Looking again at the team dimension in systemic psychotherapy: is attending to group process a...

Looking again at the team dimension in systemicpsychotherapy: is attending to group process acritical context for practice?

Grania Clarkea and Alan Rowanb

Team work and group supervision are essential features of the systemicmodel, yet there is surprisingly little literature on the impact of groupprocess on both group supervision and team-based therapy. Beginningwith two vignettes which evoke some aspects of group process and arebased on the personal experiences of the authors, this paper will reviewthe literature on working in teams from within a systemic perspec-tive.1Early models of teams and group processes within the literaturewill be criticized for their over-reliance on technique; more recent modelsfor their over-reliance on collaboration. It will be argued that somesystemic approaches to understanding teams can lead to group processissues becoming marginalized and covert, and therefore inevitably moredifficult to address. However, viewing supervision groups as ‘socialconstructions’ is seen as a position offering more possibilities and, it willbe argued, opens a pathway to embracing ideas from within psycho-analytic thinking on group process. Here ideas on group functioning,including the theories of, for example, Foulkes and Bion will be brieflyreviewed and their implications for helping both supervisors and teamsconceptualize group process discussed.

Vignettes

Vignette I

A group of four female trainees began working as part of a livesupervision group, with a male supervisor. We were all on thesame course but also had many differences in relation to ethnic

r The Association for Family Therapy 2009. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 GarsingtonRoad, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.Journal of Family Therapy (2009) 31: 85–1070163-4445 (print); 1467-6427 (online)

a Head of Psychology, St Michaels House, Ballymun Road, Dublin 9, Ireland.E-mail: [email protected].

b Principal Clinical Psychologist, St Vincents Hospital Fairview, Dublin 3, Ireland.1 In this paper we will refer to ‘therapy systems’ which includes both collegial teams and

supervision groups. While not denying significant differences between these team structureswe believe that most of the issues raised, if not all, apply broadly to both of these categories. Ofcourse in doing so we recognize that issues such as leadership and team function distinguish ateam of qualified practitioners working together and a formally supervised team.

r 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation r 2009 The Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice

background, level of competence and confidence in working systemi-cally. These issues were rarely spoken about within the supervisiongroup. At the start of the group geneograms were shared andconsideration given to issues such as what might be ‘trigger families’(McGoldrick, 1982) or the type of role we might take up with aparticular family. When we were struggling in the therapy room theseissues might be referred to, and when we were struggling as a teamthe suggestion that we had become isomorphic with some part of thefamily was a regular hypothesis (Liddle and Sabba, 1983).

In general however, the focus of the group was on seeing families ina busy clinic. When families did not come to sessions, time was spentreviewing tapes and conducting role plays. Towards the end of thegroup when families did not attend we would go our separate waysand get on with ‘stuff ’. However, what we did not seem to manage tothink about were the unspoken issues that were going on between usas a group. Issues such as competition and conflict, bids or not for oursupervisor’s attention or approval, our different levels of skills andlevels of competence, and the particular group roles we tended togravitate towards remained largely unaddressed. We often felt thatthere was an unspoken rule that so long as we all remained ‘terriblyanxious’ and did not openly acknowledge our learning, developingexpertise and different experiences of this, we would both survive thisexperience and could safely support each other.

Vignette II

Some years ago, one of the authors (a qualified family therapist)joined an established NHS-based family therapy team made up of anumber of experienced mental health professionals who had workedtogether systemically for a number of years, though none had under-taken a formal family therapy training. From the author’s point ofview the experience was of being in a team who practised familytherapy in a rather rigid and rule-bound way that was not alwaysattentive to the needs of the client.

The most senior clinician and founding member of the team wasclearly highly respected by her fellow team members and functionedwithin the team in a (implicit) leadership role. As the authorattempted to engage with this team, by both at times embracing theteam’s perspective while also introducing alternative frames ofreference for practice, a clear dynamic began to emerge in theteam. Here team members (other than the implicit clinical leader)

86 Grania Clarke and Alan Rowan


would consistently challenge any suggestions or ideas introduced bythe author. When the author was the therapist ‘in the room’ there wasalso frequently a clash of perspectives, when during a team break theobserving team would have a cohesive vision of the family whichseldom matched the author’s experience. Various attempts weremade to resolve this problem (e.g. via reading seminars, as well asopen discussion) and at one point this involved a formal consultationfrom another family therapist. This consultation focused mainly onvaluing and making use of ‘the difference’ in the team. However, astime went by, little changed, and the tensions in the team eventuallybecame so acute that the team slowly disbanded (i.e. one member leftowing to work pressures, another because of a change of job), andeventually a new service and team were formed.

The foregoing vignettes are presented as a way of situating interest inthe topic of group process in both supervision groups and teams.Moreover, while these vignettes are obviously based on the experi-ences of the authors, they are not, we would argue, in any way unique.Indeed, it is our joint experience that difficulties related to groupdynamics are frequently cited by members of therapy teams, super-vision groups and supervisors in (usually) informal conversations withothers concerning what is problematic in the functioning of livesupervision groups/therapy teams.

