Researching Beneath the Surface

Psycho-Social Research Methods in Practice

Simon Clarke, Paul Hoggett, Simon Clarke, Paul Hoggett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429918568
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book offers an overview of the rapidly expanding field of Psycho-Social research. Drawing on aspects of discourse psychology, continental philosophy and anthropological and neuro-scientific understandings of the emotions, psycho-social studies has emerged as an embryonic new paradigm in the human sciences. Psycho-social studies uses psychoanalytic concepts and principles to illuminate core issues within the social sciences. The present volume contributes to the development of the new research methodologies in a number of ways. It is written largely from the point of view of practitioners who are also researchers. Although contributors draw largely upon object-relations traditions in psychoanalysis, other influences are also present, particularly from continental philosophy and the sociology of the emotions. It develops an approach to epistemology - how we know what we know, which is strongly informed by a living approach to psychoanalysis, not just as a theory but as a way of being in the world - that is as a stance.

Chapter One

Researching beneath the surface: a psycho-social approach to research practice and method

Simon Clarke and Paul Hoggett

Introduction: psycho-social studies

Since the 1990s, partly due to the impact of feminism, the social sciences have begun to change. Traditional models of human rationality, which opposed reason to passion, are being challenged. The preoccupation with language and cognition has started to give way to an equal interest in emotion and affect. The familiar split between “individual” and “society”, psychology and sociology, is now recognized as unhelpful to the study of both, and, as ways have been sought to overcome such splits, psychoanalysis has increasingly appeared in the breach.

Drawing also on some aspects of discourse psychology, continental philosophy, and anthropological and neuro-scientific understandings of the emotions, “psycho-social studies” has emerged as an embryonic new paradigm in the human sciences in the UK. Psycho-social studies uses psychoanalytic concepts and principles to illuminate core issues within the social sciences. These have recently included the role of loss and mourning in the constitution of community; the nature of identities such as “girl”, “white”, or “mother”; the experiences of rapid social change, particularly the experiences of the powerless; the negotiation of ethical dilemmas by public service professionals. Moreover, it has applied these concepts and principles in empirical research as well as theory building.

Psycho-social studies is an emergent perspective, the exact contours of which necessarily remain indeterminate at present (Clarke, 2006; Hollway, 2004). Frosh’s recent review of the field concludes,

the idea of the psycho-social subject as a meeting point of inner and outer forces, something constructed and yet constructing, a power-using subject which is also subject to power, is a difficult subject to theorize, and no one has yet worked it out. [Frosh, 2003, p. 1564, original emphases]

Psycho-social studies is also informing the development of new methodologies in the social sciences, including the use of free association and biographical interview methods, the application of infant observation methodologies to social observation, the development of psychoanalytic ethnography/fieldwork and attention to transference–countertransference dynamics in the research process.

This book examines some of these methodological developments and draws upon the experiences of a group of researchers and doctoral students based around the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies at the University of the West of England. In this first introductory chapter, we explore the emergence of psycho-social research in the human sciences, its origins, aims, and, in particular, the innovations that have been made in methods of data generation and data analysis and the implications these have for the ethics of qualitative research. As we have agued in the previous volume in this series (Clarke, Hahn, & Hoggett, 2008) there is something quite distinct about a psycho-social approach towards social research; it is more an attitude, or position towards the subject(s) of study rather than just another methodology, something that contributors to this book, such as Haralan Alexandrov and Lita Crociani-Windland, will demonstrate. We argue, therefore, that psychosocial research can be seen as a cluster of methodologies which point towards a distinct position, that of researching beneath the surface and beyond the purely discursive. In other words, to consider the unconscious communications, dynamics, and defences that exist in the research environment. This may entail the analysis of group dynamics, observation, and the co-construction of the research environment, by researcher and researched: we are all participants in the process. From this we derive the idea of the reflexive researcher, where we are engaged in sustained self-reflection on our methods and practice, on our emotional involvement in the research, and on the affective relationship between ourselves and the researched.

The origins and aims of psycho-social research

Psycho-social research methods have emerged over the last ten years or so. Previously, with just a few notable exceptions, there had been little fieldwork that used psychoanalysis as a tool for understanding societal phenomena. Hunt (1989) argues that fieldworkers shared an assumption that “there was one reality that existed independently of the researcher’s conscious mental activity” (p. 17). In other words there existed an objective separation between observer and observed. Researcher subjectivity, emotional and participatory involvement in the world of the researched, was seen as a hindrance to scientific study. Hunt refers to the Chicago school as a particularly good example of this type of ethnography, as Hammersley (1992) notes: “Chicago sociologists came to see the city as a kind of natural laboratory in which the diversity and processes of change characteristic of human behaviour could be studied” (Hammersley, 1992, p. 3). Fieldwork was somewhat paradoxical in that researchers were encouraged to immerse themselves in the “natural” setting of the research subject, but not to the extent where they would lose their objective focus, succumbing to affect.

