Billig's Case Study

In this essay, I will be discussing which perspective of critical social psychology I find most convincing. In order to do this, I will be looking at the work of theorists from each respective perspective within the field. In looking at the works of these theorists I will demonstrate my agreement with the psychoanalytic discursive perspective over the fields of discursive (pure) and psychosocial. Firstly, I will present some background on the discursive, psychoanalytic discursive perspective and psychosocial. Secondly, I will present certain works from within each field mentioned. Thirdly, I will use these studies to show the benefits as well as the possible pitfalls to the psychoanalytic discursive perspective. This will all lead to the return

For Freud, repression was the balancing of the ego and id through repressing immoral desires, allowing one to function well in society. However, Freud, never goes into detail on what repression actually is thus leaving it with no solid definition. In Billig’s work of re-examining Freud’s past cases, he attempted to reconstitute the idea of repression, by finding it a place within the field of discourse psychology. His new formulation of repression took from the existing theories of conversational analysis regarding dialogic structure. However, in direct contrast to those theories, Billig’s took the form of absences rather than presences. These patterns of absences of “something” are what he looks to in his

This method combines questions of a biographical nature through semi-structured questions, the psychoanalytic elements of Klein embedded within, in order to elicit a narrative from the subject of the study. The first interview is done to begin the narrative, a follow-up interview is done as well in order to add clarification if necessary but also to add in Kleinian elements to the nature of the questions asked. Essentially, the FANI approach is concerned with the childhood of the subject and what happens between the researcher and the interviewee. Thus, the next study I will bring up is one by Wendy Hollway and Tony Jefferson (2005). The aim of the study was to explore the troubles of a man who was in difficult circumstances, in a psychosocial manner. To do this, they used the methodology outlined above on a subject known as Vincent who had recently committed perjury, despite that, it was felt by the authors that he was essentially forced into committing that action. However, prior to the commitment and admission he had been through numerous stressful events and association with those events resulted in even more mental conflict. As a result of this he becomes sick and the authors’ attempt to show how through psychoanalytic the inner conflict within him between that of his own agency or determinism caused him to become