Back chat may be part of a school culture. If you look at Bion and his basic assumption theory, most institutions will be operating in BaF- fight or flight as opposed to BaW ( work group mode-reserved for those nice small public and independent schools). Fight or flight is what happens to a group where everyone in is concerned with survival.
“The fight-flight group assumes that it must preserve itself at all costs, and that this can be done only by fighting of fleeing from someone or something. The group has no tolerance for weakness and expects casualties since salvation of the group is more important than the need of individual members. The flight-flight leader must inspire great courage and self-sacrifice, and lead the group against a common enemy. If none exists, the leader will create one.”and “In fight the group may be characterized by aggressiveness and hostility; in flight, the group may chit chat, tell stories arrive late and any other activities that serve to avoid addressing the task at hand. The leader for this sort of group is one who can mobilize the group for attack or lead it in flight”.
This BaF corresponds with Klein’s idea of the paranoid –schizoid position where a person manages relationships and experiences through primitive defence mechanisms such as splitting , hence the schizoid part of the paranoid-schizoid. The paranoia representing the fantasy or phantasy (out of awareness) of fears and anxiety from past personal and group experiences (Transference). That is to say that people within the group split into good and bad, negative and positive, teachers versus pupils, Maths against English, SMT/SLT against staff. An interesting researched example of this is when Elizabeth Menzies Lyth did a study of nurses in a hospital and found that even with people who had gone into a work situation with the desire to care holistically for their patients ( depressive position) that is to show compassion, sympathy, empathy, understanding, guilt, shame etc all characteristics of the depressive position, under stress they moved into the paranoid-schizoid position and started to split their patients into part objects referring to them as the leg, the kidney etc., effectively depersonalising them.
Petrouska Clarkson developed the idea of the Unfinished or transferential relationship. This kind of relationship is observed in the workplace, in schools etc, whereby a person projects unfinished and unresolved resentment, dissatisfaction and anger on to a representative authority figure who is in effect a mother/father substitute and the origin of all the unfinished stuff.
The question is how do we deal with this and get through every day without becoming ill.
I think understanding the psychodynamics of the institution helps, i.e. BaF. It is an institution and you have to get over it or get out. If it’s an average secondary school it will be too big and to be honest you won’t have the power or influence to reduce its size.
Be aware that people will be in the paranoid-schizoid position and that anybody in depressive position will be attacked as the soft underbelly, if you’re a decent understanding person you may have to recognise this and move on. It happened to me!
Be aware of being drawn into the Karpmann drama triangle- persecutor-victim –rescuer- google this for an explanation. The drama triangle is where people play games with each other- read TA Today. Stay outside of this by using immediacy, depersonalising responses e.g.” I ‘d like to talk to you right now John , but I’ve got to be on duty as we haven’t got enough staff.”, waiting, using “I “statements like “I need “and “I want”. Be matter of fact- Miss Jones was unhappy with your behaviour in class and this is the time of your detention or I’m quite happy to listen to you, but I can only see you at this time. We’ll talk about it a 3.15 etc.
Most Transactional Analysis therapists when faced with a client’s anger would not recognise it, statements could include “Keep going, you doing really well.” or “Any more?” or “Have you finished?” with a dead pan voice. You need to be careful here as these statements could come across as sarcastic. The idea is for the person to hear how they’re sounding and force them to be aware that they’re the only person in the drama triangle or game. Eric Berne called this Martian thinking as Martians, not being from earth, only understand the literal meaning of things and do not pick up on the subtext i.e. the aggression, tone of voice etc. Wait for the student to say something meaningful , you don’t have to respond otherwise. “A wise man knows when to keep his mouth shut”.
A lot of the drama triangle games will seem to have parallels with symbiotic relationships experienced by people who have borderline structure and people in contact with them. A lot of young people will go through borderline arrest, in my experience depending on family background and perhaps as a reaction to the trauma of being in a damaging system and institution. This borderline structure can be encountered in secondary schools, even primary and is common in PRUs. Selective symbiosis sometimes is necessary or passive behaviours (agitation,doing nothing, overadaptation,incapacition or violence-e.g. kicking a door in or cutting up) can be escalated as the student will perceive your ignoring or your calmness as abandonment. Recognising the anger usually works. “I can see that you’re really angry and I’m just wondering if it’s me you’re angry with or someone I represent or remind you of.” “ You seem really angry right now, I’m prepared to talk to you, but I don’t talk to you like that and I expect the same respect in return, that’s the situation.” “I’m going to wait over here and I’ll be available when you’re ready to talk to me calmly.” Leave plenty of space for the student to think (take up time) and stroke any positive attempt to communicate their needs responsibly. “Thanks John, I’m really glad you’re telling me what happened, we can communicate after all.”Choose your phrasing and tone carefully as this helps avoid inviting drivers. Inviting “be strong” would be counter productive, inviting “please others” is a bit manipulative, but would be useful in the long run, see overadaptation. e.g.” I was really hoping that you’d be able to help me understand what happened.”
Again see TA Today and Personality Adaptations ( Vann Joines, Ian Stewart- Life space publishing)
Make sure you get a supervisor, counsellor to offload and process the feelings that are being brought up within you.
Remember you can’t have your cake and eat it, don’t expect an institution to be healthy psychically.
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