This naturally leads to a question within systemic psychotherapy:Do we have adequate theoretical models available to us to conceptua-lize group process and to helpfully intervene when the dynamics ofthe group are making the task of seeing families difficult?

Following Thompson and Khan (1988, p. 23), we can initiallydefine group process as:

The forces in existence that exert influence over all aspects of the eventsthat occur in a group. Thus to understand the behaviour of an individualin a group at any time we must also consider the processes operating withinthe group which would have played a part in eliciting that behaviour.

They argue that there are two opposing forces in every group relatedto the interplay between individual and group needs, namely the wishto belong to the group and the wish to be separate and distinct fromthe group. They consider all groups to contain ambivalent relation-ships related to the interplay between group coherence (the forces inthe group to continue being a group) and group disruptiveness (theforces in the group to break up the group).

Looking again at the team dimension in systemic psychotherapy 87


The centrality of teams in systemic family therapy

Live supervision and team working is considered to be one of thehallmarks of systemic family therapy (Hoffman, 1981; Liddle, 1991)and it is an essential requirement of training as a systemic therapistand/or as a registered systemic supervisor.2 However, there is apaucity of literature available within the systemic field to supportthinking on and/or to guide interventions around group processissues (Elizir, 1990; Ogren and Jonnson, 2005). In addition, whilemany authors have focused on the supervisory relationship (e.g.Burnham, 1993; Turner and Fine, 1995; Schwartz, 1988; Todd,1997), others such as Roberts (1993) have argued that much of theliterature has looked almost exclusively at the relationship betweensupervisor and trainee with far less emphasis placed on relationshipsbetween the supervisor and the group or between group/teammembers themselves.

Group supervision is nevertheless seen to have a number ofadvantages (Aronson, 1990; Bernard and Goodyear, 1998; Lee andEverett, 2004; Yoger, 1982), such as providing a setting wheresupervisees learn to interact with peers in ways which encourageself-responsibility, increased interpersonal competencies as well asmutuality between supervisees and supervisors. In addition, groupsupervision is seen to enable supervisees to be exposed to a widerange of clients, interventions, therapy styles, multiple problem-solving approaches as well as supervisory interventions.

There have, however, also been more negative descriptionsof group supervision/team process. For example, York (1997)states that group supervision ‘offers a greater complexity ofrelationships, experiences of anxiety and competitiveness, as wellas distinct opportunities for supervisee growth’ (p. 329). Lowensteinand Reader (1982), somewhat similarly, point to the intense emotionsaroused in trainees in live supervision. They describe high levelsof anxiety related to shame of self-exposure, loss of autonomyand challenges to competence as well as difficulties in relationshipto authority, represented by the supervisor’s position, as commonexperiences in teams. They further argue that supervisees re-experi-ence conflicts ‘associated with basic childhood crises, suchas trust, autonomy, innate self-esteem and obedience . . . [andthat] they will need to confront issues of narcissism, regression

2 See Association for Family Therapy ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ book requirements.



and control’ (p. 124) within such a setting. Similarly, Lee andLittlejohns (2007) describe team experiences of ‘incapacitating self-doubt and anxiety’ along with the usefulness of the technique ofconcretizing and externalizing this in helping them to connect to theircompetence and confidence while training. Their formation of afigure ‘Agnes’, representing their self-doubt, enabled them to developa different relationship to their anxiety.

From a more psychoanalytically based perspective, the potentialnegative influences of the group on the individual have beendescribed in considerable detail. Freud’s starting point (Freud,1921) is one which emphasizes that ‘in the individual’s mentallife someone else is invariably involved’ (p. 69) and from herehe explores what type of influence a group may have on an individualas well as what psychological processes are involved in this ‘influen-cing’. As regards the former, he stresses how in the groupthe particular attributes and distinctiveness of each individualmay become distorted, or even completely sacrificed to the so-called‘group mentality’. In terms of the psychological processes involved,Freud points to the processes of projection, introjection, idealizationand identification as crucial. For example, he describes an inevitableidealization of the leadership function, which interestingly he stressesmay be an ‘abstraction’, a ‘common tendency’ or ‘a wish in which anumber of people can have a share’ (p. 100) which point to thegroups’ consciously and unconsciously held beliefs and valuestowards this leadership function either alongside, or in the absenceof, an actual leader. A second key mechanism, identification, is theprocess by which group members see themselves as a group andthus attach to each other via an emotional tie that inhibits, forexample, aggression within the group while simultaneously makingit more available for displacement outside the group in question.These two processes Freud further sees as capable of reducing anindividual’s capacity for self-observation, self-reflection and forthinking critically about the group of which one is a member. Hereit is important to add that as well as the potential negative influencesthat may result from being in a group, Freud simultaneously sawgroup membership, and the ensuing establishment of ‘social bonds’,as providing a necessary humanization of the individual who musttake up his or her place, first in the family and then in the widercommunity, adopting, for example, some set of shared moral stan-dards and ideals – in Freudian terms the creation of superegofunctioning.



