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Chapter Two Part Two – Methodology - Page 86
privileges multiple meanings, and openness to continual reworking and revision of
interpretations, this device has been deployed to highlight an aspect of the overall
impression of each episode, and to provide a particular view shaft on the episode. All of
the characteristics will likely be present in any such episode: the highlighting of
predominance serves to enable the appreciation of the processes observable in the
episode.
Sampling, and analysis and interpretation
This leads on to three key areas in consideration of how meta-level concepts are applied
in relation to data, sampling, analysis, and interpretation, in other words, what data is
generated and how is it transformed?
Regarding sampling, I have described above (under ‘Sticky Moments’) how the
moments and episodes were chosen for more intense study, based on the likelihood that
they would be complex and layered. My approach to analysis is described in Chapter
Three, but one imperative I adopt is to keep in mind the task of the group (and by
implication, the task of the research, to explore how the work of the group can be
investigated, and to reveal the fruits of that investigation). Task here is intended to refer
to the Learning Task of the group (which is elaborated and discussed in relation to the
Reference Locator in Chapter Seven), the task of learning and integrating the theory and
practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Firstly, how is the group, and how are
individuals through their membership of the group, contributing to the completion of
that task? Secondly, how can those questions be answered in a way that privileges the
understanding that underlies the clinical competence that is the goal of the group? The
response of the study to these issues is to focus on the accumulation and integration of