Vital Signs 2: Paper Session 1c
Writing real lives
Tuesday 7 September, 2 - 3.30pm
'In between reality and imagination: writing a case' - Prof Wendy Hollway (Open University)
I start by contrasting two ways of introducing 'Jenny', a participant in a research project on the identity changes involved in becoming a mother for the first time. One way relies on social identity categories; the other is 'scenic'. I contrast the ways of knowing afforded by the two methods using criteria of experience-nearness and potential for a psycho-social analysis, which will not lend itself to either sociological or psychological reductionism. I theorise the scenic in terms of Donald Winnicott's concept of transitional space. This paradigm-changing idea provides a way of understanding imagination and reality not as binary terms (similar to the dualism of subjectivity and objectivity) but as essential parts of an ongoing encounter in which meaning is achieved creatively at the same time as enabling a relation between the person and the intractability of the realities that comprise settings. I use a further analysis of Jenny's becoming a mother to illustrate this principle, applied both ontologically (Jenny's knowing) and epistemologically (my approach to knowing Jenny).
'Hearing voices for written conversation in research' - Gail Simon (The Relate Institute and The Pink Practice)
This presentation will share some examples of how I have been experimenting with writing from within my professional practice and how I have created polyphonic characters as commentators and discussants.
As a psychotherapist, supervisor and teacher, I am reliant on my imagination in many ways. I try to guess the experiences of others; I need to anticipate what sorts of responses might be helpful or unhelpful in finding ways of going on together in useful conversation.
As a researcher of my own practice I have used my imagination to extend the conversation beyond that which is spoken between actual people. I have developed characters who are free to comment on the autoethnographic examples from my teaching or clinical practice. These characters, being themselves, offer an irreverent, reflexive and interactive discussion about relational therapy, about texts, about researching practice, about writing (as a) relational practice.
I wanted to find a way of creating some coherence between the interactive, co-creative and relational energy of my professional practice with that of my research practice. My experience of therapy and teaching is that these practices are relatives of the arts more than of science. Consequently, this research resembles literary forms more closely than scientific forms in how it addresses the tensions between the monological and the dialogical and in unpicking the discourses about knowledge, knowing and know-how.
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