Skip to main content

WEBINAR: What can we learn from using online technology during Covid-19

CEO of the Association of Child Psychotherapists Dr Nick Waggett has recorded a webinar in which he discusses what we can learn from the experience of remote and online working during the  COVID-19 pandemic for the future provision of mental health services.

Drawing on doctoral research on the impact of technology on organisational process, and recent experience of the ACP’s response to COVID-19, he argues that the many potential benefits of technology and online working will not be realised if we do not learn fully from this experience. Instead the risk is that a partial view of the efficiencies of online technology is implemented as being an ideal model which in reality does not meet the needs of many service users and places an excessive burden of anxiety on staff. To engage thoughtfully and creatively with these new opportunities an environment is needed where anxiety can be moderated and decisions made that are clinically led rather than being technologically determined.

The webinar can be viewed here.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Neuroscience and Negative Capability

Letter sent to The Guardian 18/04/26 I was pleased to see in Dr Hannah Critchlow's article ( How to train your brain to see possibility instead of doom ) that neuroscience has discovered the challenges of managing uncertainty, and of poet John Keats's concept of 'negative capability' as an important human capacity when facing 'not knowing'. These ideas are central to psychoanalysis and especially its application to organisations known as systems-psychodynamics.  Wilfred R Bion (1897 – 1979) first suggested that the ability to remain “in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”, as Keats described, was an important state of mind for the psychoanalyst to nurture. In simple terms we might think of it as keeping an open mind and not rushing to premature conclusions.  This was later applied in the context of providing consultancy to organisations where, for example, a leader's capacity to not know all th...

Digital transformations

This paper has been published as Waggett, N. (2025). Digital transformations: Exploring the human-technology constellation in our entangled organisations. Organisational & Social Dynamics 25(1) 52–72 (2025)  Organisational and Social Dynamics,  25, 52-72. doi: 10.33212/osd.v25n1.2025.52   ABSTRACT Work, organisations, and society have been transformed by digital technologies. Information and communication technologies are increasingly important to the management and delivery of human services. Significant sums are invested with the expectation that new technology will drive positive changes such as improving service user experience, efficiency, and outcomes. Sometimes the promises of technology are not fully realised. As researchers and practitioners in organisational and social dynamics it is important to understand how these technologies are affecting the ways in which we organise, communicate, and relate.  In this article I explore one aspect of this dynamic, ...

In the age of the smart machine (again)

In the age of the smart machine  How can we benefit from the opportunities of digitization and AI in ways that improve both the provision of services and the experience of those working in them? As a way of reflecting on the current imperative to benefit from the role-out of AI across business and public services, I have been re-reading Shoshana Zuboff’s seminal study ‘In the age of the smart machine’ . This book, published in 1988, traced the implementation of an earlier generation of computer technologies. Whilst AI has many different characteristics, opportunities and potential risks, I think Zuboff’s analysis continues to have relevance and can provide insight into what is happening today.  Automate or informate A key distinction Zuboff makes is between technology used to automate work processes or to informate them.   If technology is used only to automate work:  it can reduce skill levels, and dampen the urge towards more participatory and decentralized...