Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

intersubjective nature of the two participants. Within this common structure each interview
was unique, therefore the writing varies in length and style as I engage again with the person
and the event. The intention is to capture the essence of conversations that flow backward
and forward, not as an interrogative form of interview: rather taking the forms of
conversational/dialogic (Foley and Valenzuela 2005) and empathic interviewing (Fontana
and Frey 2005). Empathic connection included a sharing of ontologies through
conversational engagement and a revealing of vitally important beliefs, values and feelings.
This can only be transitional as what emerges out of one encounter is not a full portrait of
the person, like a Lucian Freud painting, rather a Robert Mapplethorpe Polaroid – a
snapshot in a certain time and place. Yet both artist and photographer portray visions of
strength and vulnerability in the naked flesh. 362
From the eleven transcribed interviews, six were selected on the basis of the quality of the
intersubjective encounter and the quality of ‘felt presence’, that appeared more strongly in
some encounters than others. To set a context for these interviews, brief notes introduce
each person before their narrative is explored reflexively. The value of such accounts of
ordinary experience is that they offer knowledge that is often excluded in theoretical
analysis. Following Ellis, Orsi, Miller and Etherington (Ellis 1995; Etherington 2004; Orsi
2004; Miller 2008) I have included brief autoethnographic and heuristic ‘snapshots’ of my
meeting with six psychoanalysts to record my ‘being there’. This is Geertz’s term for the
researcher’s heuristic perspective within the research process of acquiring data, allied to
sufficient reflexivity to analyze this (Geertz 1988). It is a ‘perspective which is shaped by
362 A personal regret about this research is that I did not photograph each interviewee, uncertain of my
photographic ability (rather than photographic interest), thus potentially adding another dimension to this
exploration. At this stage I was still in the darkroom (Harper 2005).
196