresent the community; that person must be legitimized andaccepted by the community.

● The history of conflict in North and West Belfast gives commu-nities a particular legitimacy in terms of their victim status andtheir neediness. It is important to acknowledge the awfulnessof it.

● Meetings are central to partnership. They follow familiarconventions and take place around a table.

This sample of the partnership-in-the-mind is an exploration ofwhat appears to be taken for granted and is unchallengeable.Alternative ways of thinking are not given much consideration, andthinking that is unaligned must be repressed, if not totally, at leastit cannot be freely expressed. The implication is, for example, thatcertain things are given, such as the desirability of communityengagement. It would not be considered necessary to discuss whythese are desirable, and, if anyone were to try, they would probablybe considered to be defending traditional ways of working. Theyare accepted as relatively unproblematic and unambiguous con-cepts. This partnership-in-the-mind represents a form of primaryprocess thinking, with its inherent inconsistencies and paradoxes.

This example of the partnership-in-the-mind focuses on indi-vidual models or constructs as reflected in the interpretive reper-toires identified from interviews. These models, although they havebeen identified largely based on individual interviews, appear to be

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shared, and, as such, can be viewed as a secondary formation, a res-ponse to a “shared organizational dynamic”, a form of group think-ing (Armstrong, 2005, p. 5). This provides a useful link between thetwo theoretical approaches behind the method used, that is, adiscursive and a psychodynamic perspective. The concept oforganization-in-the-mind, or “shared organizational dynamic”,however, also encompasses emotional experience as reflected inmechanisms such as projection or projective identification, forexample, and the analysis of the defended subject digs deeperbeneath the surface to explore group dynamics.

Discussion and conclusions

I have used organization-in-the-mind as a unifying concept. Insummary, the partnership-in-the-mind encompasses a range ofmodels, or constructs and emotions. I have described it based onthe assumptions implied by the interpretive repertoires and haveexplored the role of anxiety, its sources, and the defensive functionsthat the partnership may be performing on behalf of organizations.

The main question raised by the method used for data analysisin this analysis is the feasibility of combining a linguistic approachbased on discursive psychology with an affective one based onpsychodynamic theory.

The choice of using discourse analysis in addition to a psycho-dynamic approach emerged during the research. This was stimu-lated by my growing interest in metaphor, which developed as datacollection proceeded. As I progressed in the development of thiscombined methodology, however, it became apparent that I wouldbe faced with a clash of paradigms: that discourse analysis is basedon the idea that the focus is on language and that language is allthat there is, while a psychodynamic framework is concerned withprobing the unconscious. However, discourse analysis is a broadchurch, and there can be confusion between the term “discourse” asused in discursive psychology and as used by Foucault. For the lat-ter, his interest was more in “how discourse constitutes objects andsubjects than in the details of language use in social interaction”(Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2000, p. 224). While I am interested in howpeople position themselves and others, he was more concerned

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with “disciplinary power”, which circulates through discourserather than being exercised by any individual; in other words, howpeople are positioned by discourse (Foucault, 1986). In discursivepsychology, there is a greater acceptance of agency, although it isalso recognized that people may be positioned by others eitherconsciously or unconsciously, which implies a recognition of theunconscious, even if this is not explicitly stated.

Frosh and Emerson (2005) have written about the combinationof analytic methodologies based on discourse analysis and psycho-analysis. Their starting point is that

psychoanalytic ideas about emotional investment and fantasy canoffer a “thickening” or enrichment of interpretive understandingbrought to bear on personal narratives, especially those arising outof interview situations. [p. 308]

They make reference to the way in which Hollway and Jefferson(2000) build on discursive psychology, using psychoanalyticnotions such as the unconscious and defence. As they argue,

psychoanalytic interpretive strategies may be able to throw light onthe psychological processes, or perhaps the conscious and uncon-scious “reasons” behind a specific individual’s investment in anyrhetorical or discursive position. [Frosh & Emerson, 2005, p. 308)]

While warning of the over-interpretation of texts, they concludethat the different approaches offer scope for collaboration.