In contrast, Hunt (1989) suggests that subjectivity and self-understanding are critical to well executed fieldwork, suggesting a synthesis of ethnographic methods which incorporate psychoanalytic tools of interpretation. Psychoanalytic practice in fieldwork is important in that it contributes to our understanding of how sociological data is both structured and constructed. There are two main areas in which psychoanalytic ethnography differs from conventional fieldwork (see also Crociani-Windland, in this volume). First, there is the notion that the unconscious plays a role in the construction of our reality and the way in which we perceive others. This is the theoretical framework on which we base the analysis of our research findings. Second, the unconscious plays a significant part in both the generation of research data and the construction of the research environment, thus recognizing and using ethnography as a social activity. Hunt (ibid.) explains:

The psychoanalytic examination of fieldwork is important because it contributes to our understanding of the structuring of social science data. For example the unconscious communications which are negotiated in the research encounter affect empathy and rapport. They therefore play a role in the materials that subjects reveal and researchers grasp. [p. 27]

Hunt identifies a number of areas where unconscious forces may affect research. In the first instance, the choice of research subject and setting may reflect an “inner dynamic”. For example, a deep interest in racism may arise from certain incidents or events in a researcher’s past, the impact of which become disguised as curiosity and professional interest. Once the research is under way, unconscious forces mediate encounters between researcher and researched: “the subject’s behaviour and unconscious transferences toward the researcher may generate the development of reciprocal reactions and transferences” (ibid., p. 33). An important point that Hunt highlights, which is rarely discussed in methodological literature, is the discomfort and guilt that may accompany the collection of data, the feeling of being a “spy” or “voyeur”. Hunt discusses at length the concepts of transference and countertransference within the fieldwork environment. This is where most of the unconscious interplay between researcher and respondent takes place:

The term transference will be used to refer to researchers’ unconscious reactions to subjects and some aspects of their world. Transference will also be used to describe the unconscious archaic images that the subject imposes onto the person of the researcher. Counter-transference, in contrast, will be used to refer to the researcher’s unconscious reaction to the subject’s transference. [ibid., p. 58]

In his contribution to this volume, Haralan Alexandrov examines the way that the psychoanalytic method accepts the hermeneutic interpretive approach while recognizing in addition that unconscious and conscious forces mediate the researcher’s interpretation of the subject’s world. While both psychoanalysis and hermeneutics assume an “internal” world, hermeneutics assumes that much of this world is accessible to the “confessor” of it. In psychoanalytic ethnography this world is often hidden, and the transference and countertransference between respondent and researcher thus becomes a way in which the hidden inner world reveals itself. The nature of ethnographic fieldwork is described not in terms of one or many pictures, rather, in terms of a voyage, in which researcher and researched are engaged. Sherwood (1980), in The Psychodynamics of Race, uses a series of unstructured life history interviews to explore the “inner” and “outer” worlds of multi-racial areas:

Since the aim of this study is a complex one and is about inner and outer worlds and social contexts in relation to race, to pursue the aim it is necessary to disclose the inner reality which each person experiences. It is basic to our approach therefore that the focus be on the whole individual… [ibid., p. 12]

The subjects, all from different ethnic backgrounds, are researched in a cultural, social, and historical context, yielding information on a conscious surface level to provide insights into unconscious “motivations and defences” (ibid., p. 13). This methodology considers psychological, sociological, and cultural aspects of our lives as interdependent, and, as such, each has an influence on the other in the way in which we construct social life through relationships, feelings, and action. It is interesting to note that an early critique of Sherwood’s work counterposed this approach to a “scientific” stance; Manyoni (1982) wrote,

A basic cannon of scientific inquiry demands that the analytical validity of theoretical or explanatory conclusions reached on the basis of an inductive study of this sort should rest squarely on the soundness of the methodology adopted for the execution of the project.… The pitfalls posed by the individual life history method of psycho-sociological analysis are numerous. The reliability of the raw data from which particular conclusions are drawn has a direct bearing on the scientific validity and soundness of the analysis made. [ibid., p. 236]

