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Chapter Six – Part of a Session – Page 192
going instead and unconsciously to her old house (from which she has just moved). Bill
and Judi try and talk about the defensive system of the group. Frances seems to try and
disrupt this focus (possibly with her own specific concern in mind, i.e. maintaining
one’s spirits in the chaos of an organisation), and seems to try to differentiate ‘out there’
from ‘in here’. Tom and Paula challenge this move, and Heidi acknowledges this
module (probably meaning semester) as the hardest of the course. Frances talks about
acting out by keeping her patient waiting. No-one picks up the parallel in her lateness in
coming to group sessions.
Fifth, Heidi talks about hating yet valuing this semester, and is able to respond in the
affirmative to Judi’s wondering about feelings of rivalry between students. Kelly denies
any rivalrous feelings. Heidi firmly acknowledges hers, and also that her supervisor has
helped her to face these. Judi is keen (probably as a result of the pressure to be
supervisory that the tutors have felt) to eschew the role of supervisor, which may reflect
a caution about opening up issues ‘in here’. Bill acknowledges the role of the Reflective
Group, in particular that this new experience within the course, when there is no
tradition of dealing with it, may be extremely challenging.
Sixth, there is some discussion of Frances’s issue, the maintenance of spirits in chaos. A
number of people have reflections here. This theme is interesting because it has an
outside focus (as Frances had wished it to earlier), but at the same time, the challenge
faces this group too, and arguably there has been an experience of chaos ‘in here’ this
week.