Hollway’s (2001) use of discursive psychology has been specifi-cally developed out of an interest in extending methods used insocial psychology into the study of discourse. It is set within her-meneutics, rather than postmodernism, allowing for considerationof defended subjects and the unconscious. The approach I havetaken to using a linguistic approach has been to consider the inter-pretive repertoires or choice of linguistic terms used and what thesetell us about the partnership-in-the-mind. I have used a psychoan-alytically informed approach to look for evidence of defences. Iconsider both consistent with hermeneutics. I believe the real ques-tion is whether these two approaches have been complementary,whether they have provided something that neither could on itsown. As Frosh and Emerson (2005, p. 323) conclude in their

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research, “all texts can be read in multiple ways warranted by‘plausible interpretations’” and each approach may be warrantedon its own. What has been the advantage of using the two together?

One way in which I have made the link between the twoanalytic methods has been to use interpretive repertoires to explorethe emergence of a partnership-in-the-mind, which has involvedforegrounding some assumptions and ignoring ideas that are notconsistent with this. This exploration of interpretive repertoires hashighlighted some of the contradictions and paradoxes inherent inthe interviewees’ perspectives on the partnership. I have then builtfurther on this analysis, exploring sources of anxiety for partnersand the defences developed to deal with them. I believe that thishas added depth and understanding to the overall analysis.

References

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Society. London: Sage.Phillips, L., & Jørgensen, M. W. (2002). Discourse Analysis as Theory and

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Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (2001). Unfolding discourse analysis. In: M. Wetherell, S. Taylor, & S. J. Yates (Eds.), Discourse Theory andPractice: A Reader (pp. 198–209). London: Sage.

Potter, J., Wetherell, M., Gill, R., & Edwards, D. (1990). Discourse: noun,verb or social practice? Philosophical Psychology, 3(2): 205–217.

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affect, 1, 3–4, 8, 10–13, 19, 75, 79,81–82, 84–87, 90, 93, 95–97

attunement, 149bonds, 223

Alford, C. F., 123, 142Alighieri, D., 65, 76Alvesson, M., 32, 46–47, 262, 264ambivalence, 114, 146, 206, 259Andersen, H. C., 171, 190Andrews, K., 231, 236anxiety, 7, 11, 41–42, 45, 47, 58, 104,

107, 116, 123, 142, 147, 150, 158,160, 162, 170, 175–177, 188–190,223–224, 228, 242, 244, 258–259,262, 264

childhood, 163depressive, 259separation, 227

Ardener, E., 155–156, 163Armstrong, D., 183, 189–191, 202,

241, 245–246, 258, 262, 264Aronson, J., 182, 192Atkinson, P., 75, 77

attachment, 61, 73, 86, 109, 114, 132,207

affective, 10secure, 207theory, 207

Back, L., 140, 142Bain, A., 206, 213Banks, M., 15, 22, 52, 76Barden, G., 61, 76Barglow, R., 234, 236Barnes, M., 242, 264Barone, K. C., 211–212Bateson, G., 29, 39, 47Baum, H., 231, 236Bauman, Z., 121, 123–124, 126–127,

138–142Beck, U., 30, 47, 123, 125, 142Beecraft, S., 174, 192Beedell, P., 7, 12–13, 17, 24, 109,

119behaviour, 4, 18, 140, 194, 198, 204,

224, 234, 245

267

INDEX

Clarke_INDEX.qxd 28/9/56 4:36 am Page 267

defensive, 224human, 3, 81, 96

Benjamin, J., 43, 47, 184, 191, 230, 236Beradt, C., 15, 22Berger, P., 31, 47–48, 103, 118Bergson, H., 15, 51–52, 55, 57–58,

60–76, 79, 84–86, 97Bick, E., 174, 191Billig, M., 248, 264biographic(al), 2, 7–8, 10–11, 18, 41,

62, 104–107, 182, 193, 195, 258auto-, 16–17, 193, 198, 203–204,

208–210, 218–219, 221, 224–226,251

narrative–interpretive method(BNIM), 11, 244 see also: biographical, narrative

Bion Talamo, P., 68, 76Bion, W. R., 12, 15–16, 23, 39–40,

47–48, 51–52, 54, 57–58, 62–65,67–69, 71, 76, 89, 147–148, 150,156, 163, 179, 191, 205, 235–236

Bion’s“K”, 63–64, 235“O”, 54, 58, 63–65

Birch, M., 183, 191Blenkiron, P., 170, 191Blissett, S., 228, 238Bollas, C., 13, 16, 23, 170, 183, 191,

222, 225, 229, 236Bolton, W., 179, 191Bornat, J., 7, 10, 23, 166Bourdieu, P., 107, 111, 113, 118,