Here one can see an early psychoanalytic appreciation of thepotentially powerful effects of group membership, both for betterand for worse, which have since been further developed and to whichwe will return in our discussion of the work of Bion and Foulkes.

The conceptualization of teams as systems

Returning to the systemic literature one can note how a supervisiongroup/therapy team is often conceptualized in the literature in termsof the wider therapeutic system. As a system (greater than the sum ofits parts) the individuals in the supervision group/therapy team areseen to interact with each other over time, such that recursive patternsof interaction form a stable context for individual and group function-ing. In this conceptualization attention is usually paid to differentlevels of the system, such as the family system, the therapy system andthe supervisory/team system. These different systems are seen tointeract with each other recursively, resulting in mutual influence.The concept of isomorphism has been used extensively within thesystemic supervision literature and may be defined as the tendency forthe domains of therapy and supervision to ‘interact recursively, [and]co-evolve over time’ (Liddle and Sabba, 1983), though in our view it isworth asking what precise psychological process is being proposed orassumed here and with what evidence. Moreover, as Liddle andSchwartz (1983) point out, this concept has generally been thoughtabout in a unidirectional rather than a recursive manner. Thus theemphasis has been on the effect of what is happening in the family onthe supervision group/team, with little or no consideration of how thedynamics of the supervision group/team may be affecting the family,both within the therapy room and potentially beyond. This, we wouldargue, has also drawn attention away from issues that may beoccurring in a supervision group/team which have more to do withthe group itself and the individuals who belong to it, than to thefamilies it is working with.

While it is obviously important for therapy teams to remain ‘ontask’ (while seeing families) there is also, we would argue, a need tobe more open to exploring group process issues, for example,when families are not present, or perhaps more briefly when theyare. The question this gives rise to is: Can this focus be integratedsuccessfully into ‘team work’, particularly at those times when this maybenefit both the therapy and the group/team as a whole? Thisarguably presents a considerable challenge in terms of what is or is



not feasible during or within the treatment delivery aspect of teamfunctioning.3

Debates on using teams effectively

Within the literature there is also a debate about whether or not it ishelpful for teams to hold similar or different views. For example,Boscolo and Cecchin (1982) point to the importance of team memberssharing the same epistemological model. Amendt et al. (1987) arguethat successful teams share a number of common characteristics whichthey name ‘unities’. They state that successful teams have unity ofobjective and process, known ways of successfully managing conflictsand differences, as well as unity in terms of theoretical models andpractice; in other words, what amounts to an agreed set of rules androles within the team that achieves a benign balance between indivi-dual and group needs and functions.

On the other hand, Speed et al. (1982) point to how the notion ofshared or common characteristics in teams goes against the rationalefor the role of teams in terms of introducing difference. She arguesthat ‘therapists in teams may lose their individual perspectives and theteam perspective, as an amalgam of those individual perspectives, mayin consequence suffer’ (p. 275). Equally, Cade and Cornwell (1985), inpromoting the need for difference, state that ‘from this potentialrichness can emerge a wide variety of overlapping and contrastingperceptions or viewpoints which can provide a depth of understand-ing that is not always easily available to any one person’ (p. 55).

Ferrier (1983) within this context argues that teams have a homeo-static tendency towards internal consistency of ideas and processes,particularly if a team have ascribed to a set of rules to guide theirtransactions. Thus, it seems, the possibility of developing a uniqueperspective which is neither unique to nor ‘beyond’ the collectiveviewpoint may be difficult, if not lost entirely. However, he suggests avariety of techniques that may be used to challenge the so-calledhomeostatic tendency, such as mixing up roles and teams, videoingteam discussions and using external consultants to develop a ‘meta-position’ on team functioning. What remains unresolved here is theapparent difference between these two models concerning what

3 This issue of, in practice, attending to group/team processes is something the authorshope to address in a subsequent paper.



makes for effective team work, an issue or debate that clearly demandsgreater attention in what is predominantly a team-based therapy.

While these articles are written in the 1980s, they do, nevertheless,present a set of ideas or principles about the elements that make upwell-functioning teams, a topic that has more recently received lessattention. They also point to a variety of techniques which thesupervisor or team can use either to reduce the level of differencebetween members, and thus make the group more cohesive, orincrease the level of difference to combat the tendency towardsteam homeostasis. Thus the supervisor or team is seen as chargedwith actively intervening in the supervision/therapy team system tofind the right balance or a ‘difference that makes a difference’(Bateson, 1979). This perspective of course also assumes that thereis some ideal balance of ‘difference’ which is both quantifiable and canbe achieved by such interventions, even if the ‘ideal’ position or stanceof such a team should have or be in, is left unspecified. In addition,while it is acknowledged that conflicts and rivalries are potentiallypresent within supervision groups/teams, there is no theoreticalmodel put forward to understand these processes; rather, a varietyof techniques are put forward to ‘solve’ particular difficulties.

