Using performative meta-reflexivity in psychotherapy research

In this chapter, the author troubles the notion that using reflexivity in psychotherapy research is a self-evident activity. For example, it is common to hear that ‘we need to be reflexive about our assumptions’, but what does this ‘being reflexive’ entail and what are the effects of using reflexivity in particular ways? Post-humanist scholarship has criticised the concept of reflexivity for assuming that we can simply represent the researcher’s subjectivity and assumptions as if they were separated from everything else (including the research itself) and not further producing it/being produced by it. The author proposes that whenever we are reflexive, ‘we’, as part of a bigger assemblage, relate to ourselves in particular ways that further produce who we become as researchers. The author offers the concept of performative meta-reflexivity to use reflexivity in a way that acknowledges that ‘we’ are not bounded individuals and that we are collaborating to iteratively produce ourselves, our research, and everything else. Performative meta-reflexivity asks: How am I relating at this moment? Which assemblage made that possible? And what is that way of relating helping to produce? Finally, the author shows through examples how this kind of reflexivity might be used in psychotherapy research.