125–131, 142Boydell, L. R., 15, 242, 252, 264Brannick, T., 231, 236Britton, R., 156, 163, 180–181, 191,

210, 213Broussine, M., 15, 23, 223, 236Brown, J., 147, 149, 163Bruner, J., 216, 226, 236Buber, M., 36, 48Buckner, S., 151, 155, 163Bullough, R., 208, 213Burgess, R. G., 75–76Burr, V., 31, 48, 171–172, 191

Carpy, D., 146, 148, 163case studies

Alison, 183–185Billy, 20Emily, 112–113James, 87–91, 93–97Joanne, 158–163Lowry, 114, 116Sydney, 175–177

Casement, P., 150, 164, 172, 191Chamberlayne, P., 7–8, 10–11, 23,

25Chandler, D., 203, 213Chaplin, E., 52, 76Cicourel, A., 217, 236Clarke, S., 2, 7, 9, 11, 20, 23, 30,

47–48, 75–76, 82–83, 97, 138,142 145, 147–151, 155–156, 164

Clewell, T., 211, 213Coffey, A., 75–76, 225, 233, 236Coghlan, D., 231, 236conscious(ness), 3, 5–8, 12, 21, 31,

58, 60, 64–69, 74, 83, 87, 90, 95,103, 107, 111, 113, 115, 117, 122,126, 129, 132, 152, 154, 178–179,182, 186, 198, 220–221, 226–227,229, 231, 233–235, 243, 246, 252,263 see also: unconscious(ness)

containment, 12, 89–90, 116, 151,157, 178–179, 224

Cook, A. S., 103, 118–119Cooper, C. L., 223, 239Cornwall, A., 35, 48countertransference, 2, 4–5, 8–9, 13,

17–18, 21–22, 43, 80, 117,146–151, 156–158, 162–163, 177,183, 188–189, 224, 244, 252 see also: transference

Craib, I., 141–142Crociani-Windland, L., 2–3, 14, 53,

63, 73, 77Czarniawska, B., 223, 233, 236

Dare, C., 146, 150, 157, 165Dartington, T., 16, 23

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268 INDEX


dataanalysis, 2, 11, 17–21, 41–42, 83,

151, 262collection, 82–83, 91, 183, 188, 262empirical, 74personal, 212research, 4, 6, 145, 149, 154–155,

183, 228, 233science, 4social, 19, 82

Davies, B., 251, 264Davies, J., 226, 236Davis, E., 95, 97Decartes, R., 40, 79–82Deetz, S., 46, 48Delahaye, B., 231, 236Delanda, M., 72, 77Deleuze, G., 15, 51, 55, 57, 60–65, 67,

69–73, 75, 77, 79, 81–82, 84–87,89, 97

Denzin, N., 75, 77Department of Health (DoH), 242,

264depressive position, 123, 179, 243,

259Dewey, J., 37, 48dilemma(s), 2, 19, 101, 106–108, 209,

234project, 101, 107, 109, 112

discourse, 1, 7–8, 13, 15, 19, 30–31,33–35, 41–42, 117, 122, 126, 133,204, 215, 217, 235, 241, 243–244,247–250, 262–263

discursive, 2, 8, 12, 15, 34, 36, 247,251, 262–263

psychology, 126, 241, 246–252,262–263

Dixon, J., 223, 236, 246dream(s), 14–16, 44, 68, 74, 83,

89–91, 93, 95–96, 170, 185–190,228–229

Driscoll, M., 228, 238Drury, V., 217–218, 225, 238

Economic and Social ResearchCouncil (ESRC), 13, 17, 101,104, 110, 125–126, 134

Edley, N., 247, 250, 264Edwards, D., 247, 250, 265ego, 67, 142, 227, 232, 234Elkjaer, B., 235–236Ellman, S. J., 146, 164Emerson, P. D., 263, 265emotion(al) 1, 6, 8, 12, 22, 39, 42,

