In this seminar I will share my journey of finding and adopting (or being adopted by) autoethnography and creative-relational inquiry; orientations to scholarship that are so obviously relevant to my home discipline of counselling psychology, yet at the same time, so alien and unwelcome. While I deeply resent psychology’s hostility towards creative, non-positivist, subjectively inflected forms of inquiry (what is conventionally known as ‘research’), I have recently wondered whether there is value in the struggle of trying to ‘fit in’ and ‘break through’. The struggle I will speak of is one of trying to reach the shores of Autoethnography while not completely relinquishing my professional identity and its associated rituals and signifiers. It is a struggle that has involved enough agency and self-sabotage to forbid us from conceptualising mainstream Psychology in singularly unhelpful terms. I will share a few key moments that capture seduction and resistance alike; turning to and running away from, as they helped me reach the shores of autoethnography in a sure-footed yet curious and open-hearted way. I conceptualise this process as an anvil being hammered in a forge. Painful, yes. But could it be that the sparks from the anvil’s heart ignited something that might have otherwise remained inaccessible and dormant?

Miltos Hadjiosif is senior lecturer in counselling psychology at the University of West of England, Bristol.

This event will be held in person and offered live online via Zoom. The room details and Zoom link will be found in the Order Confirmation you receive following registration. If you'd like to join this event live online please contact CCRI (ccri-info@ed.ac.uk) so we can manage the in person numbers.

*Those who are able to attend in person are welcome to join us socially after the seminar to keep the conversation going. We'll be going to the Pear Tree. https://www.peartreeedinburgh.co.uk/ *

Centre for Creative-Relational Inquiry: First Thursday seminar