Kati’s Summer Update: Dissertation Plan and Doctoral Studies

Kati is writing this blog post before heading off on July vacation. Since January, I have been involved in the project as a Project Researcher, but I had already begun planning my doctoral dissertation at that time, as starting and completing a dissertation has been my primary responsibility from the very beginning. In May, we received wonderful news: I was granted the right to pursue doctoral studies in the Doctoral Programme in Nursing Science at the University of Turku! This means that in August I will officially continue my work under the title of Doctoral Researcher and, of course, begin my first doctoral courses. I am especially pleased that this doctoral programme allows me to focus on mental health nursing science, which aligns perfectly with my professional goals and research interests for the future.

My dissertation plan consists of three sub-studies. As a social psychologist, I am particularly interested in group processes and the social phenomena associated with them. Based on this perspective, I developed the preliminary topics for my sub-studies. My first sub-study, which I have been working on throughout the spring, takes a conversation analytic approach. There has been a great deal to learn, as the methods of conversation analysis were not very familiar to me beyond an introductory course, nor were formulations, which are the focus of my study. In the context of psychotherapy, formulations refer to an interactional practice in which the therapist reformulates the content of the client’s speech. However, very little research has been conducted on formulations in group therapy, and I have identified several highly interesting formulations in our data that appear to be unique to group settings. I am looking forward to sharing the findings of this sub-study at future conferences and other events.

The topics of my next two sub-studies may still change somewhat depending on the interesting observations that emerge from the data. However, I am interested in examining what kinds of moments of change can be identified in the self-talk of group therapy participants, as well as what kinds of recovery discourses are used in group discussions.

For now, however, it is almost time to enjoy the summer. I wish everyone a wonderful and sunny summer, along with plenty of inspiration for the coming early autumn!

By Kati