Abstract

This paper takes its starting point from diary notes of a moment of reflection in fieldwork based research.  This episode highlights the need for the researcher to bring renewed attention to her own cultural background asking for assumptions of knowledge based on familiarity to be questioned and explored as an integral part of the research process. What follows is an exploration of this process from a theoretical point of view.  The same process is thus viewed in the light of Bion’s work in the field of Group Relations and psychoanalysis and Bergson’s work in philosophy on ‘intuition as a method’.  The mind’s attention to itself and its own processes emerges not only as a basis for reflexivity in research, but as a fundamental aspect of a psycho-social research methodology based on philosophical underpinnings.

Introduction

The overall aim of this paper is to explore links between experiential learning in research and two different theoretical frameworks in relation to a central theme of inquiry, that is, the role of reflexivity in research.  The first part of the paper is of a narrative nature and contains notes from research diary and descriptive commentary.  This is meant to provide the reader with a background of the project during which the thoughts explored later arose, contextualising and describing an experience, which produced insight and had consequences for the direction of further research.  This was recognised at the time as possibly resonant with some of Bion’s and Bergson’s work.  This possible resonance is the focus of exploration in the following sections of the paper.  Reflexivity in research emerges as the mind’s attention to itself, whose meaning and relevance are outlined through a comparison of these author’s views on the process of learning and inquiry, rooted in a conception of mind as an open system.  Bergson’s concept of ‘intuition’, while chiming closely with Bion’s ideas on learning, offers the advantage of building reflexive practice into a systematic method.  The implications for research methodology are profound.  Given such frameworks it is no longer possible to view the researcher’s own process as marginal to data generation and analysis.  Neither is it adequate to view it as merely relative and subjective.  Personal observations, reactions and reflections become data in themselves, highlighting aspects of reality relevant to the social subject of inquiry and the researcher.  This reflexive approach allows us to inquire into the affective roots of social and political dynamics, offering a psycho-social perspective through a systematic use of introspection, able to include psycho-analytical theories and concepts within social theory.  The inquiry becomes rooted in attention to a complex set of relationships and processes offering a way to overcome assumptions and include a little more of the ‘Absolute’ (or in Bion’s terms ‘O’, the truth of the moment), which, while specifically located, nonetheless partakes of a wider Truth, through a trans-formative process of becoming.
 

Learning to see anew
 

“In the heat of high summer I find myself watching swallows against a backdrop of Tuscan hills and medieval village in the distance.  My grandparents’ house, where I was born, commands a view most English folk dream of.  My son has taken countless photographs of it.  Two artist friends have painted it.  Yet I have to make an effort for the familiarity to give way to the wonderment I see in most visitors’ eyes.  I realise this research has been in the making for most of my life, as the conversations of the last day and a half resound in this moment of reflection.  The effort required of me is one of attention.  Just as the landscape is so familiar I have to wake up to it to appreciate its beauty, so I realize bringing attention to a familiar way of life will be a key to the present research.  The journey has to go from knowing faded into unconsciousness from familiarity, to renewed wakefulness and knowing how I know.  The hope is that paying attention will bring understanding.”  (From research diary-14th August 2001)

As I write this I have just embarked on a research project, which will focus on festival traditions in the area where I was born.  This visit to the area is coming to have a dual function.  It is my annual visit to the family home, once my grandparents’, now my parents’, something I have done every summer of my life, as well as a time of intense field work.

On arriving back to the family home two days before I had given my father a copy of recently completed research based on the city of Siena, in whose province I now am, and the horse race known as Palio and explained to him my plans for further research.  One of the themes I want to explore further is the resurgence of medieval traditions in this area, but within that I am very interested in exploring people’s enduring connection to the land.  There is something that has proved extremely relevant about this connection and some of the social dynamics already researched, which I wish to explore further.  The central aspect of research will be the affective processes underlying the festival culture in this area.  From past research I was intrigued by the extraordinary continuum of soil, body, animal, human displayed in Siena, but had no scope to develop the theme.  The role of memory within this continuum also deserves more thought.  As confirmation of the connection of the Tuscans to their land and the importance of memory, my father had immediately mentioned Il Teatro Povero di Monticchiello.  This is a theatre event that arose out of Monticchiello’s inhabitants’ wish to re-enliven their community at a time when people were abandoning the countryside and it appeared that an agrarian way of life was coming to an end.  Monticchiello is a small medieval village not far away, set upon a hilltop, girded about by stout walls.  A little jewel of medieval architecture, its streets are links between one little square and another.

At this point I am still at an early stage of research.  The first part of the process is to survey a number of festivals in the area in the light of the themes that have already caught my attention in order to select a few, which may prove particularly interesting.  One of the questions I have to resolve is how far to spread the geographic net, while restricting the research to festivals of competition based on territorial divisions.  I am quite intrigued by the conversation with my father which alerts me to something I had not thought of.  In his view the Monticchiello theatre has some of the features, such as a strong connection to land and memory, that I find so interesting.  I had not thought of looking for them in community theatre productions, though I always knew of their existence.
 

