Abstract
The relevance of this book about the functioning of the NHS within the Covid 19 virus contest cannot be overstated and it should be required reading on training and CPD for all of the relevant professions. This is a very accessible and engaging book for people who have worked and had an experience of working for the NHS and also for people who are committed to the NHS as a national organization. It draws upon a huge amount of clinical experience from people who are eminent in their fields. It explains psychoanalytic and psychodynamic concepts very simply and accessibly and their application to real dilemmas for clinicians in the NHS context is clearly stated.
This book would also be very useful for people in consultation and management roles to understand the organizational dynamics that assist and hinder the work when working with vulnerable patient populations. It also explores the impact and possible burn-out that professionals may experience, and highlights the need for reflective group process and solid supervision in understanding organizational and group concepts from an unconscious perspective.
I particularly enjoyed Marilyn Miller’s paper on perspectives on containment as well as Wilhelm Skogstad’s chapter on understanding working in organizations. These chapters very clearly discuss issues of parallel process, contamination and contagion and how these impact on ways of working in organizations. It also allows for an understanding of how to navigate complex and distressing organizational and group dynamics.
Overall I would thoroughly recommend this book and I do hope that it is made available to various disciplines from social workers, psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists to people working in educational settings and perhaps even members of the public. Reading this would give them a very good grounding in the unconscious life of organizations, and the challenges to our NHS workers, particularly in this current context with the Covid 19 virus and how difficult emotional experiences and challenges can be better managed and understood.
