ABSTRACT
It may be said that within psychoanalysis the application to organizational life began with Freud’s consideration of the Church and Army. Psychoanalytic organizational psychology is still in its infancy compared to clinical psychoanalysis. Further, many of those interested in applying psychoanalytic viewpoints to their organizational consultation work are not clinicians, much less psychoanalysts. In consequence, the different backgrounds and experiences of psychoanalytically trained clinicians, and organizational practitioners, have a counterpart in the almost non-existent area of psychoanalytic practice and technique in group and organizational work settings. The core clinical modes in psychoanalysis are the processes that result in healing and transformation. In effect then, the psychoanalytically informed consultant uses psychoanalytic theory, conceptualization and insight to diagnose and identify emotional “hot spots” on the individual, group and/or organizational level, and designs consultations and/or multimodal intervention strategies based on these assessments.
