Integrating Postmodern Therapy and Qualitative Research

Guiding Theory and Practice

Carlos Perez

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000081169
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Emotions in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book integrates postmodern theories of therapeutic research and practice to demonstrate how these approaches can be effectively integrated into methods of data collection and analysis.

Drawing from theories of counseling, and marriage and family therapy, the book thoroughly explores the similarities between therapy and qualitative research. Chapters consider therapies which offer a humanistic "way of being," such as collaborative language systems, narrative therapy, and solution-focused brief therapy, and identify complementary philosophies and traits that can be used to guide the qualitative researcher's practice. Transcripts and vignettes of the author's practice as both a therapist and a researcher further help to illuminate how readers might enrich their processes of research and data analysis.

Suitable for use on graduate-level qualitative research courses, as well as an adjunct to marriage and family therapy courses, Integrating Postmodern Therapy and Qualitative Research innovatively encourages readers to reflect on and develop their personal practice and approach to analyzing key information.

1

What is a therapist? What is a researcher?

Introduction

The question stands: What is a therapist? What do they do? Also, what is a qualitative researcher? What does a researcher do? These are difficult questions to answer. Even though this is not a review of therapy or counseling, the field itself requires some overview in order to answer what a therapist is and, more important, who the therapist is. The same holds true for a review of qualitative research and who the researcher is. So that an idea of each can be reached, and so that the person of the therapist and researcher can be studied, a brief history of how I conceptualize both professions will be visited.

The counseling therapist

Psychoanalysis

Counseling and therapy both arguably originated from the early workings of Freud and Jung, who are still influential today. The early workings of psychoanalysis were practiced by exploration, where the therapist was considered to be an interpreter, exploring inner workings of the unconscious and inner conflict found in inherent drives. The analysis of dreams was also practiced, interpreting dreams as inner conflict, projected emotions, and unconscious processes (Sharf, 2018).

Countertransference played a big role in determining the process of the therapist. The psychoanalyst believed that transference and countertransference were a projection of unconscious feelings onto the therapist, and the therapist onto the client, which greatly hindered the therapeutic process (Gabbard, 2004). The view of transference and countertransference has changed in recent decades, but the psychoanalyst was concerned with the interpretations that came from such projected feelings. The traditional psychoanalyst was considered a neutral presence, allowing the patient to project their unconscious conflict onto and toward the therapist. However, as the practice grew, empathy became an important factor.

The common misconception of a psychoanalyst is a cold, uncaring person who sits and analyzes their patients. As psychoanalysis grew in practice, its approach evolved into object relations and more relational aspects of client. Therapists’ practice also grew into taking a relational approach to their clients (Rigas, 2012). Using a relational approach, the empathy and the relationship between the therapist and client became key (Ornstein, 2011). This approach called for a different sort of therapist; rather than being the traditional analyst whose main focus was interpreting and diagnosing, the therapist was concerned with patients’ feelings, their needs for nurturing, and allowing feelings of transference to develop in order to empathize with them. Although not often emphasized, the psychoanalyst was largely considered a person that valued relationships and genuine feelings between themselves and the patient.

Carl Jung

Carl Jung was one such therapist. Also interested in the unconscious, dream interpretation, and the function of one’s personality, Jung introduced a personal component of psychoanalysis with his view of archetypes and the way one’s personality develops. Fascinated with severe psychological disturbances, Jung also gave room for his own humanity to be used in the therapy process. Jung argued that one’s own psyche was an issue of learning within the therapist themselves; if the doctor cannot evaluate their own psyche, then the patient will not be able to as well (Jung, 1961).

Jung’s concept of the wounded healer was essential to his approach to his patients. His practice included self-reflections of his own pain, relationships, and experiences, which he used to connect with his patients; he was able to better understand the psyche of his patients having been able to understand his own. He also believed that the best way to analyze patients was to be consciously and continuously aware of one’s own personal wounds. Jung was one of the first in the field of counseling and therapy to present the counselor with the phenomenon of the use of self in the therapist practice. His archetypal work was also brought out of his own study of himself, mainly his relationships to other psychoanalysts. This started a wave of counseling outside of psychoanalysis in which the personhood of the counselor and therapist was essential to the process of counseling and therapy.

Alfred Adler

Carl Jung started a wave of counseling that was heavily influenced by philosophical thought that Alfred Adler followed. Jung studied Kant’s philosophies as they pertained to the development of a person, one’s being. Adler followed this line of influence, also being heavily influenced by Kant, Nietzsche, Marxian ideas of socialism, and Vaihinger’s philosophies of “as if.” Although influenced by Freudian practices of analysis, Adler sought more importance in the social aspect of an individual as well as disagreeing with Freud’s theory of the unconscious (Ansbacher & Huber, 2004). Therefore, Adler was concerned with a style of life, meaning how his patients adapted to obstacles in their lives and therefore the way they created solutions. He largely focused on the tasks of style of life within different stages of life.

In giving large focus to the social aspect of patients’ lives, Adler sought to conduct himself in therapy from a place of mutual trust and respect (Dreikurs, 1967). His efforts in practicing a respectful, trusting relationship were shown in his collaboration with his patients’ goal setting: if his goals for his patients did not align with theirs, Adler readjusted so they could both be in similar positions of progress in therapy. The Adler approach to therapy was one of the first in which therapists collaboratively aligned themselves with their clients’ goals. Being heavily influenced by the philosophy of Marxian, social order, the therapists paid careful attention to their place of power within the therapeutic relationship, encouraging patients to progress throughout therapy.

Existential therapy

Existential therapy was a branch of psychotherapy that dealt with problems relating to what it means to be a human being. It was a philosophical approach that veered from the psychoanalytic approach in that it focused on certain themes found within a client’s life, and what those themes meant to them in their problems. Existential therapy continues to grow today into other areas of counseling, being integrated in many forms of therapy. However, at its inception, existential therapy was philosophical by approach, taking from philosophical thoughts of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger. One of the biggest influences on existential therapy was the idea of meaning, as taken from Victor Frankl, asking what it is to be human: Who am I? Who will I be? Where do I come from? This approach to therapy also called into question how we are in relationship with the external world, our selves, and with spiritual aspects of our being.

This approach to therapy also produced a different sort of therapist from the psychoanalyst. Being heavily influenced by philosophy and experiences, the existential therapist also thought about such things in relationships with their clients. The therapists themselves were philosophers. However, this is one of the first approaches where therapists overtly sought out a genuine caring relationship with their clients, true to the philosophy and ontology of being with their clients. Existential therapists sought to be their true authentic selves with their clients and formed an authentic love for their clients as well.

Person-centered

Carl Rogers

Whereas the existential therapist was one of the first to consider the personhood of the therapist, being existentially attuned to their relationship with their clients, Carl Rogers was one of the first to label such efforts into specific counseling techniques. Along this development of therapy came person-centered therapy, where Rogers presented an overt practice of caring for clients instead of diagnosing or forming traditional treatment plans. Rogers believed in congruency and conditionality in his practice, where when an individual experiences conditional regard, they began to formulate their sense of self based off their conditions i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables and figures
• Preface
• 1. What is a therapist? What is a researcher?
• 2. Epistemology and philosophy
• 3. Postmodern therapies and approaches
• 4. The collaborative researcher
• 5. The narrative interviewer
• 6. The solution-focused researcher
• 7. Hierarchy and self-disclosure
• 8. On writing
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Index