I had initially thought about what I wanted to share with them. Despite it being an informal meet up, I felt the need to convince them that it was not play for me in London. It was difficult to put together my learning. After all, I did not suppose they will be very interested to know that I had learnt how Bateson had influenced the discipline with his contribution via cybernetics or that the original Milan team split to pursue their respective beliefs in family therapy.
However, as the meeting went on, I realised that the best contribution I had brought back was the subconscious systemic thinking I was beginning to develop. As I listened in to the development in the clinical work that had taken place back in the office, I realised that I had been able to think about the challenges in a more systemic manner. While many things sounded as though they had linear causalities, I started to question the possible circularity that could be involved. I caught myself preaching about reflecting team, a concept taught in class and experienced during my placement. I explored the possibilities of having more distinctive roles between social workers and therapists and having them work in teams. In reality, social workers are expected to double up as therapists. When a family is assessed to require in-depth therapeutic work, they are referred to the counsellors within the organisation who are not trained in systemic work. In rare situations where a family sees both a social worker and a counsellor, the professionals' work with families are independent of each other; as though families could work on their family related issues totally exclusive of what happened in another part of the family system.
I remembered walking away from the meeting feeling that I had showed my employers a brief glimpse of my development over the past three months. While it may not be significant at this moment, I liked what I had brought along with me to the meeting and I looked forward to sharing more during my next visit back home.
