Can anybody hear me? Reacting to pressures from psychotic states of mind

Abstract

In this paper material is presented from supervision groups run for nurses and other mental health professionals. The patients presented to the group all came from different mental health settings and suffered from psychotic states of mind. In this paper I will argue that the psychodynamic model can help nurses and other front-line mental health professionals in their understanding of psychotic process. Nursing staff, in particular, are with their patients over long periods of time and see them in different settings. The psychodynamic model can be helpful in giving mental health professionals a language for describing their experiences of, and interaction with, their patients. The psychodynamic model can also provide a dynamic picture of the patient's problems over time. This type of assessment and thinking, which includes an understanding of the dynamic process involved in psychosis, can then stand alongside the medical model.

Tuning into the psychotic wavelength: Psychoanalytic supervision for mental health professionals

“…The supervision group leader is in a privileged position as he/she is not working directly with the patient and, consequently, is not so affected by the patient's concrete projections. The supervisor is in a position to encourage staff to separate themselves from the effects of the patients' projections while using their imagination to think about the meaning of the communications (Evans, 2008). So, for example, we may begin to think that the concrete image of the large man sitting on her head is actually related to Ms B's feeling that she feels as if she is weighed down and crushed by her father's expectations and that she feels as if she has 'the weight of the world on her shoulders'.…”