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This paper was originally published in the Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Interdisciplinary Health Team Care Conference, which took place September 26-28, 1985 in Chicago, Illinois.  It is reproduced here with the permission of the authors.

The team approach to interdisciplinary health care is designed to solve problems caused by the specialization and fragmentation in health care settings. Ideally, in teams a variety of specialists coordinate their efforts so as to provide more efficient delivery of care to patients. Yet, the demands of building and maintaining a team can give rise to new problems - strains, tension, and conflict among members, which, if not resolved, can result in low morale and reduction in the quality of care. In this paper, we draw on our own research (Feiger and Schmitt, 1979; Schmitt, et al, 1982a, 1982b; McMahon, et al, 1983; Farrell, et al, 1985) and past theory and research on the stages of group development to discuss a) the strains that are likely to occur at different stages of team development and b) the informal, expressive rituals, and styles of humor teams are likely to employ to manage the strains at each stage.
The roles, rituals and humor (expressive structures) will be illustrated with qualitative observations derived from research in three settings: a large teaching hospital, a large Veterans Administration Hospital, and a large, long-term care facility, all in metropolitan northeast cities. To gather the qualitative data, we reviewed videotapes of over thirty team meetings, directly observed ten meetings, went on four field trips with team members, and interviewed over twenty team members both individually and in groups.