Quantitative Unease

A column dedicated to demystifying psychotherapy research – love it, hate it, or both…at least try to know what it’s all about!

What are the basic rules of research?

Test ideas by experiment or observation. Build on the ideas that pass the test and reject the ones that don’t. Follow the evidence wherever it leads and question everything, including authority.

Pondering this seemingly intuitive statement leaves me somewhat perplexed. Aren’t we all researchers then, because this is something, we generally do in group analysis? We certainly observe. Not only our group members, but ourselves, and we do so most of the time. Unless we come up with excuses that we’re too drowsy from the projected anger in the group, when we’re merely tired and, therefore, unfocused. Observation isn’t quite so simple anyway, if we believe the master’s wisdom. During self-observation, an unlimited number of feelings, perceptions and thoughts enter into our consciousness, Freud commented. Actually, this isn’t true. He doesn’t comment, he seduces the audience into accepting his view by making it appear that the reader has come to the same inevitable conclusion as he has. And Freud wrote about thought processes, I added the feelings when mulling over his texts.

In contrast to reflection, where we explore one line of thought in more depth and, thus, suppress other thoughts before they’re even perceived, we don’t do the same when observing our own thoughts. Like the tide, thoughts come and go, although their rhythm is less predictable. Thoughts are like froth on the top of a wave, infinite, elusive and far too many. How do we decide, which is the most important thought? I gathered that this is where reflection comes in. Observation, reflection and analysis of countertransference help us research our groups. Fascinating, thanks to these, hypotheses can be generated. A memory trace, experience, taught me what to do.

Sitting in a dimly lit room, my group members talk about games until Ruth complains, looking at Jacob. Her eyes glimmer like a star in the sky. The glitter confirms my hypothesis that something sexual is going on. Sexualisation is the group’s preferred defence, I conclude, whilst smugly congratulating myself for being such a magnificent observer. After saying that “there’s a lot of sexual energy in the group”, some deny thinking about sex. Perhaps. I test my resistance hypothesis. “The group finds it difficult to accept that feelings don’t have to be sexual.”

Is resistance a lie, if it doesn’t come true? I’m thinking how to research this and create variables in my mind. How can I translate such transient research jargon as ‘variable’, into a language that is understood and shared by all group analysts? Actually, ‘jargon’ sounds a bit flippant and the word ‘term’ captures the seriousness of ‘variability’ much better.  Perhaps we could compile a group analytic research dictionary, like the ones we have for psychoanalytic and group analytic terminology? Until this happens, I’m making a start with ‘experiment’.

Instead of being confined to an artificial lab, I am doing ‘real life research’, because the group is as real as it gets. I interpret, discard interpretations when they don’t make sense to my group members and myself, and follow the evidence, wherever it takes me. By trusting the group, I should score points for trustworthiness, even though trustworthiness is important in qualitative rather than quantitative research. Trustworthiness shouldn’t be confused with validity, which refers to the results being genuine. Does it matter if my interpretations aren’t valid? Ouch, it does, or doesn’t it? Do I really question my knowledge base and authority? Or is it the group, which does so? Doubts give way to the same nagging feeling a believer experiences when losing faith. Time allows me to defer this uncomfortable thought to a later point.

Back to the term ‘experiment’ and what it entails. Not too long ago, I looked it up in one of these sad, black and orange paperback psychology dictionaries, which can’t compete with the bible of terminology, La Planche and Pontalis, but at least the former isn’t silent on this topic.

Experiment has a narrow meaning. Such narrowness leaves little space for exploration. It’s astonishing how definitions limit our conduct of research. Variables must be controlled so that cause and effect relationships can be discovered. Now that’s a challenge. The gold standard of what counts as evidence, causality, points to a road less travelled. No wonder that I don’t follow that thorny path. Since I can’t fulfil the requirements for experimental research, my wisdom is left behind on this road and becomes a casualty, perhaps of unconscious resistance against independence.

