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Chapter Eight – A Consulting Break - Page 238
importance of the episode in Session Eight (The Eruption), which is discussed in
Chapter Six, but the Group vertex of the reference locator (see Table 7.2 on Page 219) is
more to the fore in Session Eleven. This may sound paradoxical, given that the focus in
this chapter is on the break, when the group are absent, but the chapter is an exploration
of how the experience of the break can represent the experience of the session and
hence the group as a key part of the session. 2 This exploration is particularly focussed
on the break, and its relationship with the rest of the session and the group. The break
refers to the 10-minute period in the middle of the teaching session when the student
members of the group have refreshments in the teaching room, whilst the tutors
withdraw to another room for a private discussion.
Theoretical and philosophical framing of the thesis
Again, as in previous data-analytic chapters, it is important to articulate and to keep in
mind the rationale behind both how I am investigating, and what I am finding. In doing
so, I aim to make clear my methodology, and also to justify my conclusions. In this
chapter, I am depending particularly on the analysis of researcher countertransference
as well as bi-logical depth, discussed in Chapters Two Part Two and Three. The former
is a source of intentions in, and reactions and responses to, experience in the session and
in recalling and analysing it, and enables my capacity to see beneath the surface of
interaction. The latter is a way of making sense of the dynamics beneath the surface of
interaction, and in particular to recognise, to understand and to utilise phenomena such
as the extensive unconscious displacement that is evident in this episode.
2 An appreciation of metonymy (see the Preface, Page xiii) helps understand these steps, from break to
session to group.