“In the evening I go and say hello to some old friends.  They suggest we go to the Bruscello production of Giulietta e Romeo in Montepulciano tomorrow.  As we talk, it turns out that while my father and I spoke of the ‘Teatro Povero’ they were attending its performance.  I have not thought to bring or use a tape-recorder in family conversations or going to see friends, yet what has come through these informal talks is extremely revealing of the culture and values of the area.

I ask my friends to tell me what the play they watched was about.  The play has to do with how to give the village some means of survival.  Consultants are brought in, who suggest turning the whole village into a theme park.  The project can go ahead if the sale of a farm that has been tended by the same family for generations can be agreed.  The reward for the villagers and the ex-farmers would be to become managers in the new game industry.  The people of Monticchiello write, produce and act in the play.  Their own local version of Italian words as well as the accent peculiar to their area is celebrated in the play.  The central theme of local identity versus modernity has been much in the fore since my arrival.  I wonder if this may shed light on medieval festival revivals.

Conversation moves on in the relative cool of the evening with the arrival of a younger couple, friends of my friends, to whom my father and I are introduced.  Immediately my father and the young man begin to identify each other’s place in the village community.  Family links are mentioned, locations of the relative homes within the village and links of common friendships or acquaintance with other family members.  The three men engage in a sharing of local history.  They talk about the village and its many characters in a review of events since the war.  Their talking is a bonding process based on community membership, which is also territorially based.  They speak about the changes of use of public buildings and the change of location of memorable landmarks.

Having marked out their local knowledge over three generations in territorial terms, the conversation proceeds to the more intimate sharing of knowledge of local characters and their personal habits.  Again this is not relegated to contemporaries, but extends through family generations.  The more personal the information the more belonging appears to be demonstrated.  There is pride in showing off this knowledge of the village.  No anonymity is allowed.  The fun that is made of the various community members is suffused with affection and attachment at least in this case.”  (From research diary-14th August 2001)

As usual, I have gone to say hello to friends on my arrival and on several occasions become aware of the relevance of some of our leisurely conversations to the research itself.  The realisation that had landed so powerfully into my consciousness while dreamily watching swallows and landscape is beginning to take hold.  I am finding confirmation of the relevance of my research themes even where and when I had not thought of looking.  The wake up call is being sounded loud and clear.  Data is everywhere, I just have to see, hear and be open, while holding on to the threads of my themes, so as not to get overwhelmed and lost in such abundance.  The Bruscello theatre production on the following day proves to be highly relevant to the themes I wish to explore in this paper as will be briefly summarised in a later section.
 

Bergson’s ‘Intuition as a method’
 

“The business of the human mind in this life seems to be, not contemplation of what we know, but relentless devotion to the task of adding to a merely habitual knowledge.”(Lonergan, 1957, p.278 quoted in Barden, 1999, p.37)

The first diary fragment embodies in essence what the others confirm.  If I wake up to what is so familiar that I am not able to appreciate it fully, I may go a long way to making the most of the learning opportunities that are all around me.  This seems a simple and obvious statement, but often we pay little attention to the simple and obvious and do not appreciate the complexity that underlies it.  Furthermore simple and obvious are not equivalent with easy or unproblematic.  Let’s see if the complexity can be unpacked.

As I look at the landscape I see my not seeing.  It is not just the landscape that is altered by the realisation, it is also my perception of myself as a seer.  This altered perception of myself creates a loop, which in turn sharpens my attention.  A double action has taken place, my mind has caught itself and I am awake.  My wakefulness creates an openness that allows my social group to become active participants in guiding my choices in this initial stage of research.  The epistemological assumptions of my initial research proposal are put into question and I step into a process of social construction of research (Steier,1991).

It may be useful to take these stages one at a time.  The first has to do with reflexivity, while the second is its outcome.

The process of bringing attention to bear on our perception of the world is what Bergson meant by intuition as a method: “Bergson’s is a philosophy of attention: intuition is the attention of the mind to its object and, if the proper object of philosophy is the mind, the attention of the mind to itself” (Lacroix, 1943, p.196 quoted in Barden, 1999, p.33).  By raising intuition into a methodology Bergson embeds reflexivity firmly into the research process as an integral part of it.  Again we find a circularity: “My enquiring is present to me only when I am enquiring” (Barden, 1999, p.33).  Thus research creates the opportunity for reflexivity and reflexivity in turn offers rewards to research by creating a possible chink in our assumptions.  “The mind does not know itself truly and does not grasp itself except in its effort to discover a precise solution to a particular problem” (Lacroix, 1943, p.197 quoted in Barden, 1999, p.33).  It is not a coincidence that I caught my inattention while looking at the Tuscan landscape, as the land and people’s attachment to it are central to my research questions.

