ABSTRACT
Chapter 10 explores the role of hidden rationalities in creating and maintaining problems that remain unresolved despite considerable efforts, and to some extent because of them. The aim is to better understand people’s reasons for ignoring reason, and effective ways to ‘unfreeze’ habits of mind and behaviour that create obstacles to meaningful change. To this end the authors present an original PAR method that draws on paradoxical psychology and the insights of Watzlawick and his colleagues at Palo Alto’s Brief Therapy Center. The method, called Paradox, applies in situations where people recognize they are not taking action to address a key problem for reasons that remain obscure. These tacit reasons may include the benefits gained from maintaining the problem, the values that motivate people to ‘act against reason’, and their attitudes towards what seems inevitable. Paradox was initially designed to address health and safety issues in the construction industry. A sample of findings involving a small enterprise in the outskirts of Paris are presented in this chapter. The story includes an extensive review of theories of accident causation and prevention – a reminder that PAR must contribute to the creation of knowledge in substantive fields other than PAR theory and methods.
