Roberts, David; (2020) ‘The paradox of living with the unknown’ The Mulberry Bush School: an exploration of how a therapeutic approach to looking after emotionally traumatised children affects their capacity to develop relationships, and to understand and regulate their feelings and behaviour. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The impact of early-life trauma on young children should not be underestimated, nor the impact of living and working alongside these children. This study is concerned with how a therapeutic residential special school affects primary-aged children who have experienced early-life trauma. The therapeutic environment focusses on building relationships as a way to support the children to understand and manage their impulsive behaviours. This study makes an original contribution to the field of therapeutic residential childcare, looking at how a psychodynamically informed model, underpinned by group work, affects children and their families. The study employed a case study approach, focussing on the Mulberry Bush School and its therapeutic approach to care, with the cases of four children forming embedded units. Seven interviews per child were undertaken over an 18-month period, supported by observations and documentation. Psychodynamic and reflective practice approaches were adopted for the analysis and discussion of the evidence. The analysis found that the therapeutic environment positively affects the children’s ability to understand their feelings, leading to more positive relationships and improvements in behaviour. However, the analysis also identified significant variation in expectations about child placements and their benefits, with many of the staff having expectations of emotional development that exceeded what the children had the potential to display. Despite many positive outcomes, how these were achieved was often poorly articulated and misunderstood. In part, this may be understood as a defence against their experiences of emotional trauma, which paradoxically leads to increased levels of anxiety among children, families and staff. This highlights training and organisational implications for the school, and more widely for the therapeutic childcare sector. This research makes an original contribution to the existing knowledge about the therapeutic approaches used for looking after children who have experienced early-life trauma. The conclusions from this thesis have implications not only for the Mulberry Bush School – the organisation and its training provision – but also for the therapeutic childcare sector as a whole.

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