ABSTRACT
The method of work discussion is highly particular, it depends on a single individual practitioner observing himself or herself while actively involved in a work situation and reflecting on the implications of what is being seen and experienced. Work discussion, since its inception, has had two major purposes. The first of these, which it shares with the method of infant observation, is educational and formative. In some educational programmes infant observation, and work discussion, and sometimes young child observation too have been undertaken in parallel, together with a course in psychoanalytic theory. The different balance between reflection and activity called for by these settings is often helpful to the learning process. Work discussion is indeed a method whose boundaries are porous and flexible. Those kinds of organizational consultancy that are informed by psychoanalytic thinking have long made use of methods of observation and reflection that are akin to “work discussion”.