The next aspect to be explored in the light of Bergson’s theory has to do with the new possibilities that opened up as a consequence of the small first insight.  In writing this paper I realised that a parallel could be made between what had occurred and the basic rules of intuition as a method (Deleuze, 1991, chapter 1).  The next thing that happened can be related to the first rule, which centres on attention to the positing of a problem (Deleuze, 1991, p.15).  Having researched the Palio, a medieval festival, and been alerted to the wide movement of revival of similar medieval festivals, I had already restricted the field of inquiry, while maintaining interest in the underlying themes already mentioned.  What followed prompted a step back to the themes without determining a priori what constituted evidence of the social reality I wished to investigate.  The research questions were both broader and more fundamental as a result, as well as possibly more complex.  They were stated in terms somewhat similar to Bergson’s, but I only realise this properly now as I write: land and body, memory and identity, continuum.  Not a million miles from ‘matter and memory’ (Bergson, 1988) and duration (Bergson, 2001), some of which we shall return to later.  No wonder I am interested in his philosophy.  More importantly, however, I was now making a clearer difference between ontology and epistemology.  Whether I was addressing the second rule of rediscovering the true differences in kind (Deleuze, 1991, p.21), between qualitative and quantitative aspects of reality, specifically in relation to the subject of research will need to wait until the research is completed, though a small example of what I have since discovered in relation to one of the theatre events will be given in a later section.

There was also a practical advantage in what was transpiring to be an answer to how far to spread the net, namely the possibility of restricting the geographical field to the area and population I know best, which has facilitated contact and inquiry as well as minimised time spent travelling over a wider territory.

The third rule of ‘intuition as a method’  would become a little easier to fulfil as a corollary to geographic restriction.  This has to do with stating and solving problems in terms of time rather than space (Deleuze, 1991, p.31).  My research on the Palio had yielded excellent results from historical analysis, however researching the complex local historical backgrounds of many different communities by casting too wide a net would pose a major challenge.  By limiting myself to three communities in the same province the historical research route would remain feasible.

Having given this applied introduction to Bergson’s ‘intuition as a method’, the main point to be followed up for the purposes of this paper relates to the first part of the process, namely the attention of the mind to itself.  Before proceeding further into Bergson’s theories, I would ask the reader to bear with me, while I introduce a few more ideas related to learning and reflexivity as well as Bion’s ideas on the subject, before returning to Bergson.

Some personal reflections on learning

Bergson’s concept and theory of intuition is not the only theoretical background that I was reminded of in thinking about these initial experiences of fieldwork for this new project.  Bion’s concept of ‘Faith in O’ and approaching inquiry ‘without memory or desire’ (Bion, 1970) came strongly to mind.  At first these thoughts just came through in the form of ‘reverie’ (Bion, 1962), echoes of similarities, dreamy recognitions.  They prompted me to think more clearly about knowledge, learning and understanding.

Knowledge is a word that a common dictionary gives us very little for by way of definition.  The old Chambers dictionary on my shelf says: ‘assured belief: that which is known: information: instruction: enlightenment, learning: practical skill: acquaintance: cognisance (law): sexual intimacy (arch.)’.  This Chambers dictionary is the sort of middle of the road edition most educated non-academic households would have on their shelf and the feeling I had in finding these entries was ‘you shouldn’t have to look this up,  if you don’t know what it means, you can’t be told’.  More remarkably the first meaning given is ‘assured belief’ while ‘learning’ is also given as an alternative meaning or synonym.  Generally speaking a clear enough distinction does not seem to be made between knowledge and learning, though there may be some truth to the definition of knowledge as assured belief.  Knowledge is in my view a more static concept than either learning or understanding.  It is related to the past and to assumptions.  Knowledge is biographical sediment, both in individual and social terms (Berger and Luckmann, 1991, p.85).  It is made up of countless selections both of what we are exposed to and what we notice as relevant or interesting and interpret in relation to previous knowledge, handed down by family and social institutions in the broadest sense.  In that sense it can be seen as belief.  The first layer of sediment is given to us by the circumstances and significant others (Mead, 1934) to which we are born.  This is subsequently subjected to reality testing.  As we develop more critical faculties of our own, we begin to judge the accuracy of this knowledge in relation to different situations we need to make sense of.  Our assumptions turn out in some cases not to be sufficient to the task.  We experience a feeling of disorientation and fragmentation, which can, given sufficient confidence, fuel a spirit of inquiry and an open minded approach in recognition of our limited understanding.  It is this open minded attitude of active inquiry, coupled with the capacity to withstand disorientation and the awful realisation of the deficiency of previous knowledge, that learning consists of.  It is a process rather than a thing.  It is a relation, a stance or position, a trans-formative activity.  A verb rather than a noun.  Understanding could be characterised as describing the outcome of learning as an activity.  Understanding is the ‘aha!’ moment when suddenly what puzzled us opens up to view.  Suddenly something new coheres and we are able to comprehend more.  The word comprehend well describes what is at play.  The experience is one of being able to incorporate, to contain more than was previously available for thinking.
 

