The annual workshop of the International Research Group for Psycho-Societal Analysis (SQUID) and its integrated PhD course aim to advance participants’ understanding of psycho-societal research methodology and practice. Psycho-societal, or psychosocial, research focuses on the manifold relations and interconnections between subjective experience and social dynamics. Attention is directed towards understanding of the conflictual and dynamic nature of psychological and sociocultural processes and their often-layered effects on the formation of the social and of subjectivity. Central to the course is the exploration of the psychosocial through data interpretation in groups.

 

Group interpretation sessions allow participants to focus on a range of aspects and unpack varieties and nuances in the data material that they bring to the sessions. By being confronted with multiple interpretations of their data material, new thought processes can be set in motion, which can create surprising new perspectives and insights.

 

The interpretation group method is derived from in-depth hermeneutics, which has its roots in critical cultural analysis with a psychoanalytic orientation (Lorenzer, 1986) and has been developed further by The International Research Group for Psycho-Societal Analysis, since 2001. In the interpretation group researchers are engaged on an equal footing, regardless of previous experience with the approach. The course allows the sharing of widely different research data and topics, creating ad-hoc arenas for the exploration of the different disciplinary traditions, theoretical knowledges and situated life experiences of the group’s members.