The dance next door: ‘attacks’ on thinking in primary care mental health

In this paper, I aim to share my personal reflections and learnings from an attempt to implement a 14-week experiential group in a primary care community mental‑health service. The group was informed by applied psychodynamic principles and concepts. In this article, I aim to detail and reflect upon the instances of innovation, and the limitations of attempts to truncate psychodynamic and attachment ideas. I consider the pressures and demands to truncate by referencing the idea of McDonaldization (Goodman, 2015; Ritzer, 1993). McDonaldization is a metaphor to describe societal dynamics in which the primacy of efficiency, convenience and predictability results in dehumanised automatised experiences of customer service.