45–46, 79–81, 95–96, 102–105,112, 116–117, 123, 142, 146–150,152, 154–155, 157–158, 161–163,176, 179, 217, 225, 230, 232–233,248, 262–263

engagement, 102–105, 107, 112empathy, 4, 90, 107, 112, 129, 147,

149, 151–152, 154, 156–158, 179,182, 187, 217, 229, 231, 233–235

epistemology, 22, 29–30, 32–33,35–39, 40–41, 43, 45, 52, 61, 74,85, 216–218

Epston, D., 232, 239Erickson, R. J., 103, 118ethic(s), 2, 20–22, 29, 32, 35–36,

38–39, 42–43, 81, 101, 108, 127,131, 182

ethnography, 2–6, 14–15, 29, 44–46,52, 75, 173, 178, 186, 190

European PsychoanalyticAssociation, 202

Fabian, J., 178, 191Faimberg, H., 67, 77fear, 7, 11–12, 20, 121–125, 131,

134–135, 137–142, 162, 176, 185,223, 227, 259, 261

Feldman, M., 157, 164, 210, 213Fineman, S., 219, 222, 226, 232, 237,

239Finlay, L., 101, 103, 118, 170, 191Flybjerg, B., 209, 213Fonagy, P., 204, 207, 213Foucault, M., 35, 48, 80, 84–86, 97,

122, 127, 129, 142, 223, 247,262–263, 265

free association, 2, 9–10, 15–16, 18,41, 60, 63, 83, 93, 113, 229, 233,243–244

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INDEX 269


narrative interview (FANI), 8–9,11, 18, 145, 170–173, 177–178,180, 241–244, 252

French, R., 16, 23, 63–64, 77, 232,235, 237

Freud, S., 16, 80, 123, 146, 149, 156,164, 185, 210–211, 243

Friere, P., 37, 48Froggett, L., 147, 151, 164Frosh, S., 2, 7, 23, 155, 164, 263, 265Frost, P., 221, 237

Gabriel, Y., 219, 222, 232, 237, 239Gadamer, H. G., 36, 48Gardner, D., 121–122, 142Garfinkel, H., 217, 237Garner, S., 9, 23Gaventa, J., 35, 48Gay, P., 146, 164Geertz, C., 44–45, 48, 190Giddens, A., 30–31, 47–48Gill, R., 250, 265Gilmour, R., 12, 126, 143Glaser, B. G., 75, 77Goffman, E., 11, 24, 225, 227, 237Goleman, D., 95, 97Gough, B., 101, 103, 118, 170, 191Gould, L. J., 206, 213Grant, D., 222, 237, 244–245, 265Greenwood, D. J., 216, 237Grinberg, L., 150, 164Guattari, F., 73, 77, 82, 97Gutwill, S., 17, 24

Habermas, J., 36, 38–39, 48, 209Hahn, H., 2, 23Hamilton, N. G., 150, 155, 157, 164Hamlet Trust, 197Hammersley, M., 3, 24, 75, 77Harper, D., 15, 24Harré, R., 247, 251, 264Harrison, B., 15, 24Health Action Zones, 241–242, 253,

256, 258Heimann, P., 146, 155, 164Henwood, K., 219, 237

hermeneutic(s), 5–6, 14, 29, 31–34,36, 39, 42, 44–47, 216, 263

Heron, J., 217, 231, 233, 237–238Hinshelwood, R. D., 7, 14, 24, 149,

164, 174, 191Hochschild, A. R., 12, 24, 103, 119,

227, 237Hoggett, P., 2, 7, 16, 18–19, 23–25,

109, 119, 138, 142, 172, 181, 191,218, 227–228, 237

Holder, A., 146, 150, 157, 165Hollander, N., 17, 24Hollway, W., 2, 7–10, 12, 14, 18–20,

24, 41–43, 48, 75, 77, 83, 91,104–107, 113–114, 116, 119, 123,126, 129, 131, 133–134, 142–143,145, 147–151, 156, 160, 164–165,170, 172, 177, 179, 191, 229, 233,237, 241–244, 248, 252, 263, 265

Hunt, J. C., 3–4, 14, 24, 173, 191Husserl, E., 61, 66, 73, 77

identification(s), 7–10, 12–13, 16, 21,47, 83, 103, 110, 117, 129,131–132, 147–150, 153, 156–157,162–163, 172, 174, 178–179, 187,252, 260, 262

identity, 1, 9–11, 14, 39, 41–42, 47,65–66, 70–72, 87, 90, 92–94, 101,116, 122, 125, 135, 137–138, 141,220, 225, 227, 232, 235, 248

imagery 14–15, 84, 87, 90, 93, 97,241, 247

visual, 79, 87, 233Innes, B., 6, 24Inns, D., 223, 237integration, 6, 17, 36, 215, 234, 247,

