Year: 1994
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The theoretical and methodological assumptions of this \nresearch imply a move away from a positivist empiricist \napproach with its reliance on the real, the measurable and the \npredictable towards an interactive and collaborative \nmethodology situated in a constructivist and social \nepistemology. \nThis thesis comprises a recursive intervention in the \nresearching therapist's life. The author sets out on a voyage \nof self-research to investigate her "choreography of coexistence" \n(Maturana & Varela, 1987, p.248), due to curiosity about personal and professional impact. The purpose is to \ncreate a map of relational modes that in itself creates shifts: \nin the therapist. \nThis invention-orientated research creates the context of \nthe researcher and moves through processes: the writing of \nautobiography, detailed contextual description, the \ninterpreting of feedback, and deconstruction. The contents \nthat pour forth are many different narratives tracking the \nevolvement of the self in the original family, through further \ndefinition in new relationships and the expansion of roles in \nmany professional systems both with clients and colleagues. \n" Extracts from conversations provide new perspectives and \nfeedback about impact. Thus a continual 'provoking of voices' \nbecomes a thesis theme that highlights the researcher's \nstructure, organisation and interpersonal processes. \nAn emancipatory and developmental process is documented \nthrough the researching therapist's positioning as actor, \nobserver and then critic in relationship to the data. \nPatterns and themes emerge that facilitate both self- \ndifferentiation and connectedness and many new head-heart \nconnections. This new knowledge could enable the \nprofessional's skilful and intuitive use of self. \nThe self comes into being as it reflects itself, ·so a \nrecursive process evolves where looking at the self operates \non the products of its own operations. This is an active \nprocess, where the researching therapist constructs an \nexperiential reality. Given the accountability that accrues \nfrom constructing such a reality, a focus on pragmatic, \naesthetic and ethical criteria is incorporated. \nThis research, like the practice of therapy, is a \ndeparture from attempts to demonstrate what is already known \nto modes of research that are recursive and improvisational.
Author: Constance Beryl Valkin
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W289169767