ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis of individual patients has provided psychoanalytically trained organisational consultants with a store of conceptual tools for understanding unconscious emotional processes in organisations. This paper illustrates how psychoanalytic concepts such as splitting, projection, denial, idealisation, projective identification and counter-transference can be used in consultancy work. Examples are given to show how the consultant relates to both conscious and unconscious meanings and holds split feelings in mind until the timing is right to make an intervention that leads towards integration. The reduction of splitting within teams and between departments helps the organisation as a whole move from a paranoid-schizoid culture to a depressive position mode of reality-based cooperation.
