ABSTRACT
The concept of social defences against anxiety became celebrated in academic circles, but applications in the workplace were few. For both Isabel Menzies Lyth and Jaques, were formative collective experiences of social psychology, both as observed in the group exercises and as experienced among themselves. Besides the crushing effects of micro-management, a valid explanation for the paucity of reflective practice at the front line is provided by the nurse. Urgent work generates anxiety, which is not only a mental process but a biological one, in that stress hormones facilitate action, not thought. A more fundamental obstacle to free discussion in human groups is identified by anthropologists who have studied the hunter-gatherer way of life. Resistance to Menzies Lyth's 1960 study of hospital nursing was fierce, her findings rapidly dismissed as the fault of poor management. Krantz writes in a special review of Isabel Menzies Lyth's influence that there is also a bittersweet quality to the arc of her work.
