Psychosocial Practice within a Residential Setting

Peter Griffiths

'This is a first in a series of monographs intended to present accessible teaching texts concerned with the practice of residential care. Residential care is beset not only by inherent difficulties, but also by notorious scandals. There is a reason for this. Residential care demands that people are at close quarters with harrowing and disturbing human agonies and predicaments. Often those difficulties are without immediate prospect of being relieved, or the outcome of care is only a very limited achievement.'...this Series offers as clearly as possible a specific model of care., which has grown up over half a century at the Cassel Hospital. It is a highly professional model. And, possibly uniquely, it also protects the personal involvement of the staff within the network of human relationships within the care organization. In other words, it is based not simply on procedures to be carried out, but also on the emotional reactions aroused when carrying them out. The message is that the human feelings of the staff can be used professionally-and they are thus stopped from being an impetus to other, strange, disordered or unethical responses.'- R.D. Hinshelwood, from his Foreword to the Series

• Foreword to the Series , Introduction , Actions speak louder than words , Working with the work of the day: the use of everyday activities as agents for treatment, change, and transformation , The Patients’ Pantry: the nature of psychosocial practice , The use of leisure activities in psychosocial practice , The therapeutic ingredients of baking a cake