ABSTRACT
The increasing level of responsibility that bankers and business people take on as their careers progress does not necessarily go hand in hand with their psychological maturity. It is not uncommon for such a mismatch to develop into a full disaster, bringing serious suffering such as burnout, anxiety, panic or depression to the individual and sometimes also serious damage, such as financial loss and even bankruptcy, to the organisation. As an organisational consultant and an executive coach working psychodynamically, I have for many years worked with people in financial institutions. Mostly these were individuals with significant responsibility. From my training in Jungian psychoanalysis, similarities between many different cases of corporate rising and falling struck me and made me wonder if perhaps archetypal psychological mechanisms could be at work.
