Integrating professional identities: an ethnographic study of psychoanalytic child psychotherapy in a children’s social care setting

ABSTRACT

The importance of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) collaborating with other agencies is of paramount concern for children with complex difficulties, including children in care. However, there is a lack of research exploring the role of child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapists in multi-disciplinary and multi-agency work surrounding these children. Aims: to develop a theory of how child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapists function within a social care setting, including how they position themselves in a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency environment. Methods: an ethnographic case study design, consisting of participant observation supplemented by interviews. Findings: grounded theory analysis identified that the child psychotherapists balanced three elements of their professional identity: discipline-specific identity; CAMHS team member identity; child’s care network member professional identity. To be effective in their role, the child psychotherapists needed to integrate the elements of their professional identity. The findings have implications for understanding the contribution of child psychotherapists in this field, particularly how to integrate into multi-disciplinary and multi-agency settings, whilst retaining their distinctive professional identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychoanalytic child psychotherapy
• children in care
• multi-disciplinary
• multi-agency
• professional identity

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the CAMHS and social care teams who participated in this study. Particular thanks go to the two child psychotherapists who were so generous in allowing their practice to be observed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was conducted as part of a PhD study, that was funded by a UCL Impact PhD studentship, with financial support from the Association of Child Psychotherapists.

Notes on contributors

Fiona Robinson

Fiona Robinson is a Research Fellow in the School of Health & Psychological Sciences at City, University of London, UK.

Nick Midgley

Nick Midgley is Professor of Psychological Therapies with Children and Young People in the Research Department of Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology at University College London (UCL), UK. He is director of the Child Attachment and Psychological Therapies Research Unit (ChAPTRe) at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families/UCL.