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“Our kind of consultancy is subversive.” Curiosity, agency and the power of changing the stories we tell
No full textThe quote in the title is from Eric Miller, and this paper – first given as the 2024 Eric Miller Memorial Lecture – considers the questions ‘what is our kind of consultancy’ and what might be subversive about it. Key is curiosity and the capacity to be surprised. A number of ways to retrieve this capacity are described, illustrated by case studies. These include organization-in-the-mind drawings, role analysis in groups, reflective leadership, and a consultancy exercise designed to break through either-or thinking through find a ‘third position’. All of these require containment of the anxieties unleashed by dismantling existing defences, so that we can begin to consider the possibility of alternative stories.
At a societal level, existential anxieties are rising, and so too bipartisanship, as people defend against uncertainty by engaging almost entirely with people who think as they do. One result is that each person’s version of ‘the truth’ is constantly amplified in echo chambers and less available to examination, regardless of any evidence. Attempts are described of leaders trying to open up more space for dialogue, but these often meet extreme resistance as they pose a threat both to identity and to the need for safety that can come from belonging to an ‘us’
Is the effect of menu energy labelling on consumer behaviour equitable? A pooled analysis of twelve randomized control experiments
No full textMenu energy labelling has been implemented as a public health policy to promote healthier dietary choices and reduce obesity. However, it is unclear whether the influence energy labelling has on consumer behaviour differs based on individuals’ demographics or characteristics and may therefore produce inequalities in diet. Data were analysed from 12 randomized control trials (N = 8508) evaluating the effect of food and drink energy labelling (vs. labelling absent) on total energy content of food and drink selections (predominantly hypothetical) in European and US adults. Analyses examined the moderating effects of participant age, sex, ethnicity/race, education, household income, body mass index, dieting status, food choice motives and current hunger on total energy content of selections.
Energy labelling was associated with a small reduction (f2 = 0.004, −50 kcal, p < 0.001) in total energy selected compared to the absence of energy labelling. Participants who were female, younger, white, university educated, of a higher income status, dieting, motivated by health and weight control when making food choices, and less hungry, tended to select menu items of lower energy content. However, there was no evidence that the effect of energy labelling on the amount of energy selected was moderated by any of the participants' demographics or characteristics. Energy labelling was associated with a small reduction in energy content of food selections and this effect was similar across a range of participants’ demographics and characteristics. These preliminary findings suggest that energy labelling policies may not widen existing inequalities in diet
Waiting with parents: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the parent experience of psychoanalytically-informed parent work
Full text linkBackground & Aims: Psychoanalytically-informed parent work is central to the success of a child’s psychotherapy. Although well-documented in literature, there is a dearth of research which is reflected in the limited attention parent work receives on clinical training programmes and resource-stretched NHS CAMHS. This study primarily examined the lived experience of parents in parent work. The secondary research aim, guided by the interdisciplinary research project, Waiting Times, was to investigate experiences of waiting and time in parent work. In line with project theory, parent work was conceptualised as a form of temporal care: waiting with. During data analysis the aims converged: waiting with provided a framework through which to explore parent experience. Methodology: IPA methodology was employed to examine the semi-structured interviews of five parents. The analysis comprised two sequential stages: a classical IPA followed by a dialogical exchange between the results of the first analysis and the extant Waiting Times theoretical notion, waiting with. Findings: A first-order IPA generated themes pertaining to experiences of ambivalence, containment and temporality. Building on these findings, a second-order analysis generated an idiographic theoretical model based on three statements: 1. The offer of parent work is linked with ambivalent feelings 2. The prolonged experience of being waited with creates new time, and parents feel: a sense of relief; understood and less alone 3. Parents’ experiences of time and waiting are linked to their capacity to wait with their child. Conclusions: This study highlighted the potential of parent work to engage parents in a transformative process, a shift in their experience of time and capacity to wait which is linked to an improved capacity to support their child. Whilst not claiming to be generalisable, the findings support literature that champions parent work in child psychotherapy interventions. Clinical implications and ideas for future research are also considered
