The importance of relational thinking in the practice of psycho-social research: ontology, epistemology, methodology and ethics

The object relations and relational psychoanalytic traditions can have a profound effect on the practices of social science research and, in the UK, this is taking place largely in the tradition that has come to be called ‘psycho-social’. My own research practice has been moving in this direction for some time and it has become evident to me that the use of psychoanalytic concepts that derive from the object relations and relational traditions have radical effects on every aspect of research. By every aspect, I refer first to the substantive analysis of phenomena that have social and psychological aspects (which surely includes most phenomena of interest to social science). I also refer to the trio of principles informing research that I refer to in the title of this chapter as ontology (how the person as subject of research is theorised), epistemology (how the status of the knowledge generation process is understood) and methodology (how these together inform how the researcher goes about finding out). Not in the title, but also implicated, is the subject of research ethics. After an outline of the project that I use as an illustration, subsequent sections of this chapter deal with ontology, epistemology, methodology and research ethics

Knowing Mothers: Researching Maternal Identity Change

How do women experience the identity changes involved in becoming mothers for the first time? Throughout in depth case examples, Wendy Hollway demonstrates how a different research methodology, underpinned by a psychoanalytically informed epistemology, can transform our understanding of the early foundations of maternal identity

From motherhood to maternal subjectivity

In this paper I try to work out what would be involved - and what would be some of the implications - in moving from the idea of motherhood to maternal subjectivity (which I theorise through the lens of unconscious intersubjectivity). Motherhood connotes a natural state or condition which functions as an empty category into which children’s needs can be placed. Using feminist and post-structuralist critiques and building upon British and feminist psychoanalysis, I theorise developments in subjectivity and the capacity to care that are made possible by certain characteristics of the relationship with a developing child, characteristics which change over time. More specifically I explore the concepts of maternal ambivalence, containment, recognition and maternal development - all ways of understanding the specific workings and effects of unconscious intersubjective dynamics - in the context of asking how maternal subjectivity is constituted. In this way, the subject of inquiry is shifted from mothers to mothering. This conceptualisation of maternal subjectivity aims to go beyond subjectivity as subjectification and mothers as the objects of children’s needs (or, more recently, rights) and also beyond the idea of mothers as ‘autonomous’ subjects in their own right (to the extent that the idea of autonomy is one deriving from the rational unitary subject of modernism). Throughout I use the politically relevant theme of who can and should mother to inquire into the boundaries of maternal subjectivity and thus as a lens through which to illuminate the relations among mothering, fathering, parenting, primary caring and caring in general. I discuss the effects of these dynamics on adult subjectivities in general

The free association narrative interview method

This encyclopaedia entry describes the characteristics of the method given in the title

Researching defended subjects with the free association narrative interviewing method

In this paper, we illustrate several key differences between our approach to interpreting accounts of research subjects and those of other qualitative researchers. In particular, we work with a theoretical premise of a defended, rather than unitary, rational subject. The methodological implications that we discuss here are two-fold: this subject can best be interpreted holistically; and central to this interpretative process are the free associations that interviewees make

Interpretation group method in the Dubrovnik tradition

The interpretation group method was developed for use in analysing qualitative empirical textual data. Most often it is used to analyse transcripts derived from research interviews with individuals and groups. The availability of different perspectives through the group members provides a form of triangulation with the text, enabling a dynamic and creative learning process. The following account is divided into three parts. 1. The generic method in its simple five-step form 2. An elaboration in Lorenzerian style, which involves a distinction between manifest and latent meanings in the text and an orientation to scenic understanding as a way of approaching a psycho-societal analysis

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

Family figures in 20th-century British 'psy' discourses

This article takes the three figures child, mother-child couple and father and charts their discursive movements over the course of the 20th century in Britain, concentrating particularly on the changes happening around the time of the 1939-45 war. Over time, there is a significant shift from the individual child to the mother-child relation and the importance of fathers for children's self-development appears and disappears as a theme. A rigid construction of stages unevenly gives way to an idea of phase less amenable to a normative discourse. At any given time, there is considerable diversity within 'psy' discourses, and I focus particularly on the differences between and among psychological and psychoanalytic discourses. Certain expressions of psychoanalysis have, in my view, been more successful in theorizing subjectivity as it develops over time within the relations of the family in a way which exceeds or transcends the 'psy' complex's subjectifications and yet does not reduce personhood to an asocial essence. By locating its ontology within the practices and epistemology of psychoanalysis, I consider the conditions for this relative freedom

Psychoanalytically informed observation

Encyclopaedia entry on this qualitative research method, developed from infant observation in a funded research project (ESRC RES148-25-0058), part of the Identities and Social Action programme