Manyoni goes on to talk about the reliance of the research on the reports and life histories of the subjects as if the individual respondents were not to be trusted with their own feelings, a sure sign that emotion does not fit into the scientific paradigm of research designs. Innis (1998) also reflects on the usefulness of psychoanalytic concepts as a social worker involved in a mental health after-care hostel:

These accounts enable me to think of racist and other responses to the experience of difference as originating not only in historical, political and social reality but also in the unconscious internal conflicts of the individual. [Innes, 1998, p. 187]

Similarly, Joffe (1996) proposes a psychodynamic extension to social representational theory, using empirically derived research data to demonstrate the explanatory power of psychoanalytic concepts such as splitting and projection. The emphasis is therefore on hermeneutic interpretive methods, which recognize both conscious and unconscious cultural meanings. The interpretive is mediated by the minds of both researcher and researched, adding another explanatory dimension in the field of ethnography. Thus, we have a threefold argument for the synthesis of methodologies. First, structural explanation is able to explain how, but not why, certain social phenomena occur. Psychoanalysis addresses this deficiency by recognizing the role of the unconscious mind in the construction of social realities, with its suggestion that feelings and emotions shape our perception and motivation, constructing the way in which we perceive others. Second, the psychoanalytic method recognizes the role of the researcher in the interpretation of realities and the way in which unconscious forces shape the research environment. Finally, there is an integration of social, cultural, and historical factors at a conscious level, which yields information about unconscious motivations and defences.

This basic outline of the importance or recognition of the interplay between internal and external worlds has been developed substantially over the past ten years into the discipline we call psycho-social studies, whose contribution we will examine in greater detail in the following sections of this chapter. This can be seen by example in Hollway and Jefferson’s (2000) work on fear of crime, in the work of Stephen Frosh and his colleagues (2002, 2003) on young masculinities and the work of Walkerdine and her colleagues on young femininities (Walkerdine, Lucey, and Melody, 2001; Lucey, Melody, & Walkerdine, 2003). Chamberlayne, Bornat, and Wengraf (2000) have focused on biographical narrative methods and the application of these to social policies and professional practice (Chamberlayne, Rustin, & Wengraf, 2002), while Hinshel-wood and Skogstad (2000) use psychoanalytically informed observation to study anxiety within institutions (see also Clarke, 2002, 2006). More recently, Hoggett, Beedell, Jimenez, Mayo, and Miller (2006) have used a psycho-social narrative method to understand the nature of personal identifications, for example, class and gender, that underpin the commitment of welfare workers to their jobs. Those involved in psycho-social research come from varying academic disciplines which include psychology, critical psychology, sociology, social policy, and political studies. Together, these contributions represent both the application of psychoanalytic methods and concepts to social research, and deepening of existing approaches to qualitative research.

If we look at the aims of psycho-social research, then at the heart of the project is the reflexive practitioner. As we mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the idea of the reflexive practitioner involves sustained and critical self-reflection on our methods and practice, to recognize our emotional involvement in the project, whether conscious or unconscious. So, for example, we could ask ourselves at set of questions, as Linda Watts and Rumen Petrov do in their contributions to this book. Why are we interested in our research project; why choose this area and not some other? What is our investment in it and how will this affect the way we go about the research? Importantly, how will the above affect us and our relationship to the subject(s) of our study. To answer such questions requires an exploration of the intersections between personal biography and discourse, in other words, to examine the unique ways individuals “live” in social formations. This enables the researcher to do two things: first, to deepen our understanding of social formations, and second, to restore the focus on human agency (both conscious and unconscious) that is often lost in discourse.

To do this, we have to develop methods of researching the affective, and here we can note in passing what some people have referred to as the “emotional turn” in the human sciences: given that there is increased interest in the role of the emotions, what methods are required to research them? This we address in the next two sections of this chapter. Psycho-social methods aim to address a growing dissatisfaction with interview based and other methods of qualitative research which appeared to be happy to stay at the discursive level, as if respondents were fully knowledgeable actors with no unconscious or defences which make it difficult for them to think/talk about things. Finally, psycho-social methodology aims to complement the increasing interest in reflexivity in the social sciences, including the reflexivity of the researcher (something strongly held to by feminist researchers...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
• CHAPTER ONE Researching beneath the surface: a psycho-social approach to research practice and method
• PART I: WAYS OF KNOWING
• PART II: THE DYNAMICS OF THE RESEARCH ENCOUNTER
• Part III: METHODS OF INQUIRY AND ANALYSIS
• INDEX