Application Group: Broadening the Patient Experience in a Psychiatric Organization

The Tavistock conference model of Group Relations Training, described in some depth by Rioch (1970) and O'Conner (1971), provides participants with a focus on the problems of leadership and authority as they develop and emerge in a variety of relatively unstructured group contexts within a time-limited laboratory setting. The major conference experience involves participation in ‘here and now’ groups with the use of staff in a consultative role, i.e. the staff function being to focus exclusively on the covert or unconscious processes in the group. So the usual consultant role involves no comments to individuals but a rigorous focus on the dynamics of the group as a whole; a role which has been described in more clinical settings by Bion (1968), Coffey (1966) and Ezriel (1950). ‘One of the major aims of the conferences is to contribute to people's ability to form serious work groups committed to the performance of clearly defined tasks …. A second major aim … is the development of more responsible leadership and fellowship in group life’ (Rioch, 1970, p. 347).