New developments: training in the facilitation of work discussion groups^*

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the First International Conference on Work Discussion, Let’s Talk about Work, in Vienna, June 2016.

ABSTRACT

Invitations to provide training in the work discussion model and its facilitation led the authors to question how we learn to facilitate work discussion groups. The authors describe their experience of developing a pilot five day foundation course in Work Discussion Group facilitation with participants who were unfamiliar with the Work Discussion Group model. The paper describes the thinking behind the training, its central elements and the emphasis on learning from experience as student participants became familiar with being Work Discussion Group members, presenters and, later, to trying out the role of facilitator.

The authors draw on their experience of running these training programmes, and of leading work discussion seminars themselves to illustrate how opportunities to take up the facilitation task, with support and consultation from the two course leaders, enabled participants to consolidate their understanding of work discussion itself as well as of the task of the facilitator. This task is particularly important in terms of containing the group and keeping it on task, while taking note of unconscious processes and powerful projections of anxiety and inadequacy which dominate in early presentations of oneself in a work interaction. Despite the authors’ reservations about what would be possible in such a course, especially given its brief nature and the limited experience of many participants, the outcomes indicate that the course had a powerful and transformational impact on many; some went on to introduce work discussion into their own work settings, and to research it.

KEYWORDS:

• Work discussion facilitation
• training
• learning from experience
• task
• work group

Acknowledgements

We want to express our thanks and appreciation to Dr Leslee Brown who played a central role in partnering with us and in organising all the logistics for the three programmes involving our US-based participants. In addition to the huge amount of time and administration this involved, we know how much ‘behind the scenes’ containment was provided by Dr Brown which will have contributed significantly to the experience of the participants as well as to ourselves.

We would also like to acknowledge, with appreciation, the comments and feedback we have received from Michael and Margaret Rustin, following our presentation of this paper at the Vienna Conference in 2016.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Emil Jackson is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist and adult psychotherapist with over 27 years’ clinical experience. His clinical and training role is based at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust where he is Head of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy in the Adolescent and Young Adult Service. Jackson is also involved in a wide range of coaching and consultancy work across public and private sector organisations. This has involved extensive experience in the application of work discussion groups, in particular in education, working with staff at all levels, including four groups for headteachers.

Trudy Klauber is a child and adolescent psychotherapist who now teaches and supervises at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and in private practice. She was formerly Dean of Postgraduate Studies at the Tavistock and Portman. She has published a number of articles in Infant Observation, and other peer-reviewed journals and has lectured in Italy, France, Taiwan and the USA as well as across the UK. She is Editor of Infant Observation.

Notes

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the First International Conference on Work Discussion, Let’s Talk about Work, in Vienna, June 2016.

1 In the Tavistock Model the term ‘seminar leader’ is usually used to describe the role which is frequently taken by an experienced child psychotherapist. The term ‘facilitator’ is more commonly used in ‘applied’ work discussion, for example with a group of managers, or school head teachers.

2 These include references cited in this paper together with the book on work discussion by Bradley and Rustin (2008).

3 We are grateful to Michael Rustin for his thoughts about a manual, shared in a personal communication after the Vienna conference.