Researching in-between experience and reality

Abstract

In this article, we draw on LORENZER's method in our analysis of a single case data extract derived from a research project generating data through the Tavistock Infant Observation tradition. The partial case analysis demonstrates our methodological approach and explores conceptual territory at the meeting point of German and British psychoanalytically-informed traditions. Our scenic composition synthesised key elements of one observation visit to the home of a young black first-time mother in London.

LORENZER's advice to the cultural analyst to explore what irritates or provokes in the scene has something in common with the way that observers in the infant observation tradition use their emotional responses and process their experience. The aim is to provide access to what WINNICOTT described as an intermediate area of experience and LORENZER considered "in-between". We explore this area through two provocations in our scenic composition. Using these data examples we ask: is it possible to conceptualise collective, societal-cultural unconscious processes (LORENZER's gesellschaftlich-kollektives Unbewußtes, 1986) within this intermediate area? Specifically, how is racial and class difference present in the scene? How can it be located through scenic understanding of research data? And why does it matter?