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Chapter Two Part Two – Methodology - Page 81
Theoretical and philosophical framing of the study
The aim of this section is to provide a clear framing for the thesis, to enable the reader
to understand aspects of the process of data collection and transformation, in particular
the application of the theory behind the study in the way that data is being sampled and
analysed. This is important both for showing how the investigation takes place (and also
for pointing to how it might otherwise be deployed), as well as in helping the reader to
understand and to accept the various findings.
I will now attempt to pull together the collection of theoretical and philosophical
understandings on a level, which, if not operational, is available to be made operational.
I will attempt to highlight examples of moment-to-moment application of this theory in
the analyses in Chapters Five to Nine. Plaiting together the strands in this chapter from
psychoanalysis, group analysis and ethnography, I will describe the particular selection
I have formed from these traditions, which will be used to inform both investigation as
well as the transformation of the data that results from that investigation.
A core of the approach is the understanding gained from the practice, in a range of roles
(including as group therapist and individual therapist, patient and patient in a group),
of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and particularly, of group analytic psychotherapy. My
application of this understanding is based partly on my own experience of these roles,
but others who have come along similar paths will have access to comparable
understandings. A foundation of this synthesis is Foulkes’ notion of the matrix of
connections of which individuals are but one part. This is sublated 10 in the Hegelian
10 I am grateful to Professor Katherine Pratt Ewing for drawing my attention to this core notion of
Hegel’s. In sublation, a term or concept is both preserved and changed through its dialectical interplay
with another term or concept. Sublation can be seen as the motor by which the dialectic functions. The
methodology of this study is post-Foulkesian, sublating Foulkes’ work by taking it into the study of
psychoanalytic psychotherapy training.