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Chapter Twelve
Implications for Theory, Practice, and Research
Introduction
In this final Chapter, the aim is to look beyond the study, at what it implies for the
related domains of theory, practice and research.
Implications for theory
These include both implications for the theory underpinning the teaching and learning
of clinical practice, as well as implications for the theorisation of groups.
Concerning the theory of teaching and learning, the study introduces the notion of a
group-analytically informed model of teaching and learning. This entails the twin
strands of ‘individual’ and ‘group’ that have been followed through this study, and can
be seen to be present in much if not all social interaction. It can be argued that this fact
requires acknowledgement by a range of future research. Although the two strands of
this focus raise epistemological challenges (for example, whether the two can be
considered mutually exclusive or not), experience in group-analysis and conceptual
developments such as Elias’s figurations (see page 104) facilitate the handling of
challenges.
Regarding the theorisation of groups, this is a field that is not well elaborated. This
study is an example of the combination of disparate contributions (from Freud
(1913/1958), Klein (1959), Bion (1961), Winnicott (1953, 1969), Lacan (1979), Foulkes
(1975), Matte-Blanco (1988), Hopper (2003), Nitsun (1996) and Dalal (1998)). In the