Researching Beneath the Surface

Contributions in this volume cover ways of knowing, the dynamics of research encounters, new methods of psycho-social inquiry, and the first-hand experience of being a researcher. Since the first volume of Researching Beneath the Surface was published by Karnac in 2009, psycho-social research has become both more established but also more held to scrutiny by a new generation of researchers, practitioners, and clinicians. This volume offers a timely exploration of developments in psycho-social research since that date and brings together a series of papers in which both longstanding contributors to the field and new researchers explore tensions, possibilities and innovations in psycho-socially inspired research.This new volume showcases these advances in psycho-social research methods. The focus is on methodological dilemmas, innovations in method and methodology, and on experiences of conducting psycho-social research in challenging contexts. It also focusses on the contested but pivotal role of psychoanalysis in psycho-social research and explores what can be added by transdisciplinary use of deep ecology, continental philosophy and relational approaches as alternative or supplementary ways of knowing. Finally, the book also offers fresh insight into the practical and emotional issues of conducting oneself as a psycho-social researcher and learning from experience.

Anne-Marie Cummins is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Her research interests are the emotional factors which enter into teaching and learning and in particular resistances, both emotional and political, to current educational regimes in Higher Education. She has worked in the Group Relations field for some time and is Award Leader of the Masters in Group Relations at the University of the West of England. Her work is informed by both psychoanalytic and sociological thought and addresses the passions and politics invoked by trying to teach and learn in modern organisational life. Nigel Williams is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Sociology, and a member of the Psycho-Social Studies research network at UWE. He is engaged in in Psycho-Social research that reaches across boundaries to deepen and inform professional practices. He lectures in psycho-social and Beneath the Surface methodologies, systems and complexity theory, and intergenerational memory. He is an organisational consultant and is a registered and qualified psychotherapist and supervisor with United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. His has recently published an essay, 'The Anglo-German diaspora', in 'The Ethics of Remembering and the Consequences of Forgetting: Essays on Trauma, History and Memory' edited by Michael O'Loughlin (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2014).