Bion’s ideas on learning

Bion makes a distinction between knowledge and learning.  He used the symbol ‘K’ to denote ‘knowing’ and ‘O’ to denote ‘not-knowing’.  ‘O’ stands for the reality of the moment, its truth, which is imminent (French and Simpson, 2000, p.55) and ultimately ungraspable in an absolute sense.  ‘O does not fall in the domain of knowledge or learning save incidentally; it can be “become”, but it cannot be “known”’ (Bion 1970, p.26, also in French and Simpson, p.55) Positing a tension between ‘K’ and ‘O’, he locates learning as the process of withstanding that tension and its discomfort.  ‘Learning arises from working at the edges between knowing and not-knowing.’ (French and Simpson, 2000, p.54).

Barry Palmer (1979) examines experiential learning in the Group Relations tradition in the light of Bateson’s (1973) theory of learning.  In Bateson’s outline there are four levels of learning at which we operate going from zero to III (Palmer, 1979, p.174).  Learning III is a ‘…change in perspective, which is a change from being immersed in one’s world to being able to see it whole…’ (Palmer, 1979, p.173).  Incidentally Bateson, Palmer adds (p,.173-174), is led by his analysis into references to religious experience, as are Bion and Bergson.  We shall return to this.

Links are made in this article between Learning III, experiential learning and Bion’s idea of entering into inquiry (in his case the analytic session) ‘without memory and without desire’ (Bion, 1980, .p.11), in other words leaving behind previous knowledge and assumptions as well as the attachment to a desired outcome.  This process is described as enabling the discovery of the connection between previous perceptions and present ones without imposing interpretations on the material prematurely (Bion, 1970).

Readings of Bion’s ideas give particular prominence to the valuing of ‘O’ over ‘K’.  But ‘O’ needs to be understood in its relational opposition to ‘K’.  ‘K’ as sediment is knowledge that, while forming a necessary and mostly sufficient foundation for existence, also hampers us by its limited and inherently partial nature.  ‘O’ is the ineffable that can be ‘become’, rather than known.  Learning occurs if we maintain an attitude of active waiting, holding loosely in the tension between them.  Understanding, in my reading of it, is the moment when we awake to and are able to incorporate, meaning to embody, or comprehend in the sense of holding, or being a sufficient vessel for, a little more of the unlimited ineffable.  A small moment of understanding or insight (a lovely word in the light of reflexivity) may be widely applicable and able to revolutionise thinking in many fields, but sooner or later its limitations become apparent.  That is the nature of ‘K’.  Bion described the learning process in terms of a cyclical recurrence of the passage between the paranoid-schizoid and the depressive position (Eigen, 1993, p.213, Bion, 1963).  This is not viewed as pathological, rather as part of what has to be endured for learning to occur.

If we think back to Bergson’s attention of the mind to the object of inquiry and to itself we see a similar process being outlined in Bion.  Attending to the truth in the moment is an attitude of attention to the processes that arise between what we know and what is unknown, but can be ‘become’, therefore, I would add, experienced.  Thus the attention required is attention to the process of becoming.  Becoming is affective (Massumi, 1996) territory, also explored by Deleuze and Guattari (1999b), though I do not have sufficient scope to enlarge my ponderings further on this occasion.

What is important to note is that the value placed on not-knowing and one’s own realisation of it is not a denial of the possibility of learning nor of the value of knowledge, rather the recognition of its infinite nature.  I believe the key to the difference between ‘K’ and ‘O’ is what Bergson would have defined as a difference in kind.  My suggestion here is that Bion and others in the psychoanalytical world, as well as the mystic traditions from which inspiration may have been derived, have been expressing in their own often poetic metaphors and paradoxical statements what Bergson would have described in terms of quality and quantity.  How would it look if we considered ‘O’ as a qualitative aspect of reality, which can be experienced in the moment, but cannot be fully grasped and contained due to its infinite potentiality, with ‘K’ as its quantitative counterpart, more easily digestible, because more finite in nature?  More on this later.

There are very strong links between Bion’s ideas and mystical traditions as French and Simpson (2000) clearly trace.  Bergson (1977) likewise concerned himself with mystical tradition.  His analysis in this respect contrasts institutional religion and mystical tradition and applies some of his fundamental insights of differences in kind to distinguish between the two.  The mystical tradition in his view is founded on a dynamic process, which gruelling as it is described to be, is nonetheless able to yield learning, by way of experience of the sublime.  ‘In our eyes, the ultimate end of mysticism is the establishment of a contact, consequently of a partial coincidence, with the creative effort which life itself manifests. This effort is of God, if it is not God himself’ (1977, p.220).  In spite of the similarity between the concepts outlined so far, Bergson appears far more positive than Bion about the possibility of learning, though both value process over result and prize attention as the ultimate tool of inquiry.

