Reflexivity in the Research Process: Psychoanalytic Observations

Abstract

This paper highlights what psychoanalysis can add to discussions of reflexivity, by specifically describing how reflexivity is conceptualized and fostered on psychoanalytic observation methods courses at the Tavistock Clinic, London. It is demonstrated that this psychological form of reflexivity is relevant to empirical and conceptual work and shown that it shares interesting parallels with debates about reflexivity in social research methods, while also being able to contribute to discussions of what constitutes reflexivity and what kinds of methods course might facilitate it. Reflexivity is often discussed in relation to a researcher’s empirical work, but this paper argues that reflexivity is equally needed in relation to the academic context in which most research and learning takes place. This paper demonstrates how psychoanalytic approaches to learning stimulate a reflexive relation to empirical and conceptual work and it provides examples of reflexivity from a two‐year infant observation and a research project on romantic love (involving conceptual and biographical research).

Notes

[1] O’Shaughnessy (1994, p. 942) refers to this quote from W. Bion (UK psychoanalyst) in order to describe her own self‐reflexive return to her clinical material.

[2] There are, of course, many forms of psychosocial studies (critical theory, feminism, critical psychology, social constructionism, cultural studies, Lacanian psychoanalysis etc.). The psychosocial studies area which emerged at the University of East London (UEL) (where I lectured from 1992 to 2004) grew out of the undergraduate discipline of sociology, but was to a large part influenced by its close academic links with the Tavistock Clinic, which is predominantly informed by Kleinian/post‐Kleinian psychoanalysis. The authors cited above combine Kleinian or object relations psychoanalysis and socio‐cultural theory.

[3] The Tavistock Clinic in London (UK) is a National Health Service (NHS) psychoanalytic psychotherapy training/educational institute with a community mental health purpose.

[4] In Finlay and Gough’s edited collection on reflexivity (Finlay & Gough, 2003), a critical (reflexive) approach to a researcher’s professional and academic identity is demonstrated by ‘ironic deconstruction’, which is one form the sociology of knowledge can take.

[5] Many health‐related courses prioritize problem‐based learning, enquiry‐based learning and facilitated learning over more traditional modes of academic learning and teaching.

[6] We are, as Craib (1998) points out, acting out a range of defences when theorizing. That is, our intellectual pursuits are always personal, albeit to varying degrees.

[7] Very little biographical detail will be given in order to protect the confidentiality of the family visited. Pseudonyms have also been used.

[8] This is not a social constructionist/discourse analytic method in which language might be the limit of methodological inquiry. However, language is not seen as transparent either. Bick (1964, p. 565), for example, argues that the fact that ‘thinking and observing are almost inseparable’ is ‘an important lesson, for it teaches caution and reliance on consecutive observations for confirmation’ of any hypotheses made. The infant observation method represents a form of critical realism.

[9] This was, of course, a very understandable note of caution.

[10] This method shares similarities with inductive approaches in anthropology and ethnography, although the infant observation method is interested in emotional and psychological development and relationships, rather than in culture (although how the external and internal interact is considered).

[11] Biographical, interpretive, narrative methods (BNIM; see Wengraf, 2001) also use a group (panel) to think through interview data. The group can act as a check on inferences made and offer multiple perspectives and impressions that the solitary researcher lacks.

[12] Social research methods may be less preoccupied with observing boundaries, because they are not pre‐clinical trainings. There may also be an objection to the power imbalance that observational boundaries create. Burman, for example, points out that reflexive analysis in feminist research offers a ‘sustained focus on power, on the production and use of knowledge and on problematising who has the power to define the interpretation’(1994, p. 138). One of the issues that observers struggle with is whether to give a portfolio of reports to the families observed, because their role is supposed to be non‐interventionist. I did give the families I visited a portfolio of reports, because they were, for the most part, descriptive and not intrusively interpretative.

[13] Geertz (1988, p. 9) writes about the problem of signature and the construction of the ethnographer’s writerly identity, and Craib (1998, p. 138) writes about our writerly identity through a discussion of the psychodynamics of theory.

[14] Psychoanalytic methods share similar concerns with feminist reflexivity that asks ‘how to communicate in terms that engage with and intervene in academic genres without fragmenting, objectifying or disempowering women’s experience’ (Burman, 1994, p. 131).

[15] For example, in the final paper all observational extracts are given an exact date, detailing whether this is the 7th or 70th visit to the family. The attention to detail (evidence) required is therefore quite meticulous.

[16] Reverie refers to one’s capacity to observe without memory or desire and it is similar to the concept of negative capability.

[17] Duchet argues that ‘the production of a real narrative implies that the … interaction scheme governing the exchange has succeeded in over determining the communication frame of the interview, so that a narrative relationship has been established in which the set of questions and answers refers not to the questionnaire prepared by the historian but to the narrative itself’ (1991, p. 91).

[18] The Biographic Narrative Interviewing Method (BNIM) (Wengraf, 2001) was used here to complement the method of psychoanalytic observation. BNIM favours asking narrative‐inducing questions in which people avoid abstract theorizing and get closer to giving a detailed description of an event, happening, situation etc.

[19] For example, Terry spoke at length about the Navy, following my question about his experience of romance. In accordance with a non‐interventionist, but attentive, stance, I did not interrupt Terry or try to bring him back to my ‘system of relevancy’.

[20] BNIM states that there are different modes of speech one can identify—description, argumentation, reports, narration and evaluation. The contention is that argumentation and evaluation may take people away from immediate experience.

[21] Word space does not permit a full discussion of this. See Brown (2005) for a psychosocial discussion of one woman’s conceptualization of love.

[22] The pure relationship is Giddens’ model of ideal‐typical relating (Giddens, 1992).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joanne Brown

Dr Joanne Brown is a Lecturer in Mental Health in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Southampton University. She taught for many years in the Psychosocial Studies subject area at the University of East London (UEL) and on the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies at the Tavistock Clinic, London. Her research interests and publications are informed by a disciplinary approach that combines socio‐cultural theory and methods with psychoanalytic theory and methods. She completed a PhD on ‘Love and Its Vicissitudes: A Psychosocial Inquiry’ at UEL and was trained in psychoanalytic observation methods at the Tavistock Clinic. Her book A Psychosocial Exploration of Love and Intimacy will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2006.