Contents Vol. 25.1
to be published June 2025
Articles
The Good, The Bad, and the Insightful In Between
Comparative analysis with the innovation leadership map as a way to psychodynamically illuminate the emotional gearing influencing innovation outcomes
Brett Macfarlane
Abstract
A practical psychodynamic understanding of how professionals experience and perform through the uncertainties of innovation may help organisational development practitioners better support executives navigating this specific leadership situation. This paper presents observations from a novel leadership development approach building on the previously developed “innovation leadership map” theoretical model as a comparative method of evaluating good and bad leadership experiences with structured psychodynamic interpretations. Action research with over 500 professionals suggests positive professional and personal outcomes with this approach. Observed across participants was that the framework and comparative method provided i.) rarely accessed experiential self-analysis of their response range when operating in emotionally charged environments of innovation ii.) relatable language to insightfully describe and discuss the feelings, thoughts, and behaviours of leadership that influence outcomes and iii.) a way for individuals to access evidence-based underlying psychodynamic imprints influencing how they work with or destructively become overwhelmed by innovation’s emotional dynamics. While every innovation leadership situation is unique, the mechanism of “emotional gearing” featuring centered, surging, and stuck positions is proposed as a practice for how leaders can work with and be mindful of strong emotions within themselves, their team, and/or the organisation.
Methods in Socioanalytic Research, Coaching and Consulting, and Psychodynamic Therapy:
Some distinctions and implications
Susan Long
Abstract
Socioanalytic research, coaching and organisational consultancy use methods originating in psychodynamic therapy (Long 2013). But the purposes and ways that the data is utilised in these different disciplines differ. This article explores such purposes, uses and some implications for ethical practice. The origins of the methods and their current usage is discussed. This discussion is important for those undertaking socioanalytic, psycho-social or systems psychodynamic methods in research, coaching and consultancy.
Action Research on Organisational Silence
The Impact on Vulnerable Families in Social Work
Susanne Broeng
Abstract
This paper focuses on the dynamics of silence within a workplace that holds authority over working with vulnerable families. The research project builds upon the premise that organisational silence exists. The primary research question for this action research project examines how organisational silence affects social work practices and the professionals involved. Social workers navigate a dual role: They act as authoritative figures representing institutional power, while simultaneously serving as empathetic professionals tasked with building trustful and respectful relationships with vulnerable families. The project took place in a Danish municipality with 50,000 inhabitants, exploring how organisational silence affects work dynamics
The conclusion of the action research project highlights that collaboration between management and employees plays a crucial role in fostering openness, courage and trust within the organisation. The study identifies an absence of shared objectives, insufficient communication, a deficit in affective alignment, and a lack of containment. These factors collectively contribute to dysfunctional mirroring, basic assumption processes, and the manifestation of emotional needs. Several solution initiatives were launched, but they lacked genuine employee support leading to a communication mismatch. Understanding the radical clashes that arise in everyday life and in organisations is crucial, particularly when we experience significant disruption to previously taken-for-granted patterns, routines, and expectations.
The project demonstrates that both conscious and unconscious experiences and emotions have erected a barrier between employees and management, adversely affecting the quality of dialogue and engagement. The more overwhelming the emotions, the greater the anxiety, which hinders the acceptance of accurate information and leads to distorted experiences that impact the work with vulnerable families.
Digital transformation: exploring the human-technology constellation in our entangled organizations.
Nick Waggett
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 paper I explore one aspect of this dynamic, which is that technologies are entangled with the anxieties of human service organisations where the task is caring for people who are ill or in distress. This may lead to structures and processes that are not requisite to the primary task of these services and the technology implementation may fail to meet its aims.
I draw on the work of Kurt Lewin, Isabel Menzies Lyth, socio-technical systems theory and my own research to explore the entangled nature of contemporary organisations. I suggest ways in which we might develop our concepts and practices to fully account for the role of technologies in organisational process and therefore our ability to consult to those processes.
Challenging orthodoxies, or “no worthy problem is ever solved within the planes of its original conception”.
Jo-anne Carlyle and Barbara Williams
Abstract
Drawing on contemporary progressive psychoanalytic thinking and critical social theory, this paper examines some of the orthodoxies and unchallenged assumptions in the theory and practice of systems psychodynamics and its offspring group relations. While their foundational forms have been undeniably important to our learning, we question why and how the structural and systemic underpinnings of real global inequities, and social justice organisations’ efforts to address these, are not having more impact in systems psychodynamic and group relations theorising and practice. We use our experience consulting with social justice organisations in their efforts to address these global inequities, and our development and adaption of the groups relations model to challenge potential orthodoxies and question resistance to change within the field. At heart, our inquiry is addressed to those of us committed to systems psychodynamic work and to the originating ethos of that work, in a vulnerable global context and to question, as Carson does, humanity’s faith in existing technological and socio-political progress.
Speaking Out
With Dreams, We Will Have Realities
Alan Ruiz
Abstract
What happens when an institution outgrows its container? In 2000, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art announced an expansion project that would consolidate its five existing buildings. By 2003, the plan had been abandoned due to its financial reach. This essay explores the legacy of this unrealised project and the possible unconscious dynamics at play that led to this outcome. The article demonstrates the way irrational forces influence the development of the built environment, as well as the way architecture is used to contain anxiety associated with periods of organizational and societal change. I argue that this project’s legacy endures as an under-explored and valuable case study illuminating the complex intersection of social systems, leadership, global architecture, urban development, and shifting understandings of the role of art institutions at the dawn of the new millennium.
You Only Live Twice Psychodynamic Reading of 007
Halina Brunning
Abstract
Twenty-Five James Bond films, produced across a period of 63 years are being explored as a meaningful indicator of times to come. The unthought known shows us the way.
Book Review
A Social Dreaming Experience at the Time of Covid by Pasini, E. and Trimboli, C.
Springer International Publishing AG ISBN: 978-3-031-42497-7 (2023)
Reviewed by Julian Manley