ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an example of the contribution that psychodynamically informed consultancy can make to supporting staff teams in thinking through and creatively managing the inevitable and intrinsic emotional wear and tear of working in the area of mental health and old age. The basic framework of the consultation approach the chapter describe aims to afford staff a space in which to share and give value to the undercurrents of their experience and their meaning: to transform a hazard into an occasion. The paranoid organization of the patient was echoed in the session as the group discussed their own position as staff and their feeling that their own opinions were easily discredited by other professionals. In the countertransference response, because the staff member felt the guilt, it had become increasingly difficult to interpret or offer anything back because of the constant abreaction.
