A Widened Scope on Therapist Development: Designing a Research Interview Informed by Psychoanalysis

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative research interview method informed by psychoanalysis, which can collect data beyond the subjective report of the participants. The method has been used to study acquisition of psychodynamic understanding and therapy technique among student therapists in psychology. Within the psychodynamic tradition, the subjective report of every person is viewed as potentially distorted by defense processes. Moreover, relational patterns in an interaction are viewed as significant data about the intrapsychic object relations of a person provided that the person is placed in a projective situation. Since common qualitative interview methods focus primarily on verbal data, such psychodynamic assumptions represent a methodological challenge. To collect a wider scope of data than merely the subjective report, a research interview has been developed based on a certain degree of projection, a psychoanalytic listening perspective, and the use of emotional expression in the interview relation as data. Subsequently, relational scenarios and incidences of defense processes in the research participants are inferred.

The Intricate Process of Psychoanalytic Research: Encountering the Intersubjective Experience of the Researcher–Participant Relationship

“…Although researchers are trained to take care to be as neutral and facilitative as possible to guard against overly influencing participants’ responses, participants nonetheless apprehend multiple aspects of the researcher's personhood from his or her manner, physical appearance and manifest personality characteristics. Thus the researcher–participant relationship, and indeed all human relationships, operates on, and has ongoing resonance within and between, the conscious, preconscious and unconscious levels of both participant and researcher (Hollway & Jefferson, ; Stromme et al ., ). A distinctive feature of the researcher–participant relationship is that it is a working alliance.…”

“…The intersubjective nature of the research encounter shares similarities with the psychotherapist–patient relationship (Stromme et al ., ). Sigmund Freud, who originally developed the psychoanalytic technique, first introduced the concept of transference as the patient re‐experiencing aspects of his or her early emotional life, including wishes and feelings, toward persons from his or her past, in relation to the psychoanalyst (Freud, /1953).…”

“…Stromme et al . () describe a ‘role‐reversing interaction’ as participants ‘seduce’ researchers into certain roles. Gabbard and Hobday () describe patients as unconsciously recreating their internal object relations in the transference–countertransference relationship with their psychotherapist.…”

“…Researchers need to be fully conscious of their subjectivity and how this impacts on and transforms the research (Brown, ), so to safeguard the entire research process. This practice requires the researcher to engage in extensive professional reflections (Stromme et al ., ) in an attempt to understand the nature of their interactions with participants.…”

“…The data collection method I used for the research project referred to above was an adapted version of the psychoanalytically informed research interview (from Stromme et al ., ; Cartwright, ; Kvale, ). Non‐disabled mothers of visibly physically disabled children were the participants.…”