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Paper Short Abstract:

How can we understand the interpersonal dynamics of building ‘communicative bridges’ in fieldwork? This paper looks at the underlying processes, drawing on my experience as both an anthropologist and practising psychiatrist/psychotherapist.

Paper Abstract:

In both anthropological fieldwork and therapeutic conversations one uses observation and listening, questioning and dialogue, to achieve a deeper (emotional) understanding of the other person’s life world. In this paper I will explore the processes at work in these conversations and the nature of ‘communicative bridges’. I will suggest that psychoanalytic findings may be helpful in making sense of the nature of ‘communicative bridges’. These shared organisational forms of communication are essentially embodied and unconscious in nature, but not mysterious. Unni Wikan described her understanding of the process as ‘resonance’, which mirrors psychology research findings. I will use examples from both anthropological and psychotherapeutic settings to elucidate my view. An important characteristic of the process of achieving understanding through ‘communicative bridges’ is that it is recursive in nature. Recursivity refers to the fact that understanding requires many successive executions of experience, observation and interpretation to come to an eventual understanding, which is never complete. In terms of writing up findings, both psychiatry and anthropology have traditionally ignored the recursive nature of understanding other minds. Instead they have tended to interpret the ‘other’ through an authoritative lens, limited by the historical and academic parameters of their fields. This would commonly have compromised loyalty to interlocutors and generated unease in sharing written results with them. I will look at examples of these anxieties around sharing notes and how currently collaborative writing and unwriting are also finding their way into mental health care.