title: Reflexivity and the capacity to think.
abstract: Reflexivity is fundamental to qualitative health research, yet notoriously difficult to unpack. Drawing on Wilfred Bion's work on the development of the capacity to think and to learn, I show how the capacity to think is an impermanent and fallible capacity, with the potential to materialize or evaporate at any number of different points. I use this conceptualization together with examples from published interview data to illustrate the difficulties for researchers attempting to sustain a reflexive approach, and to direct attention toward the possibilities for recovering and supporting the capacity to think. I counter some of the criticisms suggesting that reflexivity can be self-indulgent, and suggest instead that self-indulgence constitutes a failure of reflexivity. In the concluding discussions I acknowledge tensions accompanying the use of psychoanalytic theories for research purposes, and point to emerging psychosocial approaches as one way of negotiating these.
authors.affiliation: University of Stirling, School of Education, Stirling, FK9 4LA, Scotland, UK. sarah.doyle@stir.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Doyle
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods*; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012107:Research Design; D012108:Research Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D013850:Thinking