| Abstract: | This paper discusses the work of a consultation to a staff group at a residential home for adolescent boys. The work discovered that each encounter increased each group's sense of deprivation. This escalation is understood as their relationship being based upon a spiral of deprivation. In this situation the staff's capacity to think in terms of their training in Winnicott's ideas about residential care, and that behaviour has meaning, was lost. By using himself as the container of staff emotional states, through recognising their communications in terms of Bion's concept of normal projective identification, the consultant was better able to understand the nature of the difficulties in the boys' and staff relationship. Hence, the attempt to engage staff through the consultation was successful and their capacity to think was restored. The material discussed shows this development enabled staff to better contain their own and the boys' feelings, thus allowing the spiral to reverse. |
