ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to encourage a culture of open enquiry into an emotionally charged subject, drawing on his experiences as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice, as an organizational consultant working mainly in mental health and child care services and as a teacher delivering a syllabus entitled "Living and working with difference and diversity" to students of psychoanalytic approaches to organizational consultancy. He refers specifically to issues of ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality, though the psychological processes identified would apply to other areas of difference. The author identifies ways of facilitating discussions on difference and discuss ways of creating and preserving adequate containers for his work, touching on the fact that this is complicated by the dynamics of postmodern organizations, post 9/11 paranoid anxiety and a societal culture of narcissism. The author argues that psychoanalysis is all about recognition and appreciation of difference, yet the psychoanalytic profession itself does not have a good reputation in this area.
