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Chapter Eight – A Consulting Break - Page 269
In relation to breaks, these are widely understood within psychotherapy to be of
importance, because they evoke traumatic experiences, particularly from childhood,
such as separation and loss as well as characteristic responses to those experiences.
They are also important in group-analytic research, in that they provide an opportunity
for deeper reflection away from other tasks (such as teaching and group maintenance). It
maybe goes without saying that they are a rich source of experience in learning groups.
Regarding resonances, it is argued that at this stage of the course, as the group complete
the cycle of taking turns to bring their work, and as they return from the last mid-
semester break in teaching before the course ends, the members are extremely
concerned with and alert to their professional identities. This allows a resonance of the
clinical material (in other words, the experience of a client with concerns about her
identity) in the group, but it is as if much of the dynamics involved cannot be addressed
directly through dialogue. Something similar is true backstage, but there, there is the
chance to enact these dynamics, and an opportunity to make some sense of their impact.
It seems particularly important that it has not been fully possible to do this in relation to
this teaching until the opportunity offered by this research. More generally, it is clear
that there is an enormous amount of staff interaction in settings beyond the study that
will be highly representative of the issues of the staff’s various charges (teachers’ staff
room conversation comes to mind), but which may not be recognised for its importance
and value.
The notion of a matrix that can contain polarisation is another substantive finding. The
concept of a matrix, of connections between individuals, groups and societies, is central
to a group-analytic approach. It appears from the experience of this session that the
conflict between the staff in the break which could be contained by a matrix of an