ABSTRACT
This chapter examines systems psychodynamics interventions, which serve the purpose of identifying and working through collective social defences occurring within an organisation; assisting the organisation in developing some more task-appropriate adaptations. Together, consultants and clients will explore the nature of certain problems and will devise some ideas for change, as well as testing these ideas and evaluating their results. This process aims to shift focus away from the group's relation to the consultant and onto the relationships between group members themselves. There is a strong focus on the ways in which authority is psychologically distributed, exercised and enacted in contrast with how it is formally invested. Consultants work with the unwanted feelings and experiences that are being projected onto certain individuals and groups and focus on the ways in which individuals take up their work roles. Consultants use a variety of assessment and intervention methods, disclosing meaning to the client, to the organisation-in-themselves and themselves-in-the-organisation.
