Psychodynamics for Consultants and Managers

Citation

Kekäle, T. (2010), "Psychodynamics for Consultants and Managers", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 195-196. https://doi.org/10.1108/13665621011028639

In this book, published in 2008, the authors state that their aim is to introduce the idea and basics of psychodynamics to people who really want to change organizations. The book approaches psychodynamics from four dimensions:

1. 1.

   the body of psychoanalytical knowledge;

2. 2.

   the social systems perspective;

3. 3.

   organizational inquiry; and

4. 4.

   organizational change interventions.

But wait: if psychodynamics is about psychoanalysis, then all of that is about sexuality and one's relation to one's mother and father, so there's nothing interesting to learn for typical JWL readers, right?

Quite the contrary. Be patient, just grab the book and start to read. Vansina and Vansina‐Cobbaert (and the two other contributors, Gilles Amado and Sandra Schruijer, who co‐author one chapter each in the more “empirical” third part of the book) make a quite good point on why even people who do not hold a great belief in psychoanalysis and the subconscious processes among people – those that either hinder, or even can be made to help, change and learning in organizations – should understand these processes and learn to read them.

I myself am interested in the subconscious beliefs that form the essences of organizational and national cultures. So, no matter what one's opinion of Freud's work is, there are quite a lot of other interesting research areas based on the ideas of how the subconscious works. Despite the differences in terminology, it seems that Vansina's and Vansina‐Cobbaert's ideas of psychodynamism would be quite acceptable to a mainstream of organizational psychologists who are not too narrow‐minded with the vocabulary. Vansina‐Cobbaert even goes to lots of pains in the first part of the book in defending psychoanalysis as the base for their work. To my own opinion, she also at the same time “mainstreams” psychoanalysis to the extent that it is difficult to recognise Freud et al. any more. On the other hand, the first chapter already manages to convince me that there are important learnings in the book; she lists briefly the main psychoanalytic convictions and purposes of the interventions as:

• •

  the influence of dynamic unconscious systems on all aspects of human life;

• •

  situation‐specific, rather than overly theoretical, approach;

• •

  action‐research, or action‐analytical interventions, where the consultant starts from not knowing but reading the situation in which the organization finds itself;

• •

  creating an environment and conditions that facilitate change; and

• •

  contribution to further development of the dynamic unconscious as a system.

As noted, to me each of these points compares well with what I have learned of organizational psychology theory, as well as with the writings of, for example, Geertz or Schein in cultural interventions, and also my own research. The basic idea is that no two situations are the same, and each situation must be understood. This may be against the universal theories and “if‐then” teachings of the business schools, but sometimes (most of the time, actually) one must trust one's own judgement of what is the culprit that hinders the organisation from taking the next step. So, quite sensible consulting or culture‐study practice – just that Geertz, Schein or myself do not call our views psychodynamism. There may be authors and schools that are against one or several of these points, or the word psycho‐anything, but the target groups of the book – managers and consultants – would never go completely wrong in following these main principles. Thus, the second and third chapters especially of the book are quite interesting for practitioners.

To me, on first read, the shortcoming of the book is the explanation of the connection with the psychoanalytic theory base (which, as far as I can understand, concerns individuals) and the understanding of the collective unconscious of organizations. The basic mechanisms of the development of both are certainly comparable, but there are books and papers on the market that, to my opinion, explain the development and effects of unconscious processes in groups and organizations in a way that is more transparent than that of Vansina‐Cobbaert. Having said that, the paragraphs of transference, counter‐transference and projective identification make quite an interesting read from the viewpoint of, for example, researcher objectivity – they just are somewhat difficult to connect to the rest of the work.

The references that the authors use (each chapter has its own reference list, so in that way the book looks a bit like an article compilation, even if it otherwise is a good flowing read) are not the classics that one would see in JWL articles. There are, indeed, quite a lot of management classics among the references, but mostly the notes have to do with books in psychology. Among the references there are not many journal articles, so one may also claim that the book is not based on the latest research. The authors do indeed state that the book is based on practical experience (of decades), and is written with practitioners in mind – and in practitioner‐friendly language, mostly. On the other hand, even an academically oriented, open‐minded JWL reader might find a completely new world of ideas from leafing through the reference lists.

As a final assessment, I suggest that the book could be worthwhile especially to the people it is aimed at – managers, consultants, change agents, and whoever wants to understand organisations and why it is so difficult to change them. And, even if the authors themselves might not agree with my recommendation, I would suggest for people new to this subject reading this book alongside Schein on organizational consulting, or Geertz on studying cultures, or Levin on action research; the ideatical similarities might be bigger than the terminological differences, and this mixture may turn out very uplifting for the understanding of how the human part of the world works.