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Introduction
Chapter Seven
A Discussion (The Fishhook – Session 14)
Issues and dynamics emerge. Some of these are not addressed directly within
the penultimate session.
This emergence and subsequent outcome is analysed in terms of core
developmental issues for therapists, in practice but particularly during
training.
The incident is also analysed from a group perspective.
In this Chapter, I want to look at the dynamics around a particular moment in Session
Fourteen, the week before the end of the semester and the course, when one of the
students asks the tutors (and the group) about how often should one go for therapy (as a
trainee therapist), and subsequently a second student compares encouraging patients to
come more often to therapy to ‘putting bait on a fishhook’. There is a stunned silence,
and then a third student laughs in an intense way.
As in all of these five synchronic analyses (that is, Chapters Five to Nine), the episode
will be set in the context of the session. Next, there is a transcript of the interaction,
together with some brief commentary alongside the transcript, followed by a summary
of some of what happened subsequently in the session. After that, there is some
analysis and interpretation of the dynamics, concepts and issues involved, both in the
extract and in the session as a whole.
Chapter Five was an analysis of a sequence of interaction in a session, whilst Chapter
Six began with a focus on a moment in the session, broadening out to aspects of
interaction throughout the session and drawn into an interpretation at the end. This