In the systemic literature one also finds explicit advice on buildingteam cohesion, such as advice on the importance of develop-ing explicit contracts with supervisees, outlining team members’learning needs and styles, suggestions of exercises at the start of agroup’s development to increase group cohesion and levels of trust,and using particular exercises and group tasks to support groupdiscussion. For example, Roberts (1997), uses the term ‘group build-ing’ to describe activities to link group members together and create asense of trust and responsibility to the group. Thompson and Khan(1988) argue that the more structured the group and the morestereotyped the roles members are expected to play, the less apparentwill be the tensions and needs that each individual brings to thegroup. While we are not arguing that these techniques are not useful,it could be argued that they represent attempts to cut across or evenprevent group process issues from emerging. Further, that what isactually needed are more than mere team-building exercises, if, forexample, what is crucial to teams is to have ways to intervene whenthings become difficult. As Todd (1997) argues, the usual mechanismswithin supervision groups, such as contracting, seeking feedback andspecific structures (such as consulting partnerships) do not alwaysprevent significant problems from developing in such groups. Indeed



it could be argued that while these techniques may reduce the levels ofovert conflict within a group they may also contribute to the devel-opment of covert conflicts that by definition are then more difficult toaddress. In addition, he states, when things go wrong, group mem-bers are often reluctant to say anything, partly, he says, because theyare not convinced that anything will change, but also because of theirconcerns over the effect of doing so in terms of how the team maythen view them. This is a very significant barrier when one considersthe additional evaluative aspect within a more formal supervision ortraining group.

Group process in teams as potentially problematic

Selvini and Selvini Palazzoli (1991) clearly see the potential fortherapy teams to become problematic, and helpfully highlight someof the common problems that can occur as follows. (1) Competitionbetween members can create the production of too many ideas whichmay lead to confusion and losing sight of the family. (2) One memberof the group may be marginalized through coalitions and scapegoat-ing. (3) Hierarchies may become rigid, leading to a therapist becom-ing impotent and passive or alternatively ‘adolescent and disobedient’to the team’s ideas and interventions. (4) A therapist may become anobject of criticism for the team (displaced aggression), or the teammay become passive in their role as consultants, leaving all responsi-bility to the therapist.

Other authors such as Ellis and Douce (1994) argue that competi-tion often develops between members of teams, particularly duringtraining. Moreover, differences between group members may com-plicate matters and may lead to isolation and scapegoating of teammembers. They cite Holloway and Johnson (1985), who argue that anecessary transition for a team is to move from competition tocohesive team support, which implies but does not fully articulate adevelopmental model – for example, like that on small groupfunctioning outlined by Yalom (1975). Indeed, it is worth notinghere that it can be important to consider a group’s ‘developmentalstage’, and here the frequently used ‘forming, storming, norming andperforming’ model of Tuckman (1965) offers arguably a basic compasspoint from which teams might self-reflectively monitor their devel-opmental course (viewed, needless to say, in a non-linear way). Thekey point here is to what extent a supervision group/team self-consciously recognizes and negotiates these stages or alternatively



recognizes when it starts to re-engage with, say, an earlier develop-mental stage (e.g. storming) when facing a new pressure or problem.What the above demonstrates is that despite the overall dearth ofliterature on team functioning in systemic psychotherapy, it cannot besaid that there is no awareness of the difficulties that may occur inteams, nor that such difficulties may indeed impact on client work/team effectiveness.

Postmodernism and the team context: does it make a difference?

Burnham (1993) argues that social constructionism has providedsupervisors and teams with different tools with which to processteam work. Thus members’ contributions can be treated as optionsrather than as right or wrong, cooperation and collaboration can bepromoted, and in the case of supervisors, they can position themselvesas participants in conversations rather than as presenting truths.Thus, he states, ‘supervision is created in the polyphonic context ofthe team in which the supervisor’s voice is one of many in the domainof multiple explorations’ (p. 56). This position, for all its potential,seems to want to deny the supervisor’s ‘special’ position within theteam (i.e. in terms of leadership, responsibility and authority). More-over, while such a social constructionist position emphasizes the valueof multiple ideas, it can run into problems when it fails to give dueweight to the clinical experience, expertise and skill the supervisoroften uniquely possesses in such circumstances.

Pirrottra and Cecchin (1988) similarly argue that the dynamics ofthe team should not be processed in live supervision teams but ratherthat it is important that team members are made to feel that theirideas are as valid as anyone else’s without stating how this is achieved,thus presenting us with another ideal which, arguably, is unrealizablein practice.

Postmodern supervision (and, by implication, crucial aspects ofteam functioning) is defined by Anderson and Swim (1995) as a‘collaborative conversation that is generative and relational, throughwhich supervisees create their own answers, and in doing so experi-ence freedom and self confidence’ (p. 1). They thus see the role of thesupervisor as more mentor than expert, with change occurringthrough dialogue and generative conversations. Through these col-laborative and interactive dialogues, supervisees and supervisorschange and learn together. This model again presents, it seems, anidealized account of the supervisory relationship devoid of the



complications of power, authority and responsibility for outcomes. It isperhaps not surprising therefore that little reference is made toproblematic group processes within such postmodern approaches tosupervision.