250interactive interview, 218–220, 222,

224, 229–234interpretation, 3, 5–6, 18, 30–32, 34,

36, 41–42, 44–47, 73, 83, 86, 111,134, 155, 170–172, 177–181, 216,229, 235, 249, 251

intervention, 83, 87–88, 176, 243intuition, 52, 60–63, 65, 69, 86

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270 INDEX


James, N., 104, 119Janesick, V. J., 75, 77Jefferson, T., 7–10, 12, 18–19, 24,

41–43, 48, 75, 77, 83, 91,104–107, 113–114, 116, 119, 126,133, 143, 145, 147–151, 160, 165,170, 172, 177, 179, 191, 229, 233,237, 241–244, 248, 252, 263, 265

Jimenez, L., 7, 24, 109, 119Joffe, H., 6, 24Johnson, M., 244, 265Jones, P., 223, 237Jørgensen, M. W., 251, 265Joseph, B., 148, 150, 162, 165,

178–179, 191

Karpman, S., 206, 208, 213Keats, J., 16, 24Kersten, S., 46, 48Kessler, M. R. K., 103, 119Kirkwood, C., 216–217, 238Klein, M., 14, 21, 24, 117, 122–123,

142, 147, 156, 165, 178–179, 235,243, 259

knowledge, 30, 32–38, 40–42, 45–46,63–64, 71, 85–86, 111, 127, 129,170, 179, 182, 186, 205–206, 209,216

psychoanalytic, 41relational, 36–37representational, 36, 72

Korac-Kakabadse, N., 223, 236Kouzmin, A., 223, 236Kuhn, T., 33, 48Kundera, M., 185, 187, 191Kvale, S., 33–34, 37–38, 48, 243, 265

Lacan, J., 96, 225, 238Lakoff, G., 244, 265Lansky, M., 211, 213Laplanche, J., 146, 165Lasch, C., 227, 238Lash, S., 30, 47Lawrence, W. G., 15, 24, 89, 187,

192, 206, 213Layton, L., 17, 24

Levin, M., 216, 237life 5, 10, 18, 35, 58–59, 62, 69, 109,

124, 130, 140, 207, 216, 220,225–226, 229, 234

Louis, M., 221, 237Lounsbery, A., 204, 213Lucey, H., 7, 13, 24–25, 123, 126,

143, 150, 165Luckmann, T., 31, 47–48Lundberg, C., 221, 237

Mackenzie, A., 174, 192Main, T., 187–188, 192Mangham, I., 245, 265Manias, E., 15, 25Manley, J., 15, 96–97Manyoni, J., 5–6, 25Martin, J., 221, 237Mason, J., 218, 238Mayo, M., 7, 18–19, 24–25, 109, 119McKenna, R., 228, 238Melody, J., 7, 13, 24–25, 150, 165memory, 16, 61, 63–64, 67–68, 70,

75, 79, 85–86, 93, 248Menzies Lyth, I., 14, 25, 169–170,

172–173, 181, 183, 192, 231, 234,238

metaphor, 15, 52, 58, 64, 96, 219,221–223, 225, 229, 233, 241,244–247, 250–251

methodology, 2, 5, 8, 14–18, 22, 29,31, 33, 38, 40, 42, 51, 61, 74, 79,82, 101, 104, 125, 170, 186, 190,233, 241, 262–263

Miller, C., 7, 18–19, 24–25, 109, 119Miller, L., 13, 25Miller, T., 15, 25, 183, 191, 234–235,

238MIND (National Association for

Mental Health), 197Moby Dick, 82, 84Money-Kyrle, R. E., 150, 165Moore, L., 221, 237Morgan, A., 217–218, 225, 238Morgan, G., 244–245, 265Morphy, H., 52, 76

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INDEX 271


Morrow, R., 46, 48mother, 1, 73, 107, 114, 139, 147,

159, 174, 184, 195 see also:parent(s)

motivation, 5–6, 10, 84, 97, 109, 111,223, 243, 252

Moylan, D., 231,238

narcissism, 178, 184, 187, 211, 235narrative 10–11, 41, 53, 83, 104, 107,

129, 134, 153, 171, 220–222, 226,232–233, 243–244 see also:biographic narrative–interpretive method (BNIM)

interview, 8–9, 11, 145, 170, 241,243, 252

method, 7, 9, 11, 145, 241–243Nash, D., 56, 78Newman, J., 242, 265Nicholls, L. E., 12, 14–15, 173, 179,

