Postmodern epistemology has influenced debates on Grounded Theory (GT) as a qualitative research method, led to major revisions and to the development of guidelines and quality criteria to manage researcher agency. This article begins with a reflexive position of researchers as both agents and participants in the research process. It provides an overview of post-positivist and constructivist positions, explores major criticisms and describes a modified method used for a research inquiry into clinical concepts and practices on medically unexplained symptoms (MUS), by two distinct modalities of psychotherapists, the psychodynamic and the cognitive behavioural. The author then discusses key issues and problems with the original and modern GT advocating the value of the ‘double hermeneutic’ and reflexivity for meaningful, embodied research. It explores the problem of ‘disembodied bracketing’ in modern GT, concluding that meaningful social enquiry must adopt a ‘circling of consciousness’ and ‘embodied bracketing’.