The Temporal Space: The development and manifestation of individual creativity and its organisational relevance
Full text linkThis thesis uses biographical narrative interviews to follow the lives of four individuals who have been successful in a variety of creative careers. It explores the development of their individual creativity through the inter and intra-psychic experiences that have helped or hindered the development of their creativity; how these early experiences manifested in later life and the relevance this has had on their careers and on the organisations they have existed in. The findings show four main states of mind / valences in the enactment of creativity: connecting, disrupting, outsiding and storytelling, and explores how they emerge through the participants’ experiences. There is an exploration of the interconnected relationship of each of these valences and how the participants’ creativity flows between them from the point of initiation to enactment. It also explores the way the participants create a space that invites others to join them in their creativity and how organisations can either give them a space for their creativity to emerge and flourish or become too restrictive for it to be initiated. Finally, this thesis places the findings in the context of existing theories within the psychosocial field of individual and organisational research to consider possible implications for the wider field of study
In their own words: American student narratives of challenges and struggles while studying abroad
Full text linkThis thesis explores the lived experience of American students studying abroad in the UK and is interested in understanding a range of challenges and struggles students face while abroad. One unique challenge for participants was experiencing the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, which resulted in all participants returning to the US prematurely to continue their studies virtually. Whilst there are numerous studies on students studying abroad, most of these studies seek knowledge via surveys, questionnaires, or semi-structured interviews. This study was an independent doctoral study that sought rich biographic narrative data using a psycho-social interview design with six participants two months after their semester had ended. A hybrid of Wengraf's (2001) Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) was used to capture participants' lived experiences in their own words. Systemic and Psychoanalytic theory was used to observe, contextualise and analyse data. The findings suggest participants' struggles are, at times, displaced by the positive dominant abroad narrative, which unintentionally leaves little space for difficulties to be acknowledged and shared openly. However, when participant narratives emerged they were conceptualised as surface or deeper narratives. The surface narratives contained easier-to-describe difficulties related to differences between the US and UK educational systems. Deeper narratives contained difficulties related to emotional, psychological, and biographical narratives intersected by internalised cultural, social, and societal demands. Findings show that participants used defence mechanisms to protect themselves against the anxiety of re-telling stories about their difficult experiences. Rather than isolated experiences, the findings show these participants experienced several intersections of personal, social, familial, academic, cultural, and peer group difficulties, which impacted their study abroad experiences
Playing the mind
No full textPlay is important in analysis with patients of all ages – with adults we may be able to play with words, ideas and metaphor – but with children we play in more physical ways. In this Trust Scientific Meeting Marianne Parsons presents her paper ‘Playing the Mind'. The paper brings three very different child patients who were unable to play at first but became able to use play creatively to represent and work through their internal states of mind and make developmental progress. The paper emphasises the need for a setting in which play can unfold safely and spontaneously without intrusive interpretations. It addresses the importance of the analyst as a developmental object, and also as a partner who engages with the play in a fine-tuned way to suit the needs of each individual chil
A Qualitative Review of Pre-Service Training of Educational Psychology Consultants in the United Kingdom
No full textIn the field of Educational Psychology, consultation is both a core competency to be achieved by the end of pre-service training and a practice that infuses all aspects of service delivery post-qualification. The present study aimed to explore the perspectives of university educators on preparing trainee educational psychologists to consult, especially following significant systemic change at social-political and professional standard levels. A qualitative exploratory design was chosen to inform semi-structured interviews with 14 participants from 16 universities in the United Kingdom providing post-graduate training. These interviews were analyzed thematically, with 10 over-arching themes identified. Themes are discussed across three aspects: (i) systemic factors, (ii) facilitators and barriers in consultation training in the current UK context and (iii) curriculum content and pedagogic methods used in consultation training at pre-service level. Strengths, limitations, and implications for applied practice and future research are discussed
