When Wertheimer meets Bowlby - A Conversation Between Gestalt and Psychoanalysis on "Friendship"

The Meaning of Friendship

Abstract: This is a qualitative study that investigate the meaning or meanings of friendship. To obtain our results, two college students of ages between 20 and 25 years old were invited to have a face-to-face chat about friendship. Results showed that the most topic spoken was: trust and similarities which were themed into attachment and similarities. Results were discussed from a mix of Gestalt's and Bowlby's point of view. This way, concluding that friends are similar to family members that individuals can choose and that even having friends that are different from them, the most similar ones are kept closer together.

Introduction
The present study is about a thematic analyses in The Meaning of Friendship. This most relationship between humans has been discussed since Aristoteles times until nowadays (Baltzly & Eliopoulos, 2014). Friendship is a relationship between individuals. This relationship involves trust. Aristoteles also classified groups of friend into "those inside one's circle of friends, those outside and those who were neither one's friend's nor one's enemies.".
The trust that a good friend has for each other is that they will be there to look after you, to share the good times, to keep your secrets, to count on and to give it back in reciprocal way (Bauminger et. al., 2008).
A qualitative study from the University of London, done with students aged between 10 and 19 years old with autism analysed the importance and role of friendship to overcome challenges involving social-skills and awareness (Cresswell, 2019). The result was positive. Friends can help adolescents with autism to overcome challenges of social-skills and awareness.
This is a qualitative study as friendship can mean different things to different people. Hence, it is a subjective topic that requires a flexible and contextual analyses.
As it is a subjective topic, this study tries to find out what individuals, without a generalisation, think about what friendship means (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
The relationship of being friends between individuals can have many characteristics, roles, definitions and theories. The question of this research tries to find out what is the meaning of the relation of friendship.

Methods

To respond to The Meaning of Friendship research question, two participants from Liverpool Moore University were invited to speak about their relationship with friends. Both participants were aged 20 to 25 years old and were students of the University.

This interview was a simple question and answer chat and it took place in a room in the University during a spring day in 2008. The first interview was with Louise had a total duration of 43 minutes and 14 seconds. The second and last interview was with Alexander had a total duration of 52 minutes and 9 seconds. The questions were structured and written down on a sheet of paper carried by the interviewer, although the interviewer would ask also ask questions based on the responses emerging from participants according to their stories. The interviewer started by asking about how the participants met one of their closest friends, the relationship's stories between them, groups of friends, what does friendship mean to them, acts of kindness from a friend, if a friend ever let them down, and other questions related to friendship.

The interview was recorded through a video camera and the participants used their original names but personal information, location where they live and where they go were muted from the video following the BPS Ethical Code of Conduct.

The procedure taken to write this research follows the propose of Thematic Analysis proposed by Braun & Clarke (2006).

Results

Two Themes were found in the transcript analysis from the participants recordings. They are: Attachment and Similarities. Full qualitative tables with Codes can be found in Appendices.

The interview was analysed through a five step process: organizing the data, revision of data, development of coding and assigning them to data and developing the themes. Two themes were extracted from them, which are :

• Attachment (the most spoken feature of what their best friendship means to participants was someone they can trust). Trust that the friend will be there for them in good and bad times, trust to not being misinterpreted and judged, trust to rely on, depend on and count on. They also used words and phrases such as : "protection" and "under his/our wings". It was also well mentioned that friends help. These features were coded, recoded and themed as attachment.

Similarities (the two participants said that they have a lot of similarities in their personalities with their friends and in their background). Examples include "It is good so he lived the same experience so he understands me", "We started to be really good friends when we both would go for a puff outside", "I was afraid of being friends with people different from me but now I can do this" and "be in the same boat". Participants mentioned doing things together with friends and having different friends for certain type of activity or from different backgrounds. Examples of this include "friends from back home", "friends from college", "friends to travel with" and "friends from group of friends".

