Team Approach in Mental Health Services: Generalists or Specialists?

Shaw, Stephen J.; Herron, William G.; Poland, Harold V.

doi:10.2466/pms.1985.61.2.423

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 7 publications

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“…Their REATMENT TEAMS ARE work groups effective hnctioning is key to their parent that perform key productive tasks organizations' successful operation; yet within mental health care such teams are susceptible t o various forms of dysfunction. Identified causes of team dysfunction include role confusion among team members (Banta and Fox, 1976); competition for authority and value (Kane, 1975a; Benarroche a n d Astrachan, 1983;Greenblatt, 1992); conflict o r uncertainty about team tasks, treatment philosophies, a n d models of care (Newton and Levinson, 1973;Shaw, 1985;Toseland et al, 1986); autocratic, regressive, o r otherwise "inadequate" team leadership (Kernberg, 1979;Nash, 1982;Mizrahi and Abramson, 1985;Fiorelli, 19881, and the unconscious process of work group regression (Bion, 1961;Kernberg, 1978;Yank e t al., 1992a). However, previous reviews of team functioning and pathology have not consistently integrated these several factors or addressed the structural and communication considerations pertinent to teams functioning in an organizational context.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental health treatment teams and leadership: A systems model

1994

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Mental health treatment teams are living systems at the group level and comprise key productive subsystems of organizations providing mental health care. Effective treatment teams, like effective organizations, are anticipatory systems that contain subsystems that model and predict future system and environmental conditions and enable responses that increase system viability. A systems analysis of treatment teams highlights their potential instability due to their tendencies to regress toward dysfunctional partial systems and their active maintenance in nonequilibrium steady states with their organizational and external environments. Team subsystems are analyzed from the viewpoints of system processes and also with regard to individuals and their roles. Boundary processes are central to effective team functioning, assure constancy of team membership, and regulate the team's interfaces with its parent agency and with the external environment. Various causes and forms of disturbed information processing within hierarchical organizations are examined, and their effects at the treatment team level are discussed. The conclusion of the discussion focuses on team leadership and how leadership expands upon the concept of the decider subsystem to include role and personal factors to the team's leaders, and functions that are anticipatory and integrative in nature. Effective leaders must set appropriate thresholds for feedback regulation processes, and balance several pairs of seemingly opposing forces, including homeostasis and development, role differentiation and role overlap, and personal accountability and empowerment of others.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental health treatment teams and leadership: A systems model

1994

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Psychiatrists as treatment team leaders: Pitfalls and rewards

Rodenhauser

1996

Psych Quart

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The multidisciplinary treatment team has become a conventional component of inpatient psychiatric care delivery. Treatment team dynamics and their implications for the patient, the team members, the organization, and the team leader in particular have been generally understated in the training of psychiatrists, however, as has its value as a model for learning about administration. This article highlights the history and evolution of the multidisciplinary treatment team in psychiatry, the mix of mental health disciplines, philosophies, and roles involved, the characteristics of mental health care professionals, the conflicting manifest and latent work group tasks, and the dynamics and functions of team leadership. While reviewing information on which to base a systematic approach to team leadership, the author advocates for application of universal standards for education in administrative psychiatry including supervised leadership of multidisciplinary treatment teams and discussions of complimentary readings, examples of which are provided.

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The Mental Health Treatment Team as a Work Group: Team Dynamics and the Role of the Leader

Yank¹,

Barber²,

Hargrove³

et al. 1992

Psychiatry

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Although treatment teams have been examined often in the mental health literature, this literature seldom addresses the crucial property of "teamness"--the key set of intangible phenomena that allow a team to function synergistically as more than the sum of its parts, and with a sense of team identity. In this paper, the concept of the work group is used to develop a framework for understanding the factors contributing to effective team functioning and identity, an their implications for the tasks of team leadership and sociotherapy: "the art of maintaining a social system in which the treatment of an individual patient can best occur" (Edelson 1970). Leadership activities that promote team cohesiveness and boundary maintenance are discussed, and suggestions are provided for ways in which the subjective experiences and emotional reactions of the leader and team members can be used to promote improved task performance and clinical care.

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Team Approach in Mental Health Services: Generalists or Specialists?

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Mental health treatment teams and leadership: A systems model

Mental health treatment teams and leadership: A systems model

Psychiatrists as treatment team leaders: Pitfalls and rewards

The Mental Health Treatment Team as a Work Group: Team Dynamics and the Role of the Leader

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