Learning how to ask in ethnography and psychotherapy

Area of Science:

• Social Anthropology
• Psychotherapy
• Medical Anthropology

Background:

• Social anthropology increasingly utilizes psychotherapeutic frames for analysis.
• Ethnography faces a methodological crisis regarding detached observation versus subjective interpretation.
• Existing literature connects anthropology and psychotherapy, focusing on narrative and performative approaches.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the methodological crisis in ethnography.
• To propose systemic psychotherapy techniques for ethnographic inquiry.
• To integrate the ethnographer within the analytic frame.

Main Methods:

• Description of systemic psychotherapy and its theoretical foundations (Gregory Bateson).
• Review of medical anthropology literature on psychotherapy and anthropology.
• Presentation of clinical case material demonstrating ethnographic relevance.

Main Results:

• Systemic psychotherapy offers techniques like double description, hypothesising, and circular questioning.
• These techniques can be adapted for ethnographic inquiry.
• Inclusion of the ethnographer within the analytic frame is central to systemic psychotherapy practice.

Conclusions:

• Adapting systemic psychotherapy techniques can enhance the validity of ethnographic research.
• This approach allows access to social and psychological aspects of informants' lives.
• Clinical case material demonstrates the ethnographic nature of psychotherapy data.