Bion’s insistence on the value of not-knowing as opposed to knowing has a disturbing edge.  ‘Discard your memory; discard the future tense of your desire: forget them both, both what you knew and what you want, to leave space for a new idea’ (Bion, 1980, p. 11) are negative injunctions, which could be interpreted in dramatic terms.  ‘Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate’, ‘Abandon every hope, o you who enter’ as Dante saw written on the doors of hell in his Divine Comedy (Inferno, III: 9) came to mind as I was writing, but I thought of it with a smile.  Abandoning memory is to abandon what we already have, while abandoning desire robs us of possible movement towards what we don’t yet have, but wish and hope for.  Would there be anything left if we abandoned both memory and desire?  The proposition leaves us only our attention to the present, but the fear is that there would be nothing at all.  This fear is part of what Bion called fear of ‘catastrophic change’, which poses resistance to learning.  Bion’s antidote to it is what he called ‘Faith in O’.  By defining ‘O’ as the ineffable, this faith would have to be viewed as spiritual.  Eigen (1981, 1993, see also French and Simpson, 2000) speaks of faith in relation to Bion’s concept, but in response to questioning about his own concept of faith (1998, p.192) he answers:
 

‘I guess there’s spiritual faith and there’s natural faith.  I place a great deal of weight on natural faith.  I’ve nothing against spiritual or mystical faith…but there’s an awful lot of faith that springs simply from sensory experience….It brings up a feeling inside that, while it might be stretching it to call “faith”, I really have to call it that….The body seems to have this faith.’

Eigen’s statement points to a faith in our capacity to experience, located in the body.  Bergson points to the body as the site of both consciousness and becoming (Watson, 1998).  Bergson’s concept of duration and its dual nature offers no less difficult ways to understand a little more of the un-nameable, but they are stated in more positive terms, which results in a more positive feel to his approach to the possibility of learning.  In Bergson’s philosophy there is no separation between mind and body, but there are differences in the way we perceive.

Learning, identity and duration

Our starting point was the mind’s attention to its object and to itself, which applies both to the initial experience related in the first section of this paper as well as to Bion’s theories.

What is known as Bergson’s concept of duration is complex and multifaceted, having wide ranging implications for different aspects of reality such as our concepts of time and space, perception and consciousness.  For the purposes of this paper I shall attempt to isolate those aspects that may have direct relevance to the issue of reflexivity in research.

In reality ‘things…are always mixtures’ and ‘only tendencies are simple and pure’ (Deleuze, 1999a, p.45, his italics).  A self referential process is necessary to discover this in the first place.  This is intuition in a Bergsonian sense, which finds its foundation on a concept of duration as comprehensive of a dual nature : a homogeneous quantifiable aspect and a heterogeneous qualitative one (2001, p.128).  Bergson (2001) gives many examples of this duality as embedded in our modes of perceiving reality.  One of the examples that recurs in his writing is the metaphor of music.  A tune is an audible pattern, rather than just a sequence of individual notes.  We experience it qualitatively, it moves us.  The fact that it can also be divided into its components or that we can take each note in succession is not music or what we value music for.  Music existed way before notation, notes as we now understand them are not the blocks from which music was built.  The pattern’s movement is the music.

One of the experiences that confirmed and strengthened my interest in the theories I am outlining occurred at the performance of the musical theatre production mentioned in earlier diary notes, known as Bruscello.  Its tunes are based on popular arias sung very locally, based on particular intervals and sung in a style distinctive of the area.  I could only describe my experience on hearing them as one of deep recognition of a way of being hard to put into words.  It was a qualitative experience that produced many simultaneous reactions in me, coupled with a sense of curiosity about my own feelings.  I do not consciously feel nostalgic, though many who have visited the area seem to feel I should.  What I was struck by was how much of an effect those tunes had on me, after not having paid any attention to them for many years.  There was something of a qualitative experience of identity expressed in them.  I was struck by the theatre’s use of characteristic gestures.  Each character in the play is assigned a specific tune and meter of verse for the duration of the play.  Identity is not given by mask or costume, but by tune, rhythm and gesture.  The characters are defined in their tendencies to be good or bad and in the developing of the plots these tendencies are amplified by events.  I think that this kind of representation is interesting in its linking of the movement of music and movement itself to identity, rather than presenting us with a mask that requires a mask bearer.  Identity in this case is a dynamic concept, as it is in Bergson’s formulation, which, hard though it may be to grasp, does not entail the concept of a separate entity that moves (Bergson, 1974).  What Bergson is pointing us towards is:
 

‘…Not things nor states of things which differ in nature, it is not characters, but tendencies.  This is why the conception of specific difference is not satisfactory: it is not to the presence of characters that we must pay attention, but to their tendencies to develop themselves.  (Deleuze, 1999a, p.44)

