Attention, cooperation, purpose : an approach to working in groups using insights from Wilfred Bion / by Robert French.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

French, Robert, author.

Simpson, Peter, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychoanalysis--Encyclopedias.

Psychoanalysis.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (177 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Boca Raton, FL : Routledge, an imprint of Taylor and Francis, [2018].

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book describes an approach based on attention that can help individuals and groups to cooperate more effectively. It presents the first book-length reassessment of Wilfred Bion's ideas on groups. Every group has a purpose or purposes - or, as Bion put it, "every group, however casual, meets to 'do' something." The approach described here shows how individual group members' use of attention - both broad or "evenly suspended" and focused - can promote a better understanding of purpose, making it possible for them to do what they have met to do. This work of attention enables group members to maintain a clear sense of their purpose and also to recognise how easily they can become distracted, losing focus and dispersing their energies into activities that are off task. The approach builds on the authors' experience of using Bion's insights into group dynamics over twenty-five years in different contexts, formal and informal, as group members, managers, leaders, teachers, consultants, researchers, family members, and friends.

Contents:

COVER; CONTENTS; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; ABOUT THE AUTHORS; PREFACE; CHAPTER ONE Attention; CHAPTER TWO Distraction; CHAPTER THREE Truth; CHAPTER FOUR Cooperation; CHAPTER FIVE Purpose; CHAPTER SIX Forms of interaction; CHAPTER SEVEN Learning the work of attention; REFERENCES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed December 16, 2014).

ISBN:

0-429-91111-4

0-429-89688-3

0-367-10270-6

0-429-47211-0

1-78241-280-8

9780429472114

OCLC:

896800070