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Chapter Seven – A Discussion – Page 214
The part of the session after the extract and leading up to the
break
Following the extract, it is as if Frances and Tom present alternative perspectives, Tom
valuing events outside the course and the group (the Agency’s Seminar Series, open to
the local professional community), followed by Judi promoting a forthcoming talk by
Bill as part of that series on the work of Bion, whilst Frances emphasises the importance
of what is available here.
Frances then turns to having lost what she got from Judi (i.e. not being able to recall an
insight that she had previously acquired through her learning from Judi in this group),
but then to being able to find what she needed for herself outside, 10 in other words,
being able to make a new sense of what she encounters without explicit reference to any
content of the course. 11 Judi mentions research, and Paula then brings in material from a
patient, as if to emphasise the importance of clinical work as well as the impact of case
studies. Judi responds to Paula’s difficulty with her patient in relation to her own (i.e.
Paula’s) need to write a case study by offering an approach that she, Judi, has used,
which is to write the case study prior to asking permission to use it for purposes such as
a membership application to a professional body. These two contributions, Paula’s and
Judi’s, seem to raise anxiety in the group. 12
10 I will examine this further below. Prior to this, I am prepared to bet that the case in question involves
the containment of negative transference or counter-transference. My confidence in being prepared to do
this is because of my strong hunch that Frances, in both having got something almost certainly from the
group yet seeming to find it elsewhere, may be reflecting dynamics of her clinical work such as her
experience of her treatment by a patient in her relationship with this, the learning group. This is, I believe,
an experience for the group of projective identification.
11 With hindsight, this is also a clear symbolization of integration of learning.
12 The sequence described in this paragraph is explored further as Example 7.1 on Page 212 in ‘Analysis’,
below.