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Chapter Two Part One – Literature review - Page 39
There are occasional writings such as that by Cabaniss on ‘How to Think Like an
Analyst 101’ (1999) and Wallace and Tisdall (1991), which are in the tradition of
practice wisdom rather than researched studies, and there are also longer texts in this
area on the making of psychotherapists (Symington, 1996). There is a literature about
clinical supervision that takes place in groups, but where the work discussed is
individual psychotherapy. Some of this is in a tradition that uses Winnicott’s (1971)
ideas on play and creativity to conceptualise the place of the group, as a ‘transitional
object’ (Schneider & Berman, 1991) or as a transitional space (Schlachet, 1986). In
this tradition, Belger (2002) has cast the function of theory as that of a maternal
environment. One concept that my colleague and I have used is Haley’s (1963) notion
of dead serious play. Green and colleagues noted differences in experience and outcome
related to didactic or exploratory formats during psychiatric training, but the follow-up
by qualitative study that they recommended (Green, Stone, & Grace, 1983) does not
seem to have happened.
Drawing together these threads of literature on groups, groupwork and training is a
complex task. There is a good clinical understanding about how to convene, run and end
a therapeutic group, which can be applied, with due modification to training. However,
although the understanding that the tutors have may be similar to that of the therapist(s)
in a therapeutic group, the opportunity to use this understanding directly is not
necessarily available, and there is less clarity on the educational and developmental use
of the group. There is considerable understanding of the capabilities that psychoanalytic
psychotherapists require, and some understanding of how these may be available in part
through participation in a learning group. However, the knowledge that is available in
this field tends to be in the form of disparate models from different fields, and this has
rarely been brought together and examined in relation to learning groups. I will attempt