Tuesday 19th March
Is there a place for Psychodynamic Thinking in an organisation dominated by acting out and a
fear of failure?
Chris Gore
As a counsellor working with adolescents who have been excluded from mainstream education and with the staff who support them I have had to adapt my role. Through understanding my counter-transference and my recurrent feelings of failure as a counsellor I will show how psychodynamic thinking can help both client and staff member to make sense of the hopelessness we have to carry as professionals with this client group. I will give examples of client work and how acting out behaviours such as attempted suicide can infiltrate the staff team and evoke feelings of hopelessness, failure, rivalry and low self-esteem. I will also highlight how an understanding of the social unconscious and the role of the organisation can enhance our thinking about these issues.
About the Speaker
Christopher Gore qualified in 2003 on the MSc in Psychodynamic Counselling course at Birkbeck. He worked in Palliative Care for a number of years as a counsellor with patients and bereaved relatives. He is currently a Senior Counsellor in a voluntary organisation working with adolescents excluded from mainstream education. In this role he also sees parents for counselling and supervises staff both individually and in groups. He has been a visiting lecturer at Birkbeck on the Introduction to Counselling courses and a staff member on a number of Group Relations Conferences, also at Birkbeck.
