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Extraction of patterns of content or themes
Chapter Three – Research methods and their use - Page 101
Psychoanalytic and group-analytic free-association to elements
of the data (making use of metonymy and metaphor)
Noting of counter-transference
To the event
To the experience of analysing it
From my own personal experience
Transferences
From students - to the programme
- to the group
- to other students
- to the staff
Induction of figurations
Articulation of chains of interaction, and their possible meanings
through translation
Table 3.2 - Methods of
group-analytic ethnographic data analysis
I will say something about each method in turn, defining it and giving some examples of
its use. I will then attempt to portray something of how these methods are used as part
of a palate of resources, saying what I can about how each contributes, and what it
contributes.
The extraction of patterns of content or themes
An extended description and demonstration of the clinical use of a form of this method
in relation to material from individual psychoanalysis is given in Casement (1985). In
this study, I want to make data-analytic use of the method in relation to social
phenomena. If descriptions of social processes have the identifiers removed from them,
then they are rendered more general and available for inclusion in a wider context. For
example, if I am with patient A and I feel inexplicably powerless, then rather than say
this directly, I can abstract the notion that someone feels powerless in the presence of
someone else. This can obviously lead to a consideration of counter-transference (see