Bergson’s concept of pure duration rests on the idea of movement, tendencies and consciousness as indivisible, qualitative events.  This in his view is the fundamental self (2001, p. 128):
 

‘Pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our ego lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states.  For this purpose it need not be entirely absorbed in the passing sensation or idea; for then, on the contrary, it would no longer endure.  Nor need it forget its former states: it is enough that, in recalling these states, it does not set them alongside its actual state as one point alongside another, but forms both the past and the present states into an organic whole, as happens when we recall the notes of a tune, melting, so to speak, into one another.’  (Bergson, 2001, p.100)

One of the operative statements in this passage is ‘lets itself live’, without needing to abandon memory, but also without needing to latch on to any passing sensation or idea.  This could on the surface be seen as totally in contradiction with what has been outlined so far of Bion’s ideas.  The principal distinction that Bergson, in my view, more clearly points us towards has to do with allowing all the elements, such as memory and present also mentioned by Bion, to blend in a continuous indivisible whole, without needing to deny the past, nor fix it, and without latching on to one point in the present.  This way the past and the present can form a new unity, which can only be apprehended as quality.  Bergson’s statement is different from Bion’s only on the surface.  Faimberg (2000, p.84) recalls a conference where Bion approved of an analyst’s interpretation, which had relied on memory ‘because the memory had arisen spontaneously while the analyst was listening without memory or desire’ (his italics).  Both point us to a different stance, something subtle and hard to express, coming at it from different directions.  Bergson describes a minimum requirement, which is simple, yet goes against the trend of quantitative analysis: don’t set things up alongside one another.  What he describes therefore is a particular quality of loose attention encompassing past and present in a non-spatialised manner (2001, chapter II).  It is our habit as rational beings to arrange thoughts in static spatial sequences.  This enables us to think, while limiting our vision.

Bergson speaks of dreaming as a state of pure duration, that escapes the gradual incursion of space into the domain of pure consciousness (2001, p.126).  Bion speaks of alpha elements as dreamlike, pictorial images coming unbidden into the mind and constituting the first articulations on which thinking may find a basis (Bion Talamo, 1997).  It is in my dreamy open questioning of the landscape of Tuscany that a first insight comes about.  It is not as if I had no knowledge of Bion or Bergson.  The freshness of insight is given by my living it, experiencing it directly, which brings some of the theories alive and allows me to engage more fully with them, letting them under my skin.  The dream is strong enough to wake me up.

The importance of dreams to psychoanalytic practice is of course well established.  What Bion introduces is the importance of dreamlike states of consciousness during waking time as a foundation for thinking, within an original framework of a theory of learning.  Bergson’s work may provide further clarification as to their nature.  Bergson does not demand that we abandon memory and desire.  This is an impossibility both in terms of his concept of duration and more importantly, in view of a psycho-social methodology, in terms of an acknowledgement of the unconscious.  It is an unreasonable expectation to be able to abandon our unconscious memory and giving up desire altogether may not get us to accomplish much.  What is needed is a different way of holding them.  By setting forward the minimum conditions in terms of allowing the past and the present to blend into an organic whole, a qualitative heterogeneous multiplicity (2001, p.128), Bergson is giving more positive guidance to achieving something similar to what Bion characterises as holding the tension between the opposite terms of knowing and not knowing.  Bergson avoids a relational dynamic between opposites, while specifying the difference in kind between two different modes by which consciousness unfolds.

Bergson and Bion have very different conceptions of the ineffable or, to use a Deleuzian term, the ‘Absolute’.  They belong to different traditions.  Bion comes from a tradition that conceives of the Absolute, or in his own terms ‘O’, as absence of Being, as nothingness.  Bergson is fundamentally anti-Cartesian (Watson,1998, p.6), belonging to the philosophical line of Spinoza and Nietzsche amongst others, for whom the Absolute is plenitude, total plenitude of becoming.  It is notable that both conceptions if taken to their extreme conclusions have the potential to arrive at meaninglessness, a sense of the hopelessness and futility of the endeavour.  Whether the ineffable is viewed as non-being or such plenitude as we can never apprehend, asking to know what it is will most likely lead to failure or madness.  This maybe what our fear of ‘catastrophic change’ is warning us against.  Nonetheless, both Bion and Bergson point us to the possibility of learning.  Bergson’s geniality is to sidestep the problem of the ineffable.  This is done by approaching consciousness with a how question rather than a what, not what is it, but what is its nature or tendency, how does it express itself.  It is this important differentiation that allows him to go further and define basic method, a method, that is a ‘how’, of intuition.  Pure duration is in Bergson’s view the fundamental self, which is discovered through a ‘vigorous effort of analysis, which will isolate the fluid inner states from their image, first refracted, then solidified in homogeneous space’ (2001, p.129).  ‘As the self thus refracted, and thereby broken to pieces, is much better adapted to the requirements of social life in general and language in particular, consciousness prefers it, and gradually loses sight of the fundamental self’ (2001, p.128).  Recovering our access to pure duration is a double move: it reflexively recovers us to ourselves as well as a little more of the Absolute.

