A Critical Imaginal Hermeneutics Approach to Explore Unconscious Infuences on Professional Practices: A Ricoeur and Jung Partnership

• Published in: Qualitative report 2020-10, Vol.25 (10), p.3486-3518
• Main Authors: Bologna, Rosa, Trede, Franziska, Patton, Narelle
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bourdieu, Pierre (1930-2002); Client relationships; Constructivism (Learning); Critical Theory; Exegesis & hermeneutics; Hermeneutics; Jung, Carl Gustav (1875-1961); Mental health; Methodological approaches; Modeling (Psychology); Occupational Therapy; Ontology; Paradigms; Parents; Parents & parenting; Play therapy; Power; Professional practice; Professional relationships; Psychotherapy; Qualitative research; Reference Materials; Reflexivity; Research Training; Resistance (Psychology); Ricoeur, Paul; Social Action; Social Environment; Social structure; Therapists
• ISSN: 1052-0147; 2160-3715

Professional relationships are at the heart of professional practice. Qualitative studies exploring professional practice relationships are typically positioned in either the social constructivist (interpretive) paradigm where the aim is to explore actors' subjective understandings of their relationships and relational practices, or in the critical paradigm where the aim is to reveal objective unconscious structures and hidden power plays infuencing actors' practices. This paper introduces critical imaginal hermeneutics as a systemic philosophical and methodological approach situated on the juncture of the social constructivist and critical paradigms where the dual aim is to explore both actors' subjective understanding and meaning-making processes associated with their relational practices as well as explore objective unconscious structures and power relations infuencing their relational practices. At the core of this approach is a Critical Imaginal Hermeneutic Spiral - a methodological guide for text construction and interpretation processes developed by partnering Paul Ricoeur's critical hermeneutics and Carl Jung's imaginal arts-based approach. The spiral was developed, employed, and coined as part of the first author's doctoral thesis exploring clinical play therapists' relational practices with parents. It incorporates the Bourdieu and Jung thought partnership explored by the authors in another paper in this volume. The approach provides a systemic guide for developing practitioners' critical refexivity regarding personal, social, and collective unconscious infuences on their relational practices, and in turn minimising the unconscious infuences that undermine the quality of professional practice relationships.