Are you sitting (un)comfortably? Then I’ll begin. An autoethnographic account of social defences in a secondary school assembly hall.

Drawing upon Kleinian psychoanalytical theory of object–relations, this thesis examines systems psychodynamics within my role as a Year 7 Form tutor in a mainstream secondary academy school. In an autoethnographic study, I observe how anxiety and the unconscious social defences associated with it are represented in many aspects of my job, particularly through taking my form group into school assembly as a psychological process. Reflecting on five short stories of my experiences, I offer an analysis of the confused and disquieting feelings I experienced in my role. I then develop a reflective model to explain my gradual dissociation from the core function/culture or primary task of the school. By accepting Isabel Menzies Lyth’s observation that the “evasion of anxiety inhibits growth” (1988, p.109), some conclusions are drawn to suggest that the social defences evident in the assembly inhibit the pastoral system’s capacity to adequately contain the children’s unbearable feelings of anxiety.