ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how psychoanalysis aids in developing comprehension of organisational functioning, group dynamics, leadership dysfunctions and socially sanctioned institutional defences, by considering the effects of the unconscious. Kleinian object relations theory suggests that humans are primarily motivated by the need to form relationships. The term ‘objects’ refers to significant others with whom an individual relates – mother, father or primary caregiver. ‘Internal objects’ are figures that have been internalised. Mental representations of the relationships between self and these ‘internal objects’ are laid down in the mind from infancy onwards. Central to object relations theory is the notion of splitting, which is the mental separation of objects into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parts and the subsequent repression of the ‘bad’, or anxiety-provoking, aspects. Development is viewed as evolving from a state of complete, infantile dependence towards a state of interdependency. Defences developed against intolerable anxieties in the early stages of life remain a permanent part of psychic life alongside the emergent feelings of guilt, reparation and love. The psychoanalytic perspective refers to individual experiences and mental processes (transference, resistances, object relations, phantasy), as well as to the experience of unconscious group and social processes. Marianne Fotaki contributes a section on a feminist psychoanalytic approach.
