Conference Agenda

What kind of training and continuing education qualifies psychosocial professionals to work appropriate in accordance with psychoanalytic concepts and theories?

For about 100 years, there has been a consensus within the psychoanalytic communities that four elements are necessary for this: (i) engagement with theory, (ii) self-experience, and (iii) the supervision of (iv) psychosocial work. Whether, in which extent and in which way these four elements are embedded in curricula offered by psychoanalytic institutes or Universities varies widely: Psychoanalytic training programs usually contain all four elements. However, this can rarely be achieved in training and continuing education programs for professionals working in other educational fields and institutions.

This also applies to various methods and concepts used to reflect on practical psychosocial work in a supervisory manner. The Balint group concept is very well known and widely used in this context. However, other concepts have also been developed, including Monograph Writing” (Dubois 2015) and the Work Discussion method (Klauber 1999, Miller 2022, Hover-Reisner et al. 2014). This method is in the focus of the presentation.

The authors of the presentation will describe the method and its characteristics (Datler & Datler 2014):

• Four to five members of a Work Discussion Seminar regularly write narrative reports about what happened during an hour of their psychosocial work.
• They bring copies of these reports to the Work Discussion Seminar meetings, which also take place regularly and are run by an experienced seminar leader.
• In each seminar session (90 minutes), one report is read aloud and discussed. The group attempts to understand what may have been going on in the “inner world” of the people who interacted with each other in these work situations and how the course and development of the interactions can be understood against this background. The most important ideas developed in the group are written down in minutes.
• In our Vienna groups, at the end of each semester, seminar participants write a paper in which they independently interpret a described interaction.

Schöck (2018) and Stefanek (2020) have shown that numerous publications on work discussion exist that use case examples to show how seminar participation contributes to the development of the ability to understand work situations psychoanalytically and to improve the quality of psychosocial work (Hover-Reisner et al 2014). But how can we empirically investigate the professionalization processes that result from attending work discussion seminars also by the use of other methods and methodological approaches?

The authors report on the survey of participants of a Master programme and on a specific developed method that is used to analyze and evaluate the seminar papers mentioned (Datler et al. 2018, 2023). If the work discussion seminar runs over several semesters, the participants' development can be identified and discussed. Referring to an example, the authors discuss the limitations of these research methods.

Building upon psychoanalytic foundations, subsequent discourse increasingly highlighted the critical role of early relational and interactional experiences with primary caregivers in shaping children’s later psychological development (Klein, 1932; A. Freud, 1946; Mahler, 1975; Dolto, 1984; Tyson, 1993; Belsky, 2001; Fonagy et al., 2002; Emanuel & Bradley, 2008; Datler & Wininger, 2014 ).

During the early years of a child's life, however, caregivers are often confronted with challenges that make it difficult for them to give their child impulses for psychological development (Winnicott, 1960; Bion, 1962; Bowlby, 1969; Stern, 1985; Zaphiriou Woods & Pretorius, 2011). In order to prevent developmental disorders as early as possible, reduce their effects, and promote the psychological development of young children, various concepts and alternative therapeutic settings have been developed internationally based on psychoanalytical theories. These psychotherapeutic interventions primarily aim to support parents facing social and economic challenges in perceiving and responding to the needs of their children in a differentiated way (Fraiberg, Adelson, Shapiro 1975; Tsiantis et al., 2000; Zaphiriou Woods & Pretorius, 2016; Byrne et al., 2018; Lebersorger, Sojka, Zumer, 2020; Schejtman, 2021).

Consistent with these approaches, the Anna Freud Center (AFC) in London provided parent-toddler groups (PTGs) intended to enable parents to shape interactions and relationships in accordance with the developmental needs of young children during informal conversations and play sessions under the guidance of psychoanalytic psychotherapists. As Zaphiriou Woods (2011) highlights, the significance of these groups lies in their potential to identify and address developmental disturbances and disruptions during a critical phase in toddlerhood, creating the potential for timely interventions before such difficulties solidify over time. In order to achieve these aims (Zaphiriou Woods & Pretorius, 2016), the weekly consistency of the group and the reliable relational experiences that parents and toddlers share with the psychotherapists – underpinned by the therapists’ knowledge of psychoanalytic developmental theory and processes – are intended to offer a facilitating environment that supports toddlers’ relational, emotional, and psychic development.

Inspired by a study trip undertaken by members of the Austrian Association for Individual Psychology (ÖVIP) a PTG was established at one of the Child Guidance Clinic’s (CGC) locations in Vienna. From the outset of conceptualizing the PTG, a collaborative research project was developed in cooperation with the Research Unit of Psychoanalysis and Education at the Department of Education of the University of Vienna, the Austrian Association for Individual Psychology (ÖVIP), specifically its Vienna Toddler Study Group, and under the supervisory guidance of Inge-Martine Pretorius.

In this paper I will focus on the topic of engaging students as observers in this research project called the „Parent-Toddler Group Study“. Particular emphasis will be put on how project team members can establish and maintain the capacity to observe, reflect on the observations and stay engaged in emotionally stressful areas of research.

A total of 25 students from the Bachelor's and Master's degree courses in Education conducted regular observations of the participating children according to the Tavistock approach (Rustin 2019; Datler et al. 2014;). During this time the students as well as the scientific staff had to cope with topics like neglect, confusion, being misunderstood and disruptive, powerlessness, loneliness as well as the feelings of fear and despair, anger, shame, and disgust.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, these emotions have to be understood in a differentiated way in order to (1) maintain the role of the observer in the field and (2) to be able to think about the children and families at risk in a differentiated way even in emotionally stressful situations. With reference to Bions (1962) concepts of “Container – Contained” and “Working Group” we will discuss how this area of tension was dealt with.