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Chapter Ten – Summary and Conclusions – Page 302
If I have a few more floors (in the elevator), I am now confident I can convey to others
how one can do this work (that is, researching via the exploration of group experience,
and if appropriate, changing practice on the basis of the evidence from practice gained
from such research). One might call this Practice-Based-Evidence-Based Practice (or
PBEBP), in response to Mace’s (2006) requirement that the empirical support for
treatments includes acknowledgement of all consequences of clinical practice, welcome
and unwelcome, in assessments of their impact, and of the necessity of bringing analytic
capacity to bear on the complex motivations and institutional processes that accompany
evidence-based practice. I will say more on this point in the next chapter in relation to
what might follow this research.
What follows are details of the concepts that I propose as useful in synthesising the
findings of the illustrations that I have explored. These concepts overlap and are
interlinked: I will spell out each of them in turn, and then look at some ways in which
they are connected.
The matrix of the learning group
A major contribution of a group-analytic perspective is the notion that through
interaction a matrix of relationships is formed with particular qualities, strengths and
challenges. This provides a context for awareness at a range of levels, and along
dimensions of association, difference and bi-logical depth.
This matrix has ritual qualities. Some of these qualities are expressed in terms of what is
inside and what is outside, what is permitted and what is forbidden, and of providing a
particular kind of symbolic order. These qualities are particularly linked to the