192

Oakley, A., 147, 165 object, 30, 35, 39, 51, 70–72, 147, 156,

162, 177, 183–184, 211, 243, 252,262

bad, 252good, 252relations, 16, 22, 157

objective/objectivity, 3, 10–11, 30,33–34, 59, 70–71, 84, 96, 110,216

separation, 3observation, 2–3, 7, 13, 30, 60, 68, 72,

170–171, 173, 174, 190, 216, 219infant, 2, 13–14

Ogden, T. H., 149, 165, 172, 179, 192O’Shaughnessy, E., 210, 213Oswick, C., 222, 237, 244–245, 265Other, 22, 136, 138, 205–207, 210

paranoia, 129, 197, 223paranoid-schizoid position, 123,

178, 243parent(s), 104, 110, 138, 156–157 see

also: mother

biological/birth, 89-child relationship, 184

Park, P., 35–37, 48participant, 3, 18–19, 34–35, 38,

42–43, 45, 109, 129, 131,169–170, 173–174, 181–183, 231,251

Pattman, R., 7, 23perceptions, 6, 30–32, 34, 37, 40–41,

44–45, 51, 60–61, 63, 65, 74, 82,84–86, 95, 114, 132, 140, 152,172, 221, 231, 234, 248, 254

Petrov, R., 7, 17, 201, 213Phillips, A., 222, 238Phillips, L., 251, 265Phoenix, A., 7, 23, 123, 126, 143Pick, I. B., 150, 165Pidgeon, N., 219, 237Pillow, W., 170, 186–187, 190, 192Pink, S., 52, 78Pinnegar, S., 208, 213Plack, M., 228, 238Plack, T., 228, 238Pontalis, J. B., 146, 165Popper, K., 169, 192postmodern, 33, 37, 45, 70, 263Potter, J., 247–248, 249–251, 265Powers, R., 208, 213projection, 6, 20, 79, 91, 156, 158,

172, 178–179, 224, 246, 259, 262projective identification, 8–9, 13,

21, 47, 83, 129, 132, 147–150,157, 163, 172, 174, 178–179, 252,262

psycho-social, 1–2, 7–8, 13–14,18–19, 22, 29, 41–42, 46, 80, 82,109, 116, 118, 203, 235, 241, 246,252, 256, 258–259

approach, 2, 8, 15, 18, 29, 42–43,83, 101, 116, 126

method, 8, 17, 101, 104, 133research, 2, 7, 13, 16–21, 29, 32, 40,

42, 47, 52, 79, 81, 83–84, 86, 91,95–96, 101-105, 118, 146, 151,158, 212, 215, 218, 224–225

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272 INDEX


qualitative, 20, 62–69, 72, 74–75,170, 186

research, 2, 7–8, 32, 79, 105, 182,186, 218, 225, 223

racist/racism, 4, 6, 47, 112, 128,130–133, 135, 138, 186

Racker, H., 146, 156–158, 165reality, 5–6, 30–31, 33–34, 37–38, 40,

43, 46–47, 51–52, 59, 62–66,72–75, 96, 111, 126, 217, 232,253

Reason, P., 183, 192, 217, 228, 233,237–238

reflective, 35, 37, 47, 176, 217, 226,228

journal, 218–219, 224, 226, 228reflexive, 21, 29–30, 32, 35, 37,

45–46, 69, 72–74, 105, 110, 117,145, 170, 186–188, 193, 203,208–210, 212, 218, 235, 251–252

interviewer, 117practitioner, 7researcher, 3, 19, 109, 150

reflexivity, 8, 17, 43, 59, 61, 70, 74,79, 86, 102, 109, 116–117, 146,149, 170, 186–187, 190, 193, 203,208

reification, 31, 47, 111Riley, R., 15, 25Roberts, V. Z., 179, 191Roffe, J., 70, 78Rorty, R., 33, 44, 48Rose, N., 234, 238Rosenblatt, A., 210–211, 213Rugkäsa, J., 242, 264Rustin, Margaret, 13, 25Rustin, Michael, 7, 13, 23, 25

Samuels, A., 230, 238Sandler, J., 146, 150, 157, 165Santoni, R. E., 208, 213Savin-Baden, M., 150, 166Sayer, A., 30–32, 49Schutz, A., 217, 238

Searles, H. F., 155, 166Segal, H., 178, 187, 192Seivers, B., 15, 25, 220, 238self, 3, 11, 21, 32–32, 39, 44, 66, 69,

