The Body of the Organisation and its Health

Using the frameworks of psychoanalysis, group relations, systemic organisational observation, consulting and research, this book explores the relationship between the health of the work force and the health of organisations. It seeks to do this through an exploration of experience that has three dimensions linked in a single matrix: The bodily, the emotional and the social. This exploration is inspired by Bion's original idea of the protomental matrix from which the group dynamics of basic assumption mentality are derived, leading to his initial ideas about group diseases and their cures.

Foreword , Introduction , The body of the organisation and its health , Birth of the body, birth of the mind, birth of the social , Protomentality 1 , Group body, group skin , Introduction , “Retainment” of staff: Towards a collective work ethic in managing presence and absence 1 , Social stress-related epidemic diseases: Failures in emotional containment 1 , Management of the risk of recycling trauma 1 , Shameless violations: Can restorative justice meet the case? , Financial bodies called to account: Corporate risks of carrying fear and greed on behalf of the body politic , From psycho-somatics to socio-somatics: Health risks to individual and organisational bodies in the psychotherapy profession 1 , Final Word

Richard Morgan-Jones