Discussion

Similarity

According to the results of the study once the participants spoke about having reached the best friendship relation with a friend they mentioned that they had something similar to them. Seeing from a Gestalt point of view, similarities get a unit to be innately seeing by humans as a part of a group, as a fit to connect two things together, in this case, friends. Participants mentioned that their best friends are people that they have similarities with. Friends are someone that they can relate to, have the same level of sociability, humor, taste for the same type of activity, similar interests and life background. It was also mentioned that friends can be friends with people different to themselves, when they are all within a wider group (i.e. fans of the same football team) which in a Gestalt picture turns into a group. In this case similarities and differences within a wider group are grouped as sub-groups. The sub-groups are formed by the most similar friends with a shorter number of friends which are closer. Initially proposed Wertheimer (1938) and more recently Palmer & Whybrow (2018) humans have an innate ability to group by similar pattern units and turn it into a picture as a whole. Looking from this lenses to these interviews, it is observed that participants see connections between them and their best friends when they have similarities. Being in a group or in a sub-group makes you feel accepted within that pattern. Once your sub-group is formed you have your similar ones together (the ones you can trust), once you have the ones you can trust, you attach to them.

Attachment

Friendship means the attachment of two or more people with one big requirement: trust. Once an individual developed in itself the sense of trust on someone to care, mind, be there for, to rely on, to depend on, to be heard, to put the necessity to be with and even to enjoy the life with, they will feel secure enough to have other relationships based on the same concepts, once this relationship brings them trust. From trust comes attachment and all the attributes that comes with it. The attachment definition from Bowlby (1979) is observed to be also present in relations of friendship. Trust was the first characteristic that the participants mentioned of what a good friend needs to have. As a carer, a friend is someone that cares about them, that they are there in good and bad times, that can keep their secrets and be available for when they need them. If the relation of the first carer is the same as the relation between best-friends that makes a best-friend a carer, which is usually seen in family members. This is exactly what the participants said that friends are, the chosen family. The same results were found in a study done by Bauminger, et. al. (2008), where they found that attachment plays a role in friendship.

Strengths and Limitations

This study provides a good overview between different theories of psychology and how they relate with the most common relationship of all, friendship. This research was done through a face-to-face interview with straight questions and answers from participants. The participants were their own scale of measurement on how their friendships are defined, avoiding generalisation to the study and error margins. This study respected the individual and subjective point of view about how people relate to the subject of Friendship.

Unfortunately, the study did not have a wider spread in population in terms of demographics and age. Ideally, this document would be replicated in a different demographic region with more age variables and analysed through a more diversity of theories.

Conclusion

Friendship plays a lot of roles into an individual's life. It a masked way to have a "family member" close with the difference being that this relationship was chosen. Friends can be similar and different although they both form a group with sub-groups of more similar ones.

References

Bauminger, N., Finzi-Dottan, R., Chason, S., & Har-Even, D. (2008). Intimacy in adolescent friendship: The roles of attachment, coherence, and self-disclosure. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 25(3), 409-428. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407508090866

Baltzly, D., & Eliopoulos, N. (2014). The classical ideals of friendship. In Friendship (pp. 17-80). Routledge.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher (Eds.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol. 2. Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological (pp. 57–71). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13620-004

Bowlby, J. (1979). The Bowlby-Ainsworth attachment theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2(4), 637-638. doi:10.1017/S0140525X00064955

Bowlby, E. J. M. (2008). Attachment: Volume one of the attachment and loss trilogy. (1st ed.). Random House.

Cresswell, L., Hinch, R., & Cage, E. (2019). The experiences of peer relationships amongst autistic adolescents: A systematic review of the qualitative evidence. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 61, 45-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2019.01.003

Palmer, S., & Whybrow, A. (Eds.). (2018). Handbook of coaching psychology: A guide for practitioners (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Maltby, J., Day, L., & Macaskill, A. (2010). Personality, individual differences and intelligence. (2nd ed.). Pearson Education.

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Werner, C., & Parmelee, P. (1979). Similarity of activity preferences among friends: Those who play together stay together. Social Psychology Quarterly, 42(1), 62–66. https://doi.org/10.2307/3033874

Wertheimer, M. (1938). Gestalt theory. In W. D. Ellis (Ed.), A source book of Gestalt psychology (pp. 1–11). Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company. https://doi.org/10.1037/11496-001