ABSTRACT
Psychoanalytic research is a hybrid; it exists between the clinical practice of psychoanalysis from which nearly all psychoanalytic knowledge has come, and on the other hand, social science. There are, however, several problems with accessing knowledge about the human unconscious from outside the clinical setting, which are specific to psychoanalytic studies. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents an overview of the method of psychoanalytic observations of organisations and examines the links with the clinical practice of psychoanalysis and the method of infant observation as well as the theoretical concepts of the anxiety/defence model, splitting, projection and projective identification, transference and countertransference, and psychosocial culture underpinning this observational method. It offers an exploration of integrating psychoanalytic thinking with visual methods for data collection. The book presents biographical narrative interview method and interpretation.
