What was the experience of trainee child and adolescent psychotherapists working with their patients during the Covid-19 pandemic?

The purpose of this study has been to gain an understanding of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic which brought challenges and great change to the work of child psychotherapists working for the NHS. CAMHS clinics closed in March 2020 as part of the UK government’s attempts to control the spread of the virus, and therapists continued their clinical work using a technology-mediated setting, with both the child and therapist in their own homes. This study aimed to explore the impact of these changes on a group of trainee child and adolescent psychotherapists and their young patients. The experience of working in the context of a shared external threat, the move to a remote setting, and the implications for unconscious communication in the transference relationship are all explored. The research was conducted using a psychoanalytic framework of thinking and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was the methodology used for collecting and interpreting the interview data. Empirical evidence relating to the wider impact of Covid-19 on children and young people, as well as the past and current debate on the use of technology for therapy, is also explored. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight trainee child and adolescent psychotherapists, at various stages of their clinical training at the Tavistock Clinic. Reflexivity and the researcher’s own place in the study are explored fully. The key findings of this study were that the early experience of the pandemic and national lockdown was shocking, traumatic, and difficult to think about; that the separation of therapist and patient resulted in an undermining of the containing function usually offered by an embodied psychoanalytic setting; and that participants showed creativity, tenacity and determination in the face of the personal losses brought on by a global health crisis.