O manejo da pessoalidade em conversas profissionais: uma perspectiva discursiva para a ética em grupo

Abstract

In the psychology literature, we found few studies investigating the ethical dilemmas of working with groups and how psychologists define and deal with them .Given this finding of a lack of studies in group ethics which, in their majority, have a prescriptive and instrumental ethical understanding, we evaluated that the challenge would be to expand the study on this theme so that new visions, more processual and dialogical on ethics, may be developed. Thus, interested in generating understandings that discuss the ethical world which is created in group conversations, we present a discursive proposal on this issue. This type of reflection involves us in discussions on the various cares spent on conversational interactions. In the present research, we preferred the study of the discursive practice that we named Management of Personhood, which relates to the discursive construction of self in conversation. It is noteworthy that when we talk about Management of Personhood we are referring to any statement that uses linguistic resources related to personal issues (ex: for me, I, particularly, in my opinion, I think so, among others) as well as those which speakers consider to belong to an alleged personhood. Thus, the overall objective of this research was to understand how psychologists, who conduct groups, managed Personhood during talks on group ethics, as well the roles that this management plays in conversation. Two groups on ethics in groups were conducted weekly and separately, making up for five meetings for each group and a total of 10 meetings for both. The 10 male and female participants varied in age (23 to 46 years) and worked in several areas: health, clinical and organizational. After completion of these groups, we transcribed the 20 hours of group talks, which were analyzed according to Discourse Analysis, influenced by the social constructionist perspective, more precisely by Discursive Psychology. From this theoretical-methodological perspective, we identified different functions related to Management of Personhood. Four roles emerged: dealing with differences; seeking adepts in diversity, normalizing differences, and questioning the established. Thus, the personal presentation of himself/herself of the participants in these conversations allowed a conversational neutralization of possible threats, ensured a dialogic space for the coexistence of different systems of meaning, favored the construction of normality in regards to different ways of professional performance and enabled a questioning in relation to knowledge already confirmed. We concluded that the Management of Personhood in group talks on ethics occurs in order to legitimize other possibilities of meaning for ethical aspects and, paradoxically, makes the conversational field on ethics delicate and controversial.