Reflexivity and research

1. Reflexivity and research John Lees

2. Reflexive writing

3. Engaging in reflexive writing Take a topic (e.g. depression) or a particular experience (e.g. an incident in an experiential group). Either think about your experience of the topic and write about a specific memory in connection with the topic or write about the experience. Make your narrative as evocative as possible – include tension, inner experience, details.

4. Narrative analysis Reflexive writing needs to be consciously evocative - a narrative analysis. It organizes ‘the data elements into a coherent developmental account .... [it is] .... a synthesis of the data rather than a separation of its constituent parts’ (Polkinghorne, 1995: 15)

5. I agree with Tennessee Williams’ comment that: If I try to make a universal character, it becomes boring. It doesn’t exist. If I make the character specific and concrete, it becomes universal.

6. Evocative writing and the use of language

7. Language • What is similar about the following two pieces of writing?

8. Narrative one What had analyst and patient lived through? I think of it as a fight for survival, when one’s very existence, one’s right to be alive, is challenged by the insidious yet indistinct presence of the other. I had regressed from an over-talkative false self to an endangered and frightened being. I had no psychosomatic aliveness to me. I was all bunched up inside, barely breathing, without body movement: a lifeless non-entity .... I was more aware of my inner madness than the patient’s state of mind.

9. Narrative two Analysis of covariance demonstrated significant improvements in the MCT group in terms of alertness post-therapy (F(2,31) = 3.31, p<0.05; MCT = 233.9, Relax = 176.1, control = 170.1, see Figure 1). Pair wise comparison at six-month follow-up revealed that MCT and control groups remained significantly different (mean difference = 58.08, se = 25.98, p < 0.033). There were no significant changes in hedonic tone or anxiety

10. Both pieces of writing are evocative but this can be deceptive: • It is not possible to check the facts • They create an impression of validity on the reader • In order to achieve this they use rhetorical language albeit in very different ways All professional and academic writing is evocative

11. Reflexivity and the writing process Reflexivity is essential for re-writing and disconfirmation: • It involves a process of ‘turning’ or ‘bending’ something back on itself. It incorporates a cyclical process of returning time and time again to our previous experience in order to become aware of what, at first, eluded us. According to Steier (1991: 2) it involves ‘turning back of one’s experience upon oneself’ whilst Freshwater and Rolfe (2001) see it as ‘turning thought or reflection back on itself’ and ‘turning action or practice back on itself’

12. The process • Engage with an issue, problem, question, experience, critical incident and immerse yourself in it by writing an evocative vivid account (i.e. a narrative analysis) • Field unstable and unboundaried: Return to the issue and narrative time and time again. Can be confusing and go in many directions. Note anything that happens in the process of doing this (research diary). You can structure this with a linear process model (e.g. heuristics) • Processing the data: cyclical process (Kolb); identify relevant theory and methodology, narrative analysis and analysis of narratives; contemplation, meditation • Verification: transparency, disconfirm previous formulations (reflexivity – turning something back on itself) • Write up going on throughout; many drafts; writing as research

13. Learning by inquiry research writing is not just a question of ‘writing up’ research but is, in itself, a method of discovery. As Clarkson (1995: 270) has said, ‘it has been my experience .... that the work of writing itself is another process of discovery, both about myself, my discipline and the work of thinking and writing itself’.

14. Value and purpose

15. Reading and writing • Our writing (and reading) is influenced by our beliefs, politics, values, preconceptions, prejudices, etc • No such thing as objective writing and research • It is all socially constructed

16. Consciousness and transformation • Becoming aware of what lies behind narrative and discourse is like an individualized form of Marxism • We become aware of our alienation • It is about self-consciousness rather than class consciousness • It is person-centred - we open up the possibility of our own (and others’) marginalized voices being heard and not marginalized by ‘the system’ rather than methodology centred • It is about individual transformation rather than revolution: a means of extending personal therapy and personal development: changing oneself and changing the world: seeing things differently

17. Aims of becoming aware of context through reflection on discourse • Develops consciousness of the way in which our way of being is affected by context (system) • Brings hidden contextual influences to the surface • Dialectical process of engaging with the context in which the research is taking place • Challenges power elites – e.g. the academic researcher as the expert on clinical practice rather than the practitioner • Challenges hierarchy of evidence and evidence-based practice