Reliance on the anecdotal secret of group analysis that our techniques do lead to change, resulted in questioning the authority of the experimental dogma. Obviously, without effect, since it continues to dictate our research endeavours. No new paradigm, no beginning of revolution is in sight. The muscles around my mouth drop and my face takes on an almost painful expression. My group must have watched me during the long silence. “You look miserable.”

Following the group’s lead, I discover that they are not unconsciously preoccupied with sex but emotionally attuned. Such sensitivity resembles a child’s fearful watchfulness of the facial expressions of his fragile, depressed mother. Clinically prematurely, I discard my hypothesis that sexualisation is their preferred defence. Does this make me a ‘proper’ quantitative researcher, because I apply at least one rule, rejecting a hypothesis?

By ‘rule’ I’m referring to an ‘established viewpoint’. Rules are derived from paradigms. Paradoxically, paradigms can guide research even in the absence of rules, as long as the entire scientific community accepts the achieved solutions to previously identified problems. Theoretically, consensus is a useful construct. From an analytic point of view, not necessarily. Reaching a majority may be due to a strive for conformity. Willingness and desire to please don’t automatically translate into ‘truth’, as the boy in the Emperor’s Clothes teaches us. Whatever ‘truth’ is, we shouldn’t sacrifice it at the altar of norms. Independent, critical thought, curiosity and freedom of speech are at stake when subjugation of individual judgement to the will of a (research) society occurs. Caught in conflicts between own perspective and pressures to conform, it becomes tempting to engage in defensive behaviour. But it makes it impossible to come up with new discoveries, if we don’t integrate the ‘truth’ with all its different facets.

There’s no uncertainty in the quantitative kingdom of human mankind. The foci of factual investigations are revealing. Attempts are always made to increase their accuracy. Sometimes, theoretical facts are comparable to predictions. Not to be confused with magical fortune telling. Empirical work validates them and permits solutions to problems. If controversies exist, rules are needed. When researchers disagree, the search for rules gains an important function.

There’re many unsolved problems in group analysis and I’m looking for rules to guide me. “Hurrah, I’m becoming a ‘proper’ researcher.” Joy washes over my face as I embrace what the quantitative world has to offer. Rules for ‘experimental conditions’, ‘hypotheses’ about resistance and its ‘application’. Does this make me a hypocrite, who adheres whilst preaching against conformity? Not as long as I maintain a critical stance and am not blinded by the fetishism of words, which is as dangerous in the realm of group analytic ideology as it’s in the world of politics.

If all group analysts engaged in the research process, we could exchange what we’ve learnt from our ‘real life experiments’ and talk about it. By slowly introducing conventional scientific vocabulary into these conversations, everybody would become familiar with research language. It would alleviate unease about quantitative research and could result in pilots. The more group analysts discussed, the more we could learn about what our techniques can and can’t achieve in groups.

Freud was an authority on technique. There’s a peculiar mix of science with literary mystique in his writing. Undoubtedly, his method of dream interpretation was revolutionary at the time. His legacy lives on in the social unconscious. Intriguing ideas, formulated on hundreds of pages, which make us think. In spite of confident arguments, group analysis encounters resistance.

A new discovery is sometimes rejected before it has been examined, Freud once wryly remarked. It’s a primitive emotional reaction, an unjustified resistance against novelty. Freud’s insight is applicable to explaining the resistance to group analysis. But is it unpopular, because of the incorporated legacy of psychoanalysis, or due to its wider political, organisational and societal foci, and examination of the unconscious in groups? Perhaps we need a theory about this, which takes us back to rules. Reminiscing about the good old days and rebellion won’t be of use, although disobedience was the first act of freedom, as Adam and Eve have shown. We need to define rules for and of group analysis, break away from them, as Freud did, and formulate something novel to make development possible, as our ancestors did. There are many laws governing the members of groups. In embracing the basic rules of research, and questioning everything, including authority, we might even achieve a revolution, who knows?

Dr. Susanne Vosmer
s.vosmer@gmail.com