ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author describes three questions that repeatedly preoccupy him in working with organizational groups. This is a feature of the group analytic technique of free-floating attention to notice unspoken or hidden communications from people in a group. In an organizational context these particular questions often reflect clients’ anxieties about the purpose of their work, their adequacy in undertaking it, and difficulties of power and control. This approach provides an application of the psychoanalytic concept of countertransference where a therapist or consultant’s thoughts and feelings may arise not only from themselves but from unconscious communications from the client. This chapter argues for the need to sometimes listen to clients less and ourselves more in order to distinguish between what is said and what might be meant.
