Consciousness raising & well being in the public sphere: psychoanalytic perspective

This paper traces a lineage of ‘organizational depthpsychology’ from Freud through to post-Bion perspectives on organizational consultancy. In reviewing the psychoanalytic approach to organizations two dominant strands emerge; first, that theories seem to be constructed around a critical conception of institutions and, second, that the active process of organizational consultancy, deriving from this critical base, is inclined to consciousness raising through the disruption of familiarity in the culture of the organization. The challenges of de-stabilization in the process of organizational progress, survival and decay are considered.