Relational Centred Research:

A Work in Progress

Abstract

This paper is an outline of a presentation first prepared for exploration in October 2006 with a group of doctoral scholars, as part of the ongoing the Professional Knowledge Seminar, held at the Metanoia Institute, London. The Metanoia Institute, in collaboration with the University of Middlesex provide a Doctorate in Psychotherapy.

Relational centred research is a further contribution to the post modern paradigm of collaborative inquiry in the tradition of Barber 2006, Reason 1994, Reason and Rowan 1981, and Heron 1971, and others.

From an epistemological perspective relational centred research is based on a dialectical attitude to ‘truth’ that affirms the paradoxical nature of reality, and is open to the entire continuum between and including polarities (Perls ,F Hefferline, R and Goodman, P, 1951/94). It seeks to grow and develop in the practitioner-researcher the capacity for openness, a willingness for vulnerability and the courage to sit with ambiguity, uncertainty and ‘not-knowing’ (Gilbert M & Evans K, 2000).