ABSTRACT
Social defences are about containment, as conceptualized by Bion. Menzies Lyth developed the idea of social defences by fusing Bion's concept of containment with Fenichel's observations about the external influences on neuroses. Social defences enable people to metabolize their emotional experiences through creating meaningful connection, or they encode psychotic anxieties into organizational culture by fostering detachment and repression. Discerning the nature of social defences and the containment of anxiety in new settings requires understanding the world of the "Digital Natives". Digital natives spend their lives surrounded by computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and the tools of the digital age. People as digital immigrants have much to offer digital natives. Exploring the question of social defence systems in the twenty-first century requires looking at how tasks are shaped and work gets done. The chapter focuses on three related features of emerging work systems: knowledge work, globalization, and virtualization.
