| This dissertation describes research concerning the use of imaginal processes in collaborative settings.; In this project, my co-researcher, Maria Ellen Chiaia, and I first developed a dyadic approach to Sandplay work. Sandplay is an imaginal exploration of the psyche usually done in a clinical setting and focusing upon an individual client. Clients pick figurines from a display that includes figures of gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, animals and trees and arrange them in a tray. Aspects of the psyche of the person doing the tray are both shown and developed in a series of tray work.; Our research team explored the use of this work as a method of mutual self-discovery in a non-clinical setting. The research was then broadened to include other forms of collaborative imaginal work such as drawings, dreams, and writing. In the course of this work we began to speculatively inquire about aspects of self-in-group, self-in-collaboration, and collaborative imagination.; The dissertation both describes this research and reflects upon the implications of this work for understandings of self, group, collaboration, and creativity. It explores the use of the imagination as a way of knowing and questions what is known when it is used. It raises important questions about unconscious processes occurring in collaboration and looks at these questions from social, cultural and historical viewpoints.; The dissertation speculates about a 'transindividual' field operating in group life that is comprised of both the group self and the individual psyches of the persons involved. Difficulties, conflicts and creative possibilities that emerge in collaboration and group functioning are explored and a method of collaborative inquiry applicable to groups that emerged in the research is described.; The dissertation makes contributions to a number of literatures, including sandplay theory and practice, the social psychology of collaboration, psychodynamic theory, epistemology and hermeneutics. |
