ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors focus on the application of the Tavistock Under Fives model to work in a community setting, a general practitioner's (GP) surgery. The Tavistock Under Fives model is particularly well suited to a primary care context that offers help to the families, providing a “thinking space” in an easily accessible community base. Child psychotherapists have a contribution to make in supporting primary health care teams, which include GPs, health visitors, and practice nurses, alongside child psychologists and other early years professionals. As Dilys Daws states, “A psychotherapist can perhaps back the primary care team in continuing to recognize the importance of the emotional and psychosomatic aspects of their work, and in keeping going over years of dealing with the cumulative experience of seeing patients with undefined needs”. The authors believe that the clinician’s presence helps both the patients and the staff, as the sense of a sinking heart is diminished when it can be thought about and understood.
