| Abstract: | This paper is based on the experience of a consultant psychiatrist in a child abuse agency. Working with abusing families produces high levels of anxiety in the staff and conflicts over role are particularly strongly felt. These processes, as they affected the consultant psychiatrist and a staff group, were used to try to understand the anxiety and conflicts of the client families. The split between consultant and psychiatrist, between caregiver and authority figure, between parent and child, had to be acknowledged and accepted before the staff could work more effectively. Abusing families benefit from the range of skills offered by a multidisciplinary team. But the stresses for individual staff members working with these emotional, damaged, demanding, difficult families, can at times appear to be increased by the multidisciplinary team with its diversity of views. In the light of experience so far, it seems that work on the conflicts and anxiety needs to be part of a continuing process of staff development. Some of the difficulties for the consultant psychiatrist in such an institution are also discussed. |