Coinciding with the theoretical (postmodern) shift within systemicthinking, Andersen (1987) developed perhaps the most radical andbold team-based model, namely that of the ‘reflecting team’. This inpart was of course related to concerns about some of the processeswithin the team and ‘behind the screen’, in particular the team’sdifficulty in deciding on an intervention or message and theirtendency to get into conflict over the promotion of individual ideas.This model was also fuelled by the epistemological shift involved inthe systemic field’s move towards a social constructionist position.‘Reflecting teams’ aim to make the ‘workings’ of the team visible,allowing their debates and different ideas to be transparent as a way ofoffering ‘multiple perspectives’ to emerge. The family is, in thismodel, put into a position of being free to choose what is useful orhelpful while simultaneously finding themselves dislodged from a‘one world view’.

Within the reflecting team model there is considered to be anacceptance of and tolerance for complexity and difference withinteams. Team members are encouraged to accept the views of othersand each viewpoint is given equal validity. Doubt and ambiguitywithin the team are seen as positive for clients to witness and, asstated above, clients are invited to ‘choose’ the ideas which seem tohave the most ‘fit’ for them. The literature on postmodern super-vision/teamwork with its emphasis on exploration, conversations,power sharing and so on appears nevertheless to virtually ignorethe possibility of significant difficulties or conflicts arising within suchteams. For example, when do team differences become team conflicts(overt or covert) and when are such differences a ‘dis-ability’ to boththe team and family rather than simply ending up as ‘viewpoints’ thatare simply left to one side by the family? Fine (2003) illustrates thecomplexities of power within reflecting teams by drawing particularattention to the way power is given to families to ‘sanctify certainreflections and ignore or reject others’ (p. 344) which arguably, andinterestingly, could also be seen as a form of collusive avoidance ofpower/competition issues within the team itself. In other words, notonly do the team not have to really examine in depth their internaldifferences, but, ultimately, professional face is saved, as interventionswhich the family choose to ignore are seen as due to the specificity of



the family system and in no way indicate that some interventions maybe unhelpful or just plain ‘bad’ or ‘off the mark’. Another issue thatcould be raised here concerns the controversial notion, in our view, of‘fit’. For example, if a family state that they find certain interventions‘helpful’, could it not also be the case that these interventions are‘adopted’ by the family? This may be both because they offer some-thing useful, and also (or even exclusively) because they allow thefamily to avoid engaging with a more challenging, penetrating and/orpainful – but potentially more therapeutically central or important –reflection also offered by the team.

Teams as socially constructed entities

From the foregoing it appears that what has not been explicitlyconsidered in the literature on ‘postmodern’ supervision/team workis that the supervision/therapy team is itself a socially constructedentity. From this viewpoint supervision groups and teams may be seenas social creations that change over time. They are therefore alsolinguistic systems, with language playing a critical role in howmembers generate meaning from group experience (Anderson andGoolishan, 1988). In writing about organizations, Campbell (2000)and Campbell and Groenboek (2006) argue that while the systemsmetaphor is helpful in understanding both the social context and theinteractional aspects of groups and organizations, the social construc-tionist metaphor helps us to understand better how intra-grouprealities are constructed from the many voices within them. In thisview, groups are continually being constructed through such interac-tions. Thus while individuals may have their own views, when theybegin to interact with others they are inevitably constrained orinfluenced towards some ways of thinking and feeling and awayfrom others, meaning that ‘over time the mutually constrainingprocesses produce a ‘‘house’’ paradigm that all have come to believebecause they have no other’ (Campbell, 2000, p. 11). Thereforegroups by their very nature create cultures made up of the discoursesor activities within them, whereby some discourses are dominantwhile others are subjugated, or exist on the margins. Needless to say,in this model we may learn almost as much about a group’s function-ing from what it says (the dominant discourse) as from what it doesnot say (the subjugated discourse). Individuals in groups are of course‘obliged’ to create meaning with other people and to positionthemselves within the wider discourse of the group. However, how



an individual finds a way of being part of that culture while main-taining her uniqueness is left unspecified.

Elaborating on (rather than playing down) such issues of powerand position are, we would argue, clearly useful in thinking about thedevelopment and maintenance of particular discourses within groups.Power, for example, is arguably not simply something that anindividual possesses (e.g. within a team) thus representing a unitaryconstruct, but rather is linked to an individual’s ability to draw oncertain discourses, bodies of knowledge and institutional supports todefine a situation in a way that allows her to realize her wants andpreferences over those of others.

Some ‘both-and’ positions

Interestingly, there has been for many years a debate within thesystemic field on the extent to which psychoanalytic thinking might bea useful addition to systemic theory. Speed (1997), in her editorial to aspecial edition of the Journal of Family Therapy, poses such a questionwhen she writes: ‘How far should we draw on existing analyticmodels, or should we take a fresh look and construct our own whichmight be just as adequate?’ (p. 235). Pocock (1997), in the same issue,reminds us of the role that psychoanalysis has played for familytherapy as an ‘oppositional and disregarded other’, while Donovan(2003) has argued that there exists a ‘potentially impoverishing effecton the wider therapy field by reducing opportunities for cross-fertilization’ (p. 117).

