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Chapter Ten – Summary and Conclusions – Page 294
and practice in psychoanalytic psychotherapy) at which these phenomena of interest are
hypothesised to be more likely to be evident.
Based on my exposition of the methodology of the study in Chapter Two Part Two,
including the articulation of this into the theoretical and philosophical framing of the
study, I then explicitly applied this theory in the selection, description, analysis and
interpretation of five Sticky Moments (or Episodes). It is important to consider the
epistemological status of the findings that emerge from this process. As in many
practices studied ethnographically (see, e.g. Fiske, 1997), someone in the role of
ethnographer studies what the participants (who, in a study such as this, a practitioner
ethnography, include the researcher) ‘just know’. Some of what has been selected,
described, analysed and interpreted includes some of what I personally already know, as
researcher but based in part on my roles as participant and theorist. Some of that I ‘just
know’. What this research has attempted to do is to make explicit, to accumulate, and to
successively develop this knowledge.
One key point is that because the research has grown out of the work of a practitioner,
practitioner capabilities can be brought forward into the research, including intuitive and
embodied ways of knowing, and also the appreciation of a range of practices and
experiences that are understood to be therapeutic and which can be employed
purposefully. At the same time, one challenge for this powerful contribution is that it is
particularly salient for those with a clinical perspective, and others from different
perspectives may need assistance to acquire something of these capabilities and this
appreciation. The rationale for the selection of the episodes and the role of the
methodology in this selection has been discussed (see page 99).