ABSTRACT
In this chapter we argue that a whole school approach to mental health wellbeing can be framed by adapting a “therapeutic community” approach drawing on the established principles of working therapeutically with children and young people (Diamond, 2016). A therapeutic community ideology is positioned as an opportunity to think more expansively about mental health in primary schools, envisaging a model where all parts of the school can work together to create a milieu conducive to wellbeing. In this system based approach, we envisage the role of the school psychotherapist as a facilitator who can hold in mind the identified client within the context of an array of dynamic interactions throughout the life of a school. That is to say, while concentrating on the focal time spent with the young clients, either individually or in a group situation, school psychotherapists should also pay heed to the overall context of the school as a psychologically informed therapeutic environment. In a broad sense we need to position the concept of the school, any school, as an adapted therapeutic community with the school counsellor or psychotherapist as a facilitator who fosters a 2culture that we might consider in terms of a whole school approach to sustaining a therapeutic milieu.