Rosenbaum and Dyckman (1995) raise a further question inrelation to this debate, namely whether systems theory must suppresskey aspects of its epistemological assumptions in order to accommo-date new theories, or whether it is possible that a true integration oftwo differing theories could emerge based on a ‘double description’.Burck and Cooper (2007) point to the importance of avoiding both thedisqualification of either set of ideas and of drawing banal similarities,in the production of a creative dialogue between systemic and psycho-analytic ideas. Interestingly, Bateson (1973) long ago pointed to theinevitability of unconscious processes from within a systemic perspec-tive. He argued, for example, that ‘it is not conceivably possible fora system to be totally conscious . . . no organism can afford to beconscious of matters which it could deal with at unconscious levels’(pp. 115–116), and further, stated that what we are consciously awareof is only a small part of the ‘truth about the self ’. He also stated that



to only consider conscious processes would amount to a ‘monstrousdenial of the integration of the whole’ (p.116).

Other authors such as Flaskas (1996, 1997, 2005, 2007), Leuipnitz(1988), and Byng Hall (1995) have developed ways of integratingpsychoanalytic ideas into systemic theory and practice in ways thatarguably do not threaten the key assumptions of systemic epistemology.Pocock (2006), in an attempt to correct what he terms ‘common activemisunderstandings’ within the family therapy field, describes six keyideas from psychoanalytic psychotherapy, engagement with which, heargues, may ultimately enrich family therapy. In a similar vein Larner(2000) argues that the influence of postmodernism on both familytherapy and psychoanalysis has led to a bringing together of the twoapproaches with a common emphasis on the therapeutic relationship,narrative and language. In addition, others have attempted to move tointegrationalist models combining systemic and psychoanalytic ideas inpractice; for example, the Group Relations approach pioneered by theTavistock Institute among others.

Skynner (1987), a psychiatrist and group analyst heavily influencedby systemic theory, also went a long way towards integrating ideasfrom these two approaches, although more recently his work is lesscited. In particular he pays tribute to the group theories of thepsychoanalyst Foulkes in providing him with the ‘key integratingfactor’ between the fields of family therapy and group analysis,though, it has to be said, there is little further work along these lines.

Some useful psychoanalytic-based thinking on groups and teams?

Foulkes (1973) developed the concept of the group matrix, a networkcomprising all the communications and interactions that take place ina group from its inception to the current moment. This matrix is seenas the common shared ground, which ultimately determines themeaning and significance of all events experienced by the group,and upon which all communications, verbal and non-verbal, comeinto being. Group events thus take place against the backdrop of thismatrix, and only when they are related to this matrix can theirmeaning and significance be understood. Foulkes further states thatcommunication operates at conscious, preconscious and unconsciouslevels as well as between these different levels.

On this basis Foulkes saw the group as an evolving system with itsown particular ‘group as a whole’ characteristics at any particularpoint in time. Building on Freud’s notion of identification he stressed,



for example, the ‘mirroring function’ in groups whereby members ina group may unconsciously carry and reflect back aspects of the selfthat are projected by other members of the group (e.g. one memberof the group becoming critical or aggressive to another member, inthis sense ‘on behalf ’ of another group member). What is crucial herefor Foulkes is that these inevitable aspects of group functioning canoffer the potential for growth and development if such processes canbe recognized, understood and worked with. In addition, he stressedhow group ‘resonance’ may lead to the creation of (unacknowledged)shared themes and ‘feeling states’ central to a group’s sense of its ownidentity and reflecting, for example, ‘how we are’ as a team, how wesupport each other (or fail to), complement each other (or fail to) andtake up both explicit and implicit roles in the team. Foulkes’ point ofcourse is that these aspects of group functioning can offer an avenuefor development and self-insight within the group if they are analysedand understood. The implication here is obvious: namely that in theabsence of a focus on group process the group may not ‘know what itknows’ or ‘experience what it experiences’.

Bion (1961) was another psychoanalyst who studied group process,and who like Freud stressed both the capacity of a group to beproductive, creative and so on but also destructive and stifling ofpotential. In doing so Bion developed in particular a frameworkfor analysing irrational and unconscious features operating in groups,the focus being on ‘group as a whole’ functioning. He arguedthat group and individual functioning were two different ‘vertices’or levels of human mental life. He distinguished two main tendenciesin the life of any group: the tendency towards work on the primarytask (work group mentality) and the second, an unconscious tendencyto avoid work on the primary task (basic assumption mentality)rooted in the group’s anxieties and the unconscious/unacknowledgedneeds and desires of its members. These tendencies are seen tobe in opposition to each other, and the tensions between themcome to the fore most particularly when there are unacknowledgedpainful or unprocessed experiences and conflicts between groupmembers.

