A Practical Psychoanalytic Guide to Reflexive Research The Reverie Research Method

A Practical Psychoanalytic Guide to Reflexive Research offers an accessible guide to enriched qualitative research. In this novel approach, the researcher?s feelings and empathy in relation to participants take centre stage, leading to fresh, exciting and usable research findings. The psychoanalytic concept of reverie refers to those startling and unexpected images, feelings and daydreams which can come to mind as we interact with other people in the world. Qualitative research involves interacting with human subjects, and the book shows how uncanny or troubling reverie experiences can be turned to good use by being linked back to deeper research questions and hypotheses.

Joshua Holmes critically explores the role of self-reflection (reflexivity) in psychoanalysis and qualitative research. Practical guidance is offered while planning research; conducting research interviews; analysing interview data; teaching methods which foster the capacity for reverie; and in relation to research groups. Examples are given throughout, including the author?s own missteps along the way, in which he shares the importance of learning from experience. The book breathes life into research processes offering much-needed clinical relevance. The method moves away from one-size-fits all, formulaic research procedures and brings tenor, colour and texture into the research process, to create vivid, real-life meaningful findings.

A Practical Psychoanalytic Guide to Reflexive Research will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate qualitative researchers wishing to enhance their reflexive practice, while psychotherapists and psychoanalysts will find a genuinely psychoanalytic research method, where their clinical skills become vital capacities rather than an awkward hindrance.

Chapter 1: Introduction and overview

Chapter 2: Freud and the role of subjectivity in psychoanalysis

Chapter 3: Bion and beyond

Chapter 4: Reverie, reflexivity and research interviews

Chapter 5: Reflexivity and data analysis

Chapter 6: Towards ethical research interviewing

Chapter 7: The RRM – the emergence of a new approach in qualitative research

Chapter 8: Thomas Ogden and the RRM

Chapter 9: The RRM in live research interviewing

Chapter 10: RRM and interview transcript analysis

Chapter 11: RRM teaching groups: 1: General

Chapter 12: RRM teaching groups 2: Data analysis

Chapter 13: Discussion and reprise

Joshua Holmes was awarded his PhD in Psychoanalytic Studies in 2015 and now works as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in the NHS, while continuing to write and research. He has published papers in psychoanalytic, psychotherapy and qualitative research journals. He won the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association New Author Prize in 2015.