107, 111, 114, 116–117, 124, 127,139–140, 147–148, 171, 175, 184,186–187, 215–216, 218–219,221–222, 225, 227, 230, 232,234–235, 242–243, 247, 249

-analysis, 170, 187–188aware(ness), 17, 117, 150, 230-confidence, 124, 202deceit, 43, 169fundamental, 67, 69referential, 44, 65, 187reflection, 3, 7, 217, 227

Senge, P., 233, 238Sennett, R., 139–141, 143, 205, 213,

226, 234, 238–239Sherwood, R., 5, 25Shuttleworth, J., 13, 25Simmel, G., 134, 143Simpson, P., 16, 23, 63–64, 77Simpson, S., 235, 237Sims, D., 219, 222, 239Sinding, C., 182, 192Skeggs, B., 13, 25, 132–133, 143Skogstad, W., 7, 14, 24, 148, 151,

166, 174, 192Skoldberg, K., 32, 46–47, 262,

264Sloan, T., 234, 239social defence, 14, 38, 169–170, 175,

182–183, 259Spinoza, B., 79, 81, 98Stanley, L., 16, 25Steiner, J., 178–181, 189, 191–192Stopford, A., 18, 25Strauss, A. L., 75, 77subject(s), 2–7, 10, 12–13, 17–18,

20–22, 32, 35–36, 39, 41–44, 82,84, 102, 104, 106–107, 109, 117,126, 135, 172, 177–178, 184, 187, 202, 216, 225, 243, 248, 250,262

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INDEX 273


defended, 8, 12–13, 21, 41–42, 106,133, 170, 177, 229, 233, 241,243–244, 248–249, 252, 262–263

position, 13, 248-to-object, 36

subjectivity, 3, 18–19, 46, 79, 84–86,91, 96, 108, 116–117, 126, 134,147, 184, 211–212, 216–217, 220,222, 224, 247, 251

inter-, 16, 43–44, 46, 79, 84, 91,118, 170, 179–180, 204, 206, 212,230, 233, 252

Sullivan, H., 242, 264Symington, N., 150, 166

Target, M., 204, 213Tatham, P., 89, 98Tavistock, 196

Group Relations, 14Taylor, C., 225, 239therapeutic, 43, 62, 130, 172–173,

180–182, 199–200, 211, 230–232Thompson, S., 138, 142Torbert, B., 203, 213Torbert, W., 35, 49transference, 2, 4–5, 9, 12–13, 43, 79,

107, 244, 252 see also: countertransference

transform, 10, 35, 37–38, 44, 46,92–93, 147, 210–211

-ation, 29, 37, 65, 73, 82, 93, 113,222

-ative, 14, 29, 32, 36–37, 39, 193truth, 16, 33–34, 39–40, 42–44,

63–64, 72, 80, 86, 90, 129, 150,160, 163, 170, 211, 229

unconscious(ness) 183, 186–187,229, 231, 233–234, 243–246, 249,252, 262–263 see also:conscious(ness)

communication, 182–183enactment, 178

Urwin, C., 14, 25

validity, 5–6, 19, 30, 32–35, 37, 40,44, 82, 155, 172

Vrabnitza Project, 199Vygotsky, L. S., 206, 213

Walkerdine, V., 7, 13, 24–25, 150, 165

Warren, C., 11, 25Watson, S., 65, 78Wengraf, M., 7, 23Wengraf, T., 7–8, 10–11, 23, 25,

147, 150–151, 164, 166, 243, 265

Werner-Wilson, 103, 119Wetherell, M., 13, 18, 26, 247–251,

265–266White, M., 232, 239Whyte, W. F., 59, 61, 64, 78Winnicott, D. W., 16, 159, 166, 184,

192, 208, 211, 213Wise, S., 16, 25World Health Organization, 194world, 4–5, 14, 30–31, 34, 39, 46–47,

59, 61, 64, 72, 80, 92, 95,121–124, 130, 177, 206, 208, 217,222, 226–227, 249

external, 5–6, 82, 177internal, 5, 41, 102, 105, 159, 177,

184, 186, 233, 246Worrall, L., 223, 239

Yates, J., 123, 125, 142Young, R. M., 47, 49, 146, 149, 166,

210, 213

Zizek, S., 135–136, 143

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274 INDEX


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Researching Beneath the Surface, Psycho-social Research Methods in Practice