ABSTRACT
An individual newly joining an enterprise may experience it as a social defence system to which he or she must react and adapt. For the nurses in Isabel Menzies Lyth's study, "in the process of matching between psychic and social defence systems, the emphasis was heavily on the modification of the individual's psychic defences". Menzies Lyth underlines that the use of the organization of an enterprise as a defence against anxiety is operated only by individuals. Social defences against anxiety involve the conservation of this vagueness. Disruptive innovation demands that vagueness be questioned, through questioning an individual's unconscious libidinal investments in acritically held beliefs. Disruptive innovation can be understood as the disruption of existing ways of managing vagueness, a disruption that uncovers the limits of what is irremediable vagueness, or the limits to understanding how Agatha understands her needs. The chapter considers the psychoanalytic implications of considering how cross-boundary conditions come to dominate intra-enterprise dynamics.
