THE RECIPROCAL REFLECTING TEAM - A MODIFICATION OF THE REFLECTING TEAM IN A CHILD-PSYCHIATRY UNIT

The purpose of reflecting teams is to instigate change in systems that have become bogged down, including helper systems. The modifications that have been made in the Andersen reflecting team since it was first described (1987) are summarized. The reflecting team technique derives from family therapy and is epistemologically based on the radical constructivism of Bateson (1981), von Forster (1985), von Glaserfeld (1985) and others. Making use of the information resources of the key workers on our child psychiatry unit, we developed another variation, a <<reciprocal reflecting team>>. This model is suitable for use in a clinical setting because it involves all of the key individuals working with a given child. The fundamental difference between our model and Andersen's is that initially we have no reflecting phase for psychotherapists. Rather, we start with a reflecting sequence in which the multidisciplinary clinical team discusses observations, information and hypotheses about the index patient and his or her family. Our impression is that our results are compatible with those of Hoger et al. (1994) that family therapy using a reflecting team effects positive change in two of three cases. Because we have no follow-up data and our sample is still very small we base this on spontaneous positive feedback from the family members regarding their satisfaction with treatment. Further evidence is provided by clinical observations on the children's behavior and on changes in family interaction.