‘Every ending requires us to begin anew’: Endings and beginnings in supervisory relationships
No full textAim(s): Supervision has been characterised as a ‘signature pedagogy’ in the helping professions and an integral component of pre-service training for applied psychologists. Regulatory and professional standards for trainee and qualified Educational Psychologists (EPs) emphasise engagement in supervision as part of our discipline’s orientation towards learning and growth, as well as in enhancing safety and effectiveness for service users. This paper aims to provide a reflective account of evaluation and endings in supervisory relationships. Method/Rationale: There is an increasing interest in the place of supervision as a core component of lifelong professional learning and development. In contrast to beginnings, the evaluation and ending of supervisory relationships (SR) have received less attention in the literature and can be left unattended to in practice. This may reflect some uncomfortable feelings associated with giving and receiving feedback within professional relationships, as well as the multiple meanings endings may have for supervisee and supervisor. The Relational Model of Supervision for Applied Psychology Practice (RMSAPP) and associated supervisory process in evaluation and endings may support practice in this area. This paper outlines the model’s framework for evaluation and ending, and a reflective account of the ending and beginning of supervisory relationships is provided. The supervisee provided feedback on the SR to the original supervisor and this informed the ending made in that supervisory dyad. The supervisee then established a new SR with a different supervisor and the paper’s reflective accounts are from three perspectives: the supervisee, the former and new supervisors. Findings: A critically reflective account of evaluating, ending and new beginnings between a supervisee and two different supervisors is offered, with attention paid to the power differentials between supervisee and supervisors. The account illustrates some of the meanings made of evaluation, endings and beginnings. The benefits of the approach are highlighted, and some tentative ideas about how further developments could be made included. Limitations: The meanings derived from the authors’ experiential learning arose within particular SRs and are unique to these relationships. Conclusions: There are opportunities for development of reflective EP practice in this area, and for further research. The reflective accounts provided may be a stimulus for further reflection on personal and professional development of supervisory practice
Closing the circle, to open a creative space: Can the intentions of avowedly psychoanalytic research methodologies be fulfilled in methods that are deeply congruent with this epistemology? A methodological study to inform future psychoanalytic research endeavours.
Full text linkIn this study, I have grappled with the challenge of developing a start-to-finish qualitative research method deeply congruent with the ontology and epistemology of psychoanalysis. I have drawn on the history of psychoanalytic research interviewing, most specifically the work of Hollway and Jefferson (Free Association Narrative Interview, 2000/2013) and Holmes (Reverie Research Method, 2017, 2019), which has been thoroughly analysed and taken forward by Archard (e.g. 2019, 2021). Through a process of sifting and synthesising existing literature, I have produced a nine-step guide for undertaking psychoanalytically informed interviews and four novel data-analysis questions. I operationalised my method with a research informant on the topic of her experience of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service’s (CAMHS) Initial Assessments. Questions of ethics permeate discussions around taking psychoanalytic concepts outside the context in which they developed (e.g. Holmes, 2019). I offer a contribution to this debate through consideration of how the unconscious is theorised in interview-based research. I draw upon Bollas’s theory of the receptive unrepressed unconscious (e.g. 2006) and Bion’s theory of thinking (1962/1991) to counter criticisms of researchers veering beyond the research brief, into analysing the informants themselves. This can happen when researchers interpret contents of the informant’s repressed unconscious that may emerge in the research context. I illustrate how psychoanalytic supervision can be used in a novel way, contributing unconscious data from the freely associative conversation this entails. I then consider my data through the concept of parallel process (e.g. Morrissey & Tribe, 2001; Sumerel, 1994) as an ethical alternative to the controversial transport of the psychoanalytic concept of transference-countertransference dynamics out of the clinic setting. I chose substantial transcript excerpts for the vivid way in which they seem to capture the dynamic unconscious-to-unconscious communication process. I show how I explored these using my four data-analysis questions and in so doing, I take a step towards filling the methodological gap identified by Attride-Stirling (2001) regarding the need to analyse data in a systematic and clearly disclosed way. I am guided throughout by Bion’s (1970/2004) proposition of the ultimately unknowable nature of reality and Allison’s idea of a modest epistemology (cited in Stänicke et al., 2020)