Conclusion and Discussion

Both Bion and Bergson are able to go beyond the limitations of their respective traditions, by focusing on process, on how, rather than what.  Bergson, in my view, has an advantage nonetheless, in terms of methodology, through positively stating the minimum requirement for research: ask ‘how’ questions reflexively.  In practice this means that we must allow ourselves to live and experience, while being attentive to the posing of questions.  This means attention to one’s own processes of selection as well as interpretation, in other words assumptions.  Getting this stage right is paramount, the result is fewer, more precise parameters as a foundation of method, which can be tailored more specifically to the particular subject of research.  The other rules of ‘intuition as a method’, discovering true differences in kind and stating problems in terms of time rather than space, flow naturally from the kind of reflexive practice, which is the foundation of both Bergson’s and Bion’s thinking.

The other important aspect of what both Bion’s and Bergson’s conceptions imply is related to what was earlier portrayed as resonant with mystical tradition.  This leads us to consider a fundamental question: if we are shaped by our environment and upbringing into formulating assumptions, which will then limit our interpretations, are we locked in a closed system?  In other words is the mind a closed system?  This is what radical relativism would imply (Barden, 1999, p.36).  Bion, Bateson, Bergson, to name just the few already mentioned, think otherwise.  Earlier Bion’s ‘O’ was defined as the ‘ineffable’ which can be ‘become’.  This chimes closely with Bergson’s concept of pure duration.  Faith in ‘O’ could now be seen in terms of faith in duration.  This in Bergson’s view is an embodied ontological reality.  Spiritual and natural faith, to refer to Eigen’s previously quoted statement, coincide (as they do for Spinoza).  Furthermore pure duration, like ‘O’, opens the way to thinking about the mind as an open system (Barden, 1999, p.36), because of its capacity for change.  This is not, however to be understood as a simple process of addition, but as a process of radical transformation, involving a qualitative change, which cannot be calculated in advance.  ‘In our attentiveness to our consciousness we discover its creativity, that is, we discover that its future is more than its present: future understanding is not simply the discovery of what is already implied in present knowledge but the invention of the radically new’ (Barden, 1999,p.36).

In view of the above it may be possible to think of learning in terms of interpretation, based on physiological and reflexive processes.  A new interpretation of reality is made possible by a containing capacity.  This can now be seen as discovering the intention or tendency of the object of inquiry.  A very simple example of what I mean by this may be given by considering the word interpretation in relation to translation.  Interpreting is a complex operation, requiring a relationship to be set up between all the possible options of translation of a specific word.  The choice will have to be informed by the context in which the word appears.  From considering the context a feeling may arise for where the speaker, or writer, may be heading.  In other words an intuition of his or her direction, or tendency, needs to be sought in order for an appropriate selection to be made, which will transpose the intended meaning in the context of a different culture and language.  This is discovering the movement or quality behind the static elements of which language is composed.  This is recognising the individual and cultural reality wishing to be portrayed through the symbols of words.  It is another way of saying that the total is greater than the sum of the parts.  This is what Bion relies on: that we may get the ‘drift’ of what he is portraying.  Bergson on the other hand addresses the ‘drift’ itself, how to approach it, channel it, in a way that contains it without stopping its flow.  The containing capacity of Bergson’s method is more like that of river banks than of vessels.  Charting the course is part of the method.  Reflexivity becomes the containing process, where analytical and synthetic capacities are brought into relation.

The fundamental issue being addressed in this paper is method in research.  By examining the above theories I have attempted to go back to very basic issues.  If research is the pursuit of knowledge, knowledge as well as the process by which we acquire it has to be defined.  The process of research is the bringing into consciousness of what is around us and within us, veiled by familiarity particularly, but not exclusively in this case.  We all rely on myriad of assumptions all the time in order to live, both to make sense of our surroundings and to be capable of action within them.  Some of these assumptions are shared within a culture, some within a family, some are just our own, yet others may belong to humanity (or at least large sections of it).  In my present research through engaging with empirical data and reflexive practice I have been stretched into areas of inquiry that have led in unexpected directions, which have already proved to be rich ground for study.  My initial feeling responses to different aspects of the above theories have been validated by closer examination, while others have proved to be good leads to understanding subtler distinctions than I had imagined.  The inclusion of reflexive data and processes has proved central to inquiry.

