ABSTRACT
Here, we summarise and review the concepts and working practices of the systems psychodynamics model of organisational consultancy and its current applications. We clarify that the systems psychodynamics literature pertaining to consultancy work and organisational theory is made up of many strands and theories. We claim that psychoanalytic theory as a means of understanding organisational process has a privileged place alongside open systems theory. These two bodies of knowledge come together in the descriptions of projective and introjective process that occur in organisations and in the individuals within them. However, the application of these ideas as a consulting methodology is poorly theorised. We detail how consultancy in the systems psychodynamics tradition brings these two bodies of knowledge together for the sake of making better sense of the vicissitudes of organisational life. Specifically, the relationship between introjection and projection in the consulting relationship is not usually made explicit in the literature.
