Methods of Research into the Unconscious: Applying Psychoanalytic Ideas to Social Science

The psychoanalytic unconscious is a slippery set of phenomena to pin down. There is not an accepted standard form of research, outside of the clinical practice of psychoanalysis. In this book a number of non-clinical methods for collecting data and analysing it are described. It represents the current situation on the way to an established methodology.

The book provides a survey of methods in contemporary use and development. As well as the introductory survey, chapters have been written by researchers who have pioneered recent and effective methods and have extensive experience of those methods. It will serve as a gallery of illustrations from which to make the appropriate choice for a future research project.

Methods of Research into the Unconscious: Applying Psychoanalytic Ideas to Social Science will be of great use for those aiming to start projects in the general area of psychoanalytic studies and for those in the human/social sciences who wish to include the unconscious as well as conscious functioning of their subjects.

Kalina Stamenova, PhD, FHEA, is a research fellow and a lecturer at the University of Essex. Her research interests involve psychoanalytic research methods, psychoanalysis and education, and psychoanalysis and organisations.

R. D. Hinshelwood is a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who has always had a part-time commitment to the public service (NHS and universities) and to teaching psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. He has written on Kleinian psychoanalysis and on the application of psychoanalysis to social science and political themes. He has taken an interest in and published on the problems of making evidenced comparisons between different schools of psychoanalysis.