The implications for research methodology implied by this analysis are manifold.  As I have previously stated and, I hope, demonstrated by the use of fragments of my own research diary, personal reflections, the record of the unfolding of events in time, dream contents and so on form the foundations of reflexive method.  Furthermore accepting Bion’s and Bergson’s frameworks we are brought to acknowledge a qualitative ontological aspect of reality, which makes the use of qualitative methodology in research imperative, rather than optional.  This ontology further implies the necessity to revalue processes of synthesis as well as analysis.  A natural capacity for synthesis is implied in Bergson’s image of the ‘organic whole’ formed by past and present ‘melting so to speak into one another’ (2001, p.100), as it is in Bion’s concept of alpha elements.  Synthesis underlies qualitative processes, both in their production and in our perception of them.  Reflexivity in this light is the attention of the mind to its own qualitative capacity of synthesis on which the analytical capacity is brought to bear.  This is also the area where the concepts, theories and methods of psycho-analysis can help social research, but social theory as well as other fields of research can in turn open areas of understanding of the individual in groups and society.  It is the interdependency of these areas that is a complex, yet vital field of research able to bring new understanding.

Bion’s career went from psycho-analysis in the traditional sense to applying this to the study of groups, which has given rise to a new field of study.  Bergson went from pure philosophy to applying his insights to the study of social phenomena in his last book, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion.  Both could be seen as precursors to a psycho-social approach in social research, by advocating the importance of reflexive processes as links between individual and social reality.  This is indeed central to psycho-social research for the reasons already outlined.  But beyond this and what has already been stated in terms of ‘intuition as a method’, we cannot think of a separate methodology for psycho-social research.  It is the subject of research, the scale and nature of phenomena to be studied, which needs to inform our choice of method, while we need to also bear the uncertainty and the necessity to grope our way tentatively, in Bergson’s words,
 

‘by a system of cross-checking, following simultaneously several methods, each of which will lead only to possibilities or probabilities: by their mutual interplay the results will neutralize or reinforce one another, leading to reciprocal verification and correction’ (1977, p.274).

‘…But the main and essential source of information is bound to be introspection’ (1977, p.275).

Reflections on the writing of this paper

A paper on reflexivity by definition is self revelatory, reflecting in itself what the subject implies.  The style of writing changes after the narrative first section in what may be seen as a sharp contrast.  The writing reflects a qualitative difference in different stages of inquiry.  The first stage has a ‘loosely held’ quality in my experience, given in the narrative style.  There is something in the experiencing that is akin to looking in the middle distance or something of the quality necessary to seeing a 3-D picture, where the gaze has to relax in order to be able to take in different levels of focus at the same time.  As I begin to analyse my experience, the process and writing becomes sharper.  Sharp and dry are the words that come to mind to describe the quality of what is required in order to analyse experience.  As I get further into the theoretical material the writing becomes problematic.  I begin to experience writer’s block: there is too much material and it’s all inter-related.  This begins to be noticeable to me in relation to Bion’s notions of ‘O’ and ‘faith in O’, but reaches a peak as I approach Bergson.  Every sentence and paragraph triggers prolonged periods of internal activity, as countless ideas, possible patterns in which they might arrange themselves as well as myriad applications crowd the mind.  I make lots of cups of tea, hoping breaks may ease the congestion and sort the wheat from the chaff.  I keep on telling myself: think about the central theme, think clearly about where you want to lead.  In the process I find myself constantly questioning my use of words, as well as my understanding of words others have used.  I begin to wonder if the structure of the paper needs fundamental editing.  I try a few major cuts, by using the real cut and paste, scissors and sello tape method, to see if I can gain a better overview.  I persist, like a dog worrying a bone, I can’t leave it alone, but I am finding it hard.  I am suddenly reminded of one of David Nash’s projects.  David, a sculptor and good friend, carved a wooden boulder from the heart of an oak in 1978.  He set it in a stream in the Ffestiniog valley in North Wales, where he lives, and has since ‘chronicled its long stubborn voyage to the sea’ (Warner, 1996, p.16), its changes and movements through time.  In 1994 the boulder got stuck under a low bridge and had to be helped out in order for its journey to continue.  He sent me some pictures of it being freed from under the bridge at the time.  The images speak to me, as I think of handing the first draft to some hopefully willing readers to give me some feedback, helpers who might ease me out from under the bridge.  What has been so problematic, I realise, has to do with approaching the wider aspects of the ‘ineffable’ inherent in Bion’s and Bergson’s conceptual frameworks.  The boulder is on its way to the sea!  Pure fluidity.  I wonder how far it’s got.  In my anxiety to know whether I can manage this, I have identified with the wooden boulder’s journey.  I phone David to discover he had lost sight of the boulder until a couple of hours before, when someone who had originally been involved with the project, phoned him to tell him the boulder is now resting on a sand bank on the river’s tidal estuary.  This feels wonderfully appropriate.  Within smell of the sea, at the place where river and tide meet.  This is where I also stop my analysis, somewhere near the sea of Bergson’s pure duration and Bion’s ‘O’.
 

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Copyright - The Author

Address for Correspondence

Lita Crociani Windland
Faculty of Humanities, Languages and Social Science
University of the West of England
Frenchay
Bristol BS16 1QY
UK

Email: Lita.Crociani-Windland@uwe.ac.uk