Group Analysis: Working with Staff, Teams and Organizations

Aleksandra Novakovic is a psychoanalyst and group analyst. She was a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the Adult Psychology Service, and Joint Head of the Inpatient & Community Psychology Service, Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health Trust. She has worked at Tavistock Relationships and on the IGA Diploma Course in Reflective Practice in Organisations. Currently she teaches for the British Psychoanalytic Association and is a Consultant Visiting Lecturer and supervisor at Tavistock Relationships. She co-edited with David Bell a book on psychotic processes (Karnac, 2013), edited Couple Dynamics (Karnac, 2015), and co-edited Couple Stories with Marguerite Reid (Routledge, 2018).David Vincent trained as a group analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis, and as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist at the British Association of Psychotherapists. He is an IPT therapist and supervisor, and worked for many years in the NHS, retiring as a Consultant Adult Psychotherapist from Forest House Psychotherapy Clinic. He has also worked for University College Hospital Drug Dependence Unit, MEDNET and Camden Psychotherapy Unit, and in private practice. He was Chair of the IGA from 2000–2005, and Chair of Ethics for the British Psychoanalytic Council from 2012–2016, and is now a retired member of the IGA and the BPF.

"The distinguished authors of the papers in this collection bring into focus a distinctively group analytic approach to working with staff, teams and organisations. Novakovic and Vincent carefully locate the group analytic in the context of the Tavistock and Systemic approaches to such work. This is a much needed and original contribution to field of applied group analysis and key reading for students and professionals." --Sarah Tucker, National Director of Training, IGA"This book is a searching view of various ways of working with the dynamics of professionals. Not only is stress in teams a neglected priority, but knowledge about such stress needs to be held within the teams themselves. These Chapters join three traditions; that of Foulkes and the Institute of Group Analysis, as it encounters the Group Relations Tavistock and Systemic approaches. The result is not seamless, but it is an essential synthetic aim to be tackled, by writers now several generations after the founders at Northfield in WW2. The interweaving of the many ideas, complimenting and conflicting with each other, should not be missed." --Bob Hinshelwood, Professor Emeritus, University of Essex

• Series Editor’s PrefaceAbout the Editors and ContributorsIntroductionPart IChapter 1Tavistock Consultancy Approaches, Systemic Practice, and the Group Analytic Approach in Work with Staff, Staff Teams, and OrganizationsIntroductionTavistock Approaches to Consulting with Teams and OrganizationsRichard Morgan-JonesSystemic Practice to Work with Staff, Teams, and OrganizationsMartin Miksits A Group Analytic Approach to Work with Staff Teams and Organizations: A Contextual FrameworkChristine OliverCommentary on Systemic, Tavistock, and Group Analytic ApproachesChristine OliverChapter 2Tavistock Consultancy, Systems Centred, and Group Analytic Perspectives on a Community Meeting on an Acute Psychiatric WardIntroductionWard observationCommentary ITavistock Consultancy PerspectiveJulian LousadaCommentary IISystems-Centered® Consultancy PerspectiveRay HaddockCommentary IIIA Group Analytic PerspectiveDavid Kennard Part IIChapter 3"How did you get here from there?": Psychosis, Stigma, and the Counter TransferenceDavid VincentChapter 4Working Between Worlds of ExperiencePeter WilsonChapter 5What Makes a Staff Support Group (Un)safeDavid KennardChapter 6Consulting to Doctors in General Practice: "Don’t talk to me about work" Cynthia RogersChapter 7Reflective Practice Groups – A Hall of MirrorsSue EinhornChapter 8Getting Comfortable with the Uncomfortable: Reflective Practice in Anxious TimesIan SimpsonChapter 9Resistance to Reflective Practice – an Anti-Group PerspectiveMorris NitsunChapter 10Discovering the Unconscious Patterns of a National Culture through a Large Group of Psychotherapists and Group Analysts in Finland: An Application of Group Analysis in an Organizational ContextGerhard Wilke Part IIICHAPTER 11The Group as a Whole, the Individual in the Group, and the Group in the IndividualAleksandra Novakovic