Category — Material arising from the work of the Cotswold Community

This paper examines the notion of an ‘internal mental space’ in which to carry out therapeutic work in everyday situations with children and young people. The issues involved are discussed firstly from a theoretical perspective, examining some of the aspects that characterise the internal mental space. Secondly, the idea is viewed from a practical perspective using an example of an incident with a child that describes some of the difficulties the author experienced in creating and maintaining an internal mental space.

Faith Spicer was an important consultant at the Cotswold Community form the late 19980s to the mid-1990s. As doctor who had practiced in the mental health field (she has been Director of the Brook Advisory Centre and Founder of the Brandon Centre, previously the London Youth Advisory Centre) she helped us with children who presented symptoms/problems that were on the medical/psychiatric boundary, eg, enuresis, sleeplessness, etc. Faith’s writing mainly took the form of reports about individual children. However, in 1995 she wrote this piece about food which conveys something of her philosophy.

Unlike Isabel Menzies Lyth, Eric Miller did not write a “Working Note” after each of his consultancy days at the Cotswold Community. I guess this reflected his style, which was paying more attention to the process than producing “answers”. However, now and again (and it was very much worth waiting for) Eric wrote something, arising from his consultancy, as a catalyst for further work within the Community. This working note was written early on in my tenure as Principal (1985 – 1999). The concept of the ‘X’ factor was something we came back to time and again, especially when we sensed that staff morale had taken a dip.

Barbara Dockar-Drysdale (Pip) presented this paper in 1973 at a conference, “The Evolving of Caring Systems” at the University of Dundee. She shared the platform with Richard Balbernie, Professor Ben Morris and Anthea Hay. Pip wrote this at a point when the Cotswold Community’s therapeutic culture was becoming established following the transformation from an Approved School.

The paper is included on this site as a PDF document.

ABSTRACT: The authors examine how a psychodynamic assessment method has been used in a residential therapeutic community for staff selection and development. The assessment method which includes the Defence Mechanisms Test and an in-depth interview, is used to develop a personality profile clarifying defence mechanisms for each staff applicant. Using a sample of 40 staff, the authors carried out a detailed analysis of the correlations between the staff assessment results and length of stay at the Community. The analysis shows how hypotheses can be formulated which give accurate predictions about the likely length of stay for individual staff and also some of the difficulties they may experience in various professional roles. The paper explains some of the complexities involved in staff selection for such demanding work and shows how an understanding of the intrapsychic factors involved can greatly aid the process, leading to improvements in staff selection, development and turnover.

The paper is included on this site as a PDF document.