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This thesis focuses on the triadic relationships in works by Henry James and Vladimir Nabokov. I have used two psychoanalytic case studies, Bertha Pappenheim and Elma Pálos, to reflect how James and Nabokov use the analytic method for revealing stifled and fragmented voices in their daughter characters. I theorise that while Henry James prefigured the analytical doctor/patient dynamic in the father/daughter relationships in his novels, he also adds the mother figure, turning this into a triad. The controlling mother fragments the daughter’s speech and the situation of the triadic relationship damages the daughter’s ability to articulate her narrative. The novels, Watch and Ward (1871), Washington Square (1880), and The Awkward Age (1899) show James’s developing recognition of the role the mother plays in the triad, as well as his own role as author and narrator of the daughter’s story. The case studies also contain damaging triadic relationships. There has been limited interest in the triads and this, so far, has not been commented upon as a reason for the daughter’s mental disturbance. I use unpublished letters to try to uncover the ‘real’ voice of Elma. I see that literary and psychological criticism has been guilty of mistakes in research and misrepresentation. This has further fragmented the story of these women. I hope to show that both Henry James and Sigmund Freud inspired Vladimir Nabokov, despite his vehement opinions against them. He presents the same scenario of the triadic relationship, in a fictional but analytical setting, to express his own anxiety about ‘losing’ his native language. His feminised struggle is apparent in Lolita (1955), and even more so in the character of Lucette, in Ada (1969). Nabokov sees that, in analysis, the mother is a 3 threat to the daughter’s self-expression. He develops the mother character in his fiction to represent this discovery.

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Group relations events are intended to enable transformation through learning, but such collective experiential events are not explicitly focused on enabling individual group members to derive meaning from them. This research aims to explicate individual learning from the experiences of a group relations event, in order to formulate a process for meaning-making post an intensive experiential event. Literature reviewed provides construct definitions of systems psychodynamic aspects, as well as insight, meaning-making, coaching methods and other approaches to facilitating meaning-making. Systems psychodynamics is the theoretical paradigm that informs a qualitative phenomenological research approach. Data analysis adopted hermeneutic phenomenology to allow for the interpretation of the rich data collected. Multiple case studies were adopted using multi-pronged data collection methods, including semi-structured interviews conducted before the event, as well as both a focus group and Free Association Narrative Interviews (FANI) conducted after the event. The results are reported by case, and this is followed with an interpretation of results by various systems psychodynamic themes. Furthermore, the relationship between personality types and defences mechanisms, with the associative techniques to use for each, have been set forth as additional findings in the thesis. The research hypothesis produced by the study is a meaning-making model to facilitate post-group relations event reflections and debriefing, with the aim of enabling insight formation, learning and adaption by individuals who have participated in such events. / Psychology / Ph. D. (Psychology)