ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some of the outcomes of unconscious processes, not only on individuals but also families, groups of children, residential staff and other professional groups. It demonstrates some of the practical applications of psychoanalytic understandings in a family, systemic and group framework. The chapter focuses on the family conflict within and, as it proved, without, between the family and extended family, neighbours and other professionals. Many troubled children and young people have lived in a disturbing environment – their family – for years before they arrive on the doorstep of substitute care. The family would feel comfortable even with the dysfunction around them because it was what they knew. Grandparental roles were mirrored by the hierarchical structure of the staff team, with supervisors interfering or undermining the work of the co-workers in the same way the grandparents in the family were undermining the parental role.
