Background to the Research

• An extensive body of research exists exploring the causes and consequences of the NI conflict, but little is known of the impact of the Troubles on the work and lives of social and health care professionals.
• This article explores, through the use of case studies, how Kleinian object relations theory may help professionals to better understand the impact of the conflict on their clients and themselves.
  

Research Approach

• The authors draw on extracts from clinical practice in order to examine the relationship between social conflict, individual thought processes and professional intervention.
  

Main Findings

• Social meaning and stereotypes attributed to 'the self and other' can be viewed as pathological in that they are often constructed from perceptions driven by anxiety, paranoid states and collective failure to see 'the good with the bad'.
• The pressure to maintain and reproduce dysfunctional and maladaptive patterns of object relationships in Ni is extremely forceful, both within professional groups and the wider community. The punitive superego, whether it is the external political object or the internal object, promises terror and persecution if it is not obeyed. · Social and health care professionals have a role to play in developing a social climate that allows for reparation after years of conflict.
• Agencies have a responsibility to act as a container for the difficult thoughts and feelings of staff so that these issues can be talked about for the first time.
• Working together will ensure that dialogue replaces destruction, trust replaces paranoia and hope replaces fear.