Another way in which Bion put this point, which arguably has evengreater resonance in training environments, is that group mentalitymay be directed either towards or against ‘learning from experience’,meaning the experience of what is happening in the ‘here and now’.His basic argument is that in any group there are always two groupspresent, one defined by the explicit task, the other by the emotional



and unconscious needs of the members present, which, in turn impacton the group’s ability to perform its formal task.

Bion (1961) delineates three basic assumptions, each giving rise to aparticular complex of thoughts, feelings and behaviours aimed atmanaging the threat created by the conflict between group mentality(contributed to by all members) and the individual strivings of groupmembers. In each ‘basic assumption’ group the emotional needs ofthe group significantly disrupt and may completely dominate thegroup’s functioning. In the first of these three basic assumptionscalled the ‘dependency basic assumption position’ the group behavesas though its primary task is to satisfy the dependency needs andwishes of its members. The leader is idealized and (unconsciously)expected to protect the group, make group members feel good, andmeet all their needs. There is an unconsciously present resistance tobeing faced with the group’s real task and/or emotional dissatisfac-tions and difficulties. In the second, the ‘fight-flight basic assumptionposition’, the group behaves as if it is in danger from some form ofexternal enemy or threat. Here the group will again look to theleader/leadership function to resolve its internal problems or moreabstractly establish a shared set of beliefs, aimed at organizing thegroup towards some set of actions that ward off the perceived danger.This mode of functioning typically prevents the group from focusingon the real difficulties of the task, or addressing the blocks to this,while also serving to create a sense of togetherness (against a commonthreat). In the third, the ‘pairing basic assumption position’, theunconscious belief is that whatever problems there are in the groupthey will be solved by a future event often involving some ‘pairing’ orcoupling that is felt to be possible by two members in the group, oralternatively by, for example, the leader pairing successfully withsome external person or agency. Here, once again, the focus onthe future makes it difficult for the group to focus on the taskor difficulty in the present, this ‘pain-in-the-present’ as statedabove being a significant trigger for such unconscious defensiveprocesses. For Bion these basic assumption mentalities operatealongside the work mentality and are not considered to be staticpositions but rather ones which the group moves in and out ofrelated to the unresolved or unrecognized conflicts and desiresof group members. Moreover, it is also assumed in this model thateven well-functioning teams will at times revert to ‘basic assumption’functioning (though not get stuck there) and will also show a‘preference’ for one mode over another when faced with a difficulty,



as a consequence of the individual dynamics of those making up theteam in question.

Needless to say, there have been developments within this field, acase in point being the conceptualization of a further basic assumptionmentality developed by Lawrence et al. (1996). This has been calledthe ‘me-ness basic assumption’ mentality and designates the way agroup or team may unconsciously relate together in a non-group way,for example, as primarily a collection of individual ‘me’s’ whereby thegroup for each group member remains essentially an undifferentiatedmass. This defence, it is argued, allows group members to, in a sense,turn away from the difficult, disturbing or challenging reality of whatit means to be a group, or to function effectively as a group in favourof an unconscious state of mind that reverts into narcissistic isolation.

If we now refer back to the vignettes presented at the beginning ofthis article it is, we believe, relatively easy to see how such ideas offer apathway to understanding some of the difficulties and sense ofstuckness faced by the teams described.

Revisiting the clinical vignettes

In the first vignette, a clear hypothesis could be that the team’s focuson the impact of the families seen on the work of the team/teammembers was a defensive group process that allowed the group not tothink about its internal structure, where otherwise differences andconflicts might have emerged. It is also possible to hypothesize aboutwhat psychological mechanisms were operating at an unconsciouslevel. For example, the mechanism of mirroring may be seen in theparticular way the team had of taking up and individualizing anxietyso that it became an accepted currency of team interactions andindeed more or less recognized by team members as such. One canalso appeal to the Foulkesian notion of ‘resonance’ to understandwhat manifested itself as a denial of difference and correspondingly apush towards sameness, this being the implicit construct underpin-ning the team’s sense of identity. In addition, it could be argued thatthere was a level of idealization regarding the expertise of the leader/leadership function as a place of ‘non-anxiety’ aspired to by teammembers, not in the present, but as a future destiny. We would arguethat understanding some of these group dynamics could have beenimportant in helping this group to be more reflective and enable thetrainees involved to have the opportunity to better develop their



individual abilities, learn from experience and develop confidence astherapists.

In the second vignette the conflicts and differences in the groupwere more overt but perhaps no more understood. This examplecould potentially be looked at from various angles, and at one levelone could say that the team’s homeostasis and dominant discourse waschallenged (as was the author’s), in what was a failed attempt atmutual assimilation. In retrospect it is perhaps also possible to see,from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, the contours of unconscious pro-cesses related to splitting, projection and projective identification.What is surprising is that, at the time, none of the professionalsinvolved, including the invited team consultant, managed to explicitlylabel or acknowledge the destructive, disintegrative, hostile, compe-titive and group antagonistic forces present in the team. Of course,this is still more extraordinary when one considers how, at a personallevel, such hostility/aggression was no doubt registered and experi-enced but was kept in the sphere of the ‘private talk’ of each individual– as the author who was part of that team can attest to.

