Researching in-between experience and reality

In this article, we draw on LORENZER's method in our analysis of a single case data extract derived from a research project generating data through the Tavistock Infant Observation tradition. The partial case analysis demonstrates our methodological approach and explores conceptual territory at the meeting point of German and British psychoanalytically-informed traditions. Our scenic composition synthesised key elements of one observation visit to the home of a young black first-time mother in London. LORENZER's advice to the cultural analyst to explore what irritates or provokes in the scene has something in common with the way that observers in the infant observation tradition use their emotional responses and process their experience. The aim is to provide access to what WINNICOTT described as an intermediate area of experience and LORENZER considered "in-between". We explore this area through two provocations in our scenic composition. Using these data examples we ask: is it possible to conceptualise collective, societal-cultural unconscious processes (LORENZER's gesellschaftlich-kollektives Unbewußtes, 1986) within this intermediate area? Specifically, how is racial and class difference present in the scene? How can it be located through scenic understanding of research data? And why does it matter

Psychosocial Research Analysis and Scenic understanding

In this paper two researchers who position themselves within an emergent psychosocial current in the UK apply the concept to a segment of film footage of an interaction (part of an empirical qualitative research project) to explore what Alfred Lorenzer’s theory of scenic understanding can add to our existing methodological resources. The film footage shows the creation of a poem by Darren, a 16-year-old offender, and Bob, a local poet employed in a project investigating the rehabilitative potential of one-to-one creative writing sessions. The authors contrast the transcript of this encounter with a ‘scenic composition’, a device they developed to communicate to a research readership the scenic experience of watching a filmed interaction. This contrast forms the basis for bringing together a series of post-Kleinian ideas about modes of knowing (syncretistic perception, reverie, transitional space) with Lorenzer’s scenic understanding. Through the idea of provocations in the text, the authors focus on the researcher’s emotional experience to explore the psychosocial character of the meanings that emerge concerning Darren’s claim, ‘I’m not clever’, and how these meanings are communicated amongst Darren, Bob and the researcher. Through the lens of symbolised and unsymbolised emotional experience, play and triangular space, the authors consider Darren’s ambivalent relationship to the creative writing activity and conclude with a short discussion of the conceptualisation of unconscious processes suitable to a psychosocial data analytic methodology

Co-operative Activity in Preston

Co-operativism, then is being hailed by some (Mason, 2015)3 as the beginning of a postcapitalist society and a new way forward: ‘Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Parallel currencies, time banks, cooperatives and self-managed spaces have proliferated, barely noticed by the economics profession, and often as a direct result of the shattering of the old structures in the post-2008 crisis.’4 Working co-operatively also brings with it a new economic

The Visual Matrix Method: Imagery and Affect in a Group-based Research Setting

The visual matrix is a method for researching shared experience, stimulated by a sensory stimulus relevant to a research question. It is led by imagery, visualization and affect, which in the matrix take precedence over discourse. The method enables the symbolization of imaginative and emotional material, which might not otherwise be articulated and allows "unthought" dimensions of experience to emerge into consciousness in a participatory setting. We describe the process of the matrix with reference to the study "Public Art and Civic Engagement" (FROGGETT, MANLEY, ROY, PRIOR & DOHERTY, 2014) in which it was developed and tested. Subsequently, examples of its use in other contexts are provided. Both the matrix and post-matrix discussions are described, as is the interpretive process that follows. Theoretical sources are highlighted: its origins in social dreaming; the atemporal, associative nature of the thinking during and after the matrix which we describe through the Deleuzian idea of the rhizome; and the hermeneutic analysis which draws from object relations theory and the Lorenzerian tradition of scenic understanding. The matrix has been conceptualized as a "scenic rhizome" to account for its distinctive quality and hybrid origins in research practice. The scenic rhizome operates as a "third" between participants and the "objects" of contemplation. We suggest that some of the drawbacks of other group-based methods are avoided in the visual matrix—namely the tendency for inter-personal dynamics to dominate the event

Thinking from Experience in Psychosocial Practice: Reclaiming and Teaching ‘Use of Self’

A course based on psychosocial theory and students' experiences in practice has been taught in the UK, Norway and Quebec. It departs from the classical social work concept ‘use of self’ and aims to help novices in health and social work to understand how the social world is internalised and re-produced and the value of thinking from experience. International developments such as, competency-based education, New Public Management and evidence-based practice reduce opportunities for experiential learning. This trend has been exacerbated by a focus on anti-oppressive practice without a corresponding understanding of how oppressive relations are internalized and enacted by defended and conflicted subjects. Attempts to rectify a relational deficit through traditions of reflective practice and critical reflection are important developments, but could be further strengthened by psychosocial and psychodynamic perspectives. The course combines critical, contextual and relational thinking for students in caring profession