The Development of Integrated Training at Tavistock Relationships

*

We welcome Susan Pacey's (2019) appeal for greater integration between psychoanalytic/psychodynamic and psychosexual approaches in addressing sexual problems. This has been a long-held aim at Tavistock Relationships (TR), London.

Our response highlights TR's unique contribution to promoting practice informed by these two perspectives. Unfortunately, this evolution in training hasn'tbeen accompanied by academic publications that do justice to the many significant developments in integrated training since its conception in the mid-1990s. This has occurred in clinical practice, including varied clinical placements, supervision, theoretical and clinical seminars, self-reflection, case studies, dissertations, continuing professional development (CPD) events, and programmes.

Maureen Boerma, Director of Training at TR from 2012 to 2016, and Programme Head for its couple psychodynamic and psychosexual programmes , actively worked with others to integrate psychosexual learning and practice in training programmes and outreach. Catriona Wrottesley, past Programme Head for TR's couple psychoanalytic programme and, from 2016, for its psychodynamic and psychosexual programmes, from 2012 to 2016 oversaw expansion in CPD activities including psychoanalytically informed psychosexual events and conferences.

In this article, we seek to address the four primary criticisms Pacey makes of professional trainings:

1. Couple psychotherapy was separated from psychosexual approaches

2. Sensate focus was taught as a cognitive-behavioural exercise with little thought given to the emotional-relational aspects of the intervention and its impact on the transference relationship couple-to-therapist and partner-to-partner

3. Trainees were not learning about sex in their own therapy

4. Working in an integrated manner risked alienating senior supervisors and teachers who held to mainstream split approaches.