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Appendix Two – The Methodology in Action - Page A2-12
In a conversation with a close colleague at the end of this meeting one year before, he
asked what I made of it, and my mind came up with, “one thing is inside the other”. I
arrived at that associatively, putting into words what came to mind without any
particular thought of censorship. 5 My colleague observed that that construction was
present in three of the topics discussed at the meeting: (professional registration where
the government intrudes; bi-culturalism where another group are apparently becoming
part of ‘us’; and in the public health system where therapists, who are seen by their
colleagues in private practice from outside as privileged actually feel overwhelmed
amongst others in their host organisation, and also within the community of
psychotherapists where they are a minority envied for their financial and job security.
Whilst the content of these three topics may very well have led to my association, “one
thing is inside the other”, at a more general level I had picked up this sense from the
meeting without necessarily thinking consciously about it. I think my association
reflects a stream of experience within the group, aspects of which may be felt by a range
of individuals each in their own way, but with an experience similar to my own (that is,
of being in some ways taken over by the experience). There would, I believe, be
considerable response if I offered my association to the group. I might, for example say
to the group, “The group, having tried to make authority vanish, has subsequently
discovered that it inside the body of the meeting”. The use of body would be deliberate,
exploiting the ambiguity (and hence the potential metonymy) of the word, hence
addressing a range of levels of possible meaning.
These levels of meaning include a relatively direct reading of the text, say, that there is
authority in the meeting. This could be read either to mean that there are senior
5 Incidentally, I could do this together with this particular colleague because they are also a member of a
group of colleagues with whom we have spent over a decade in a range of settings and groups
communicating in this manner.