Division 39 Spring Meeting, Santa Monica, CA April 25-30, 1995: New Models of the Mind: Unconscious Processes in Psychoanalytic Treatment

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Curtis
Author(s):  
Adela Barabasz

An article introduces psychoanalytic concepts which can be of help in making sense of seemingly irrational processes in individuals, groups and organizations. Looking at an organization through the spectrum of psychoanalytic concepts is a potentially creative activity which may help in understanding and dealing with such issues like motivation, control, assessment of organizational members. An author believes that recognizing unconscious, hidden motives will let the managers to avoid automatic reactions and will improve the effectiveness of their influences. The main described notion is a transference occurring when employee brings into relationship with a superior (leader, manager) something that belongs elsewhere, which may take the form of a feeling, or a pressure to take up a particular role. Counter-transference is the response in the mind of superior, which may also take the form of a feeling or one kind of behavior. Both transference and countertransference are unconscious processes and are not liable to rational control.


Volume 11 of the Collected Works, with an introduction by the British analyst Professor Steven Groarke, consists of two books of Winnicott’s writings, Human Nature and The Piggle, both published posthumously. Human Nature gathers together Winnicott’s own teaching notes on the subject of human growth and development with other unpublished writings from this period. Winnicott reflects on the vast subject of human nature from his own experience, returning throughout to certain topics of continuing interest for him, including psyche-soma and the mind, health and ill health, the body and psychological disorder, psychosomatics and emotional development, health and the instincts, the depressive position, repression, hypochondria, the inner world, intellectual function, illusion, creativity, the environment in psychoanalysis, withdrawal, and regression. The second half of Volume 11 consists of the case history The Piggle: An Account of the Psychoanalytic Treatment of a Little Girl, in preparation by Winnicott at the end of his life but completed and published after his death. This book includes an introduction by Donald Winnicott, a preface by Clare Winnicott and the British analyst Ray Shepherd, and a foreword by the American analyst Ishak Ramzy, who corresponded with Winnicott and, with his help, prepared and edited the book for publication. The Piggle collects Winnicott’s records of sixteen consultations with a toddler-age child, Gabrielle, and an afterword by her parents. Volume 11 is introduced by the psychoanalyst and Professor of Social Thought, Steven Groarke.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document