Four questions for the staff group conductor

Christine Thornton

Stating the obvious:

Every staff support group

is an

organisational intervention

Structure of presentation

How is a staff support group different from a group analytic therapy group?

Four questions to help the staff group conductor understand the task more fully

What is the unique value of a group analytic perspective for effective staff groups?

Time for questions and responses

How is a staff support group different from a group analytic therapy group?

Not strangers

Not equal but equal

Not primarily for Therapy

Not necessarily a small group

Question 4: What is the organisational context of the group?

Who comes through the organisation's front door?

What else is going on in the organisation?

Foulkes

‘What an enormous complexity of processes and actions and interactions play between even two or three. . . quite impossible to perceive and disentangle even theoretically. . .’

The group as matrix of the individual’s mental life, 1990, p227

1st 4 iterations of the Koch snowflake

7th

Organisational context operates at several levels

Individual/intrapsychic experience

Immediate team dynamics Departmental or service dynamics

Larger organizational dynamics

Societal context -- values, economics, beliefs

What different kinds of power/ authority may be at play in the group?

Formal authority or status Expertise Wisdom Experience Popularity Longevity Eloquence

Leaders’ involvement is important, because:

Their role is to provide containment, and the staff group can help them

Their absence engenders a split where the group avoids work through the ‘fight/flight’ or ‘dependency’ basic assumptions

Their presence signals the importance of the group

Question 3: Who or what am I invited to be?

What feelings do I predominantly have in the room?

What feelings am I left with afterwards? What speech/ action do I feel impelled

towards in response to the group? How can I understand these and what is the

most useful response?

Question 1: Who wants the group?

Who is the client commissioning the group? Will they attend? Who will attend the group? Will they have a choice about attending? How many people are there? [large group

dynamics] Does the group have a shifting membership?

Principles for membership and attendanceslide 1

A group is generally of most value if all the team attend

A group is of more value if members attend because they want to

Questions of membership and attendance must be taken up from the outset

Establish clearly who the members of the group are

Principles for membership and attendanceslide 2

Establish an expectation of either attendance, or apologies with reasons for absence

Deal formally with attendance issues to surface splitting/ emphasise importance

Manage attendance and apologies through an internal partner

Foulkes’ aims for the first meeting of a group

Everyone participated Group understood what they are here for

– What is expected of them– They can exchange, not just relate to the

conductor

If there was a big tension, did they leave feeling happier

Can they be serious and also laugh

Question 2: What is the purpose of the group?

How has the purpose been arrived at? What ideas of the group's purpose do the

people attending have? How frequently will the group meet? What do they say they do NOT want the

group to be? Do you believe them?

Working with individual emotional responses is important for:

The health of the individuals concerned The resonating concerns of other colleagues

in the team A fuller understanding of the work and the

pressures on the team The information it provides about the

unconscious dynamics of the organisation.

Group processing individual emotional responses to the work slide 1

Attend to the dignity and well-being of the individual, and forestall over-exposure

Encourage other members to express their own responses

Make links with the content of the work Make links with other factors at play in the

organisation

Group processing individual emotional responses to the work slide 2

Discourage personal interpretations Encourage team or institutional

interpretations Highlight any conflicts, real or perceived, to

join up the personal and professional selves Listen for what isn’t being said and

encourage its expression

What is the unique contribution of group analysis to the field of conducting staff groups?

Analysis in the interest of each individual in the group context

‘I use. . . . the total processes operating in the group. . .These processes pass through the individual [my italics], though each individual elaborates them and contributes to them and modifies them in his own way.’

Foulkes, ibid. p229