Defensive patterns in reflective group supervisions at Child Health Centres

Reflective group supervision with infant healthcare workers has been described in several publications. It aims to enhance their ability to help distressed families, and to comprehend and relieve themselves of the distress that they encounter in such work. The ultimate aim has been formulated as an effort at increasing the professional's reflective function. The present article adds to the literature by applying an ego-psychological perspective on the group process and investigating defensive patterns in such supervisions. This approach includes a critical discussion of the place of the reflective function concept in psychoanalytic metapsychology. The article also suggests a Bionian perspective to account for skewed communicative patterns in groups, so-called basic assumptions. Some technical recommendations are provided on the frame in group supervision. They aim to disarm such defenses and facilitate the group participants’ possibilities of understanding and thus helping their colleague's problematic relationship with the family. To illustrate the discussion, and to help readers form an image of the supervision process, brief detailed accounts of such work are submitted.