Heuristic research study: Self-therapy using the brief image-making experience

Abstract

PATRICIA FENNER, Dip. Vis. Arts, Dip. Ed., Grad. Dip.* This paper documents a study that falls outside the bounds of conventional research methodology. Here the researcher was the client; likewise, the inquiry itself was the therapy. Indeed, the writing of this text was as much in process as about the practices that had taken place over the months of research. Within a contemporary context of wide-ranging approaches to the use of art materials in therapy, this study investi- gates an approach that uses the brief drawing experi- ence of five minutes over approximately a two-month period in order to determine its value to enhancement of personal meaning and therapeutic change. The Heuristic Attitude This investigation has been informed by the heu- ristic research model of Clark Moustakas (1990). Its design, however, has been emergent. Essences of per- sonal meaning have been sought. In doing this I have not analyzed my ideas of those essences before “looking for what it is as a fact . before any the- matization” (Merleau-Panty in Aanstoos, 1983, p. 255). Thus, references to other psychological theories have been suspended. In fact, I have attempted to suspend all presuppositions in order to achieve a di- rect contact with the phenomenon of my experienc- ing. This practice of suspension is known as brack- eting. Bracketing doesn’t imply an uninterested atti- tude but rather a “suspension of all narrowly confining interests preceding attention to the phenom- enon” (Giorgi, 1976, p. 3 13). I therefore attempt to avoid finding only that which I anticipate. I adopt an attitude of “open ended presence to the phenomenon that is unfolding” (Giorgi, 1976, p. 313). The word “heuristic” stems from the Greek “heu- riskein,” meaning to discover or find. In Heuristic Research (1990) Moustakas presented a six-phase re- search method. These phases are Initial Engagement, Immersion, Incubation, Illumination, Explication and Creative Synthesis. In toto his approach was not ap- propriate for the nature of this study. Aspects within the central phases of Immersion, Incubation, Illumi- nation and Explication have been adopted, as have been Moustakas’ basic concepts, adopted largely from the work of Polanyi. Critically, however, the discovery of this investigation has been the flourish- ing, self-generating nature of the emergent design. In the pursuit of personal truths, subjectivity in deter- mining each “living step” has been embraced. The rigor of the process is its primary mode of validation. Douglass and Moustakas (1985) drew upon the quality of openness as described by Boyd and Fales in such an inquiry, the crux of which “appears to be a trust of self to discover and recognize relevant infor- mation” (p. 45). The comprehensiveness of this pro- cess proved challenging to present in text form. The challenge of finding an order to the various aspects of this presentation has reflected the dense, unordered, chaotic experience of living itself. The Inquiry Design and Processes The methodology pow(s) out of inner-awareness, meaning and inspiration (Moustakas, 1990, p. 11)