More particularly, it may be hypothesized, the grouping aroundand defence of a particular therapeutic model/style was one way inwhich this team, made up of professionals from different disciplines,achieved a ‘common language’, which, at one level enabled the teamto work together effectively, while at another level it blocked theteam’s further development and learning. Drawing on the work ofBion in this instance it is possible to postulate the workings of a ‘basicassumption dependence’ mentality, both in the team’s idealization ofits founder/leader and in the emotional comfort, mutuality andagreement governing the team’s dominant style of functioningwhereby, for example, families and their difficulties did not seem toperturb or challenge the team’s overall therapeutic interchange. Withthe arrival of a new team member one can also postulate a shift to a‘basic assumption fight-flight’ mentality which sought to ward off aperceived upheaval, danger or potentially significant change in theteam’s functioning. Bion stresses that this is unconsciously experi-enced within such a group mentality as a potentially ‘catastrophicchange’ as it opens the team to the ‘unknown’, putting both individualand group emotional investments at risk and, in the example given,the eventual breakup of the team may be seen as the ultimate stepwithin the ‘flight’ side of this paired opposition.

Needless to say, more could be said regarding these vignettes andmore potentially gained from a larger in-depth study of a given team



or range of teams, something that is, however, beyond the scope ofthis article. Nevertheless, we believe that the vignettes described andtheir analysis do provide an indicative source for the sort of ‘reflectingon teams’ that we find valuable, and though it was our clear intentionhere to use and show the value of psychoanalytic ideas around groupprocesses, we are aware that other forms of analysis are also poten-tially available (e.g. Belbin’s (1981) ‘role analysis’). Indeed, it isimportant to note that there is potentially considerable overlapalready in the thinking of both systemic and psychoanalytic thinkersin this field – even if this is little explored. One example here ishow Foulkes’ idea of the matrix and Campbell’s (2000; Campbell andGroenboek, 2006) work on the ‘social construction of meaning’ ingroups and institutions do seem to be talking about similar entities.Indeed, one could even argue that the latter may be seen as a meansto a successful reworking or elaboration of the notion of the matrix,which to at least some group analysts has always remained somewhatconceptually vague (see Nitsun, 1996).

Conclusion

In this article we have reviewed the literature on group process withinthe systemic field and have argued that despite the centrality of teamwork within systemic therapy, and of group models of supervision,there has been surprisingly little attention paid to group processesand the impact of these processes on the effectiveness of both groupsupervision and team-based therapeutic work with families. Indeed,while many authors make mention of difficulties teams may face orcite problems of group process, they seldom put forward theoreticalmodels to conceptualize these.

Earlier writings in the field tend to focus on the supervisor or teamusing methods and techniques to reduce the possibility of overtconflicts/difficulties between group members. They have, for exam-ple, largely positioned the supervisor or team leader as the one whohas to find the ‘correct’ balance between group cohesion and indivi-dual difference. However, we have argued that this approach tendstowards an idealized view of team functioning that is left unspecifiedand indeed may result in group-based conflicts and difficultiesbecoming covert and therefore even more difficult to address.Arguably, this focus on technique has resulted in a failure to confrontepistemological differences in the nature of the team/supervisiongroup’s functioning around what is or is not ‘fit for purpose’ in terms



of being an effective team/learning team. More recent models of teamfunctioning and supervision, influenced by postmodern theories,have emphasized collaboration between group members. In thesemodels differences are viewed as generative and there is an attempt toflatten hierarchy and power relationships. We have argued that thishas also led to a rather idealized view of teams and, furthermore, hashad the effect of relegating issues of group process, and with this theinevitability of group conflicts and difficulties, to the margins.

We have further suggested that it is helpful to view groups associally constructed entities, bound by discourses some of which aredominant, while others are subjugated. This opens up the possibilityof different levels of discourse operating in groups, some of whichmay be readily accessible while others may be less so.

We have argued that theories about groups within group analysisand within systemic theory do not necessarily need to be placed in anoppositional relationship to each other, but rather may be seen as ‘twosides of the same coin’. We have pointed to areas of work where thesetheories have been helpfully integrated from both sides of this‘created divide’. It is with this aim in mind that we have outlinedthe theories of Foulkes and Bion. Foulkes’ theory of the group matrixtakes a position similar to that provided by social constructivist theory,while Bion’s work helps us to think about the more destructivetensions in groups. Examples of these are the tensions between the‘task in hand’, emotional needs (including unconscious desires)and the unspoken but enacted agendas within the group itself. Finally,we have attempted to show how such ideas have the potential to beuseful when seeking to understand team functioning/group process.What no doubt remains to be done at this stage is to outline how, ineveryday practice, supervision groups and/or therapy teams mightapply these ideas to improving systemic practice. This it is hoped willform the basis for a further paper on this topic and also we hope willencourage other systemic practitioners to explore and expand onsuch issues in greater depth.

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