The Psychoanalysis of Organizations

Summary

This book applies psychoanalytic theory to the understanding of groups and organizations. Robert De Board explores how unconscious emotional processes influence organizational behaviour, relationships, leadership, decision-making, and the way people respond to authority and change.

The book draws on the ideas of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, Wilfred Bion, Kurt Lewin, and Eric Menzies to explain how organizations can become affected by anxiety, projection, transference, splitting, and other unconscious processes. A particularly important idea is that organizations may develop structures and patterns of behaviour that function as defences against anxiety.

De Board also examines leadership, group dynamics, organizational systems, and the relationship between individual psychological needs and organizational functioning. Overall, the book argues that understanding the unconscious emotional life of an organization can help explain behaviours that may otherwise appear irrational or difficult to understand, and can contribute to making organizations more effective and psychologically healthier.