The Tavistock Model of Organisational Consultancy - an introduction to the model in action: The first Contact.

Background:

A colleague and I were visiting a local Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) which was based somewhere in the nearby city and which was part of our Mental Health Trust: 'We' were the Trust-wide tertiary Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Service who were only allowed to take referrals from within the Trust and if, initially, from outside the Trust, only via the Access Team which was one of the main parts of the CMHT that we were visiting.

Rationale for contact:

Most of our referrals (INPUTS) came via this Access Team and we wanted to make face-to-face contact to facilitate this relationship, so, while such contact would be of obvious benefit to the Access Team, the real impetus came from us.

We had agreed that two of our team, my manager and I, a group-analyst, would visit this site just after 9.00 am one morning and would meet and greet the team and generally get to know each other and facilitate liaison. This was pre-GPS time so we figured out by map where the CMHT was sited, which, we discovered, was in the middle of a housing estate in our local city.

The setting

Having reached this estate, we saw that it was a seemingly limitless set of roads and junctions populated by an equally limitless collection of near identical council type houses and we spent a long time tracking down the correct road and figuring out the numbering so that, eventually, we found what seemed to be the near-enough spot where the CMHT was housed/located.

Having, by going by the very sparse numbering, found what seemed to be the site of our non-numbered building, we were pretty irritated and by no means sure that this site, which was, in appearance, another slightly larger 'council house', was really the CMHT.

There was no signage outside and no number on the gate and so we parked-up and tentatively looked around. Walking up the garden path (literally and more and more it seemed, metaphorically) we found that the front door and porch was locked-up as if it had been closed-off for a long, long time.

The Analytic part of our model: Counter-transference

How did we feel? Consciously; amused, foolish and less consciously, annoyed - where was this place - is it the wrong house, the wrong street etc etc? We tentatively (again) found our way around the side of the house and eventually found another door, which at least looked as if it was in use and rang the bell. A friendly soul but who did not know who we were, answered the bell and eventually, all was explained by us and we entered the CMHT offices which were on the top floor.

Face-to-face meetings duly took place and we handed-out our carefully prepared leaflets and then the daily huddle (or probably report-out, then) started, which, was (a) impressive and also (b) excluding of us....in fact, leaving us to find members of the team not engaged with this, with whom to talk.

How did we feel? Consciously - relieved to have found our target and to have met some nice people. Less consciously - embarrassed/ashamed (to have taken this so seriously?) - annoyed (to have not been taken seriously?) and slowly and more unconsciously, angry (at such disrespect ..............contempt?).

Of course in 'real life' we would have rationalised all these feelings and laughed it all off but in terms of this model, these feelings are in fact vital clues - when wearing our visiting, analytic-organisational-consultant we note these feelings as they are, as analysts, understood as counter-transference.

When we set out that morning our feelings were of pleasure, excitement, amusement etc but after our journey and 'greeting' these had been slowly supplanted by annoyance, embarrassment and increasing irritation or.........in a more reductionist, analytic language - anger and shame.

As analysts, we understand then that these feelings were not primarily ours but those of the host organisation - the CMHT - which had been experienced by us....picked-up as it were by our underlying radar which had filtered out the more surface social greeting and felt instead (or, as well) the underlying, unconscious feelings swirling around, under the surface, of the CMHT.

Of course, in further visits, had we made them, these feelings would have been militated against by familiarity and so would not have been evident and in terms of helpful consultancy, would have been unavailable to us.

Again of course, we were not there as consultants but as visiting colleagues so this is used an example but i think, a good example of how an outside consultant using this model uses the 'analytic half' of the model.

In our next post we will look at how this vignette can be used to illustrate the other half of this model - the Social Systems half.