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Chapter Three – Research methods and their use - Page 109
outcomes of interventions. Interestingly, Phillips (2002) points out that Freud saw fear
of this as an equivalent in society to the resistance of the individual patient to
psychoanalysis. To some extent, there is a need for wildness, in that developing the
capacity to play imaginatively with the cognitive and emotional contents of both
conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind requires a loosening of narrowing
constraint. Writing about the clinical practice of psychoanalysis, Tuckett notes that:
I find that sometimes I only realise what I am saying or see links, or perhaps
decide I have completely missed the point, while I am actually speaking, or
possibly later when I notice how my patient responds. This can seem untidy and
even undisciplined but the analytic work, based as it is on the claim to be able to
sense another person’s unconscious mental life, is founded on the analysis and
understanding of subjective feelings, unconscious enactment and unconscious
realisation. Moreover, for interpretations to engage the patient it is probable they
will need to be spontaneous and empathic – predicated on the analyst’s
emotional engagement and capacity to be surprised. (1994, p. 1160)
The means to address these concerns within clinical psychoanalysis is through some
kind of ‘third’ position, like the ‘analytic third’ that Ogden (1994) describes as crucial
to the psychoanalytic relationship, and through support for this function, again through
clinical supervision or group consultation, which have been pioneered in the
psychotherapeutic field. I built multiple opportunities for such reflection as part of my
interpretive activity during the study.
Other complex issues in the use of this kind of epistemological framework and
methodology include confidentiality and the rights of respondents to approve what is
said. My general principle in obtaining the informed consent that I have is to offer that
no data will be published that allows individuals to be identified without a further
opportunity to consent. However, there is a dilemma in this work because of the nature
of the methodology, with one of Stewart’s core foci, holism and context sensitivity.