Social Defences Against Anxiety

David Armstrong is an Associate Consultant at Tavistock Consulting. He trained as a social psychologist at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and worked in action research and organisational consultancy at the University of London and The Grubb Institute before returning to the Tavistock in 1994 to join a newly established consultancy service at the Tavistock Clinic. A Distiguished Member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations, he is the author of 'Organization in the Mind: Psychoanalysis, Group Relations and Organizational Consultancy'. Michael Rustin is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London, a Visiting Professor at the Tavistock Clinic, and an Associate of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He has written widely on psychoanalytic approaches to culture and society, including on children's fiction ('Narratives of Love and Loss') and drama ('Mirror to Nature') both with Margaret Rustin. He is also author of 'The Good Society and the Inner World', and is a co-author/editor of the current 'After NeoLiberalism: the Kilburn Manifesto'.

'The editors are to be congratulated on having turned out a most impressive piece of work. Their introduction is a masterpiece of clarity, of concepts, and of subsequent developments following Isabel Menzies Lyth's original work. In addition to this most erudite summary, there is a wealth of contributions from a worldwide spectrum of application in which any reader will find inspiration.'- Anton Obholzer, Chair, Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology'Isabel Menzies Lyth was a pivotal and highly original thinker in the area of group and organizational dynamics, specifically concerning the theme of social defences against anxiety. In this volume, David Armstrong and Michael Rustin do justice to her work by bringing together an impressive range of therapists, consultants, and academics, who further her thinking and take this approach into a number of new areas. This is a superb volume that makes an excellent contribution to both theory and practice. I can thoroughly recommend it.'- Professor Mark Stein, Chair in Leadership and Management, University of Leicester, UK'A rare gift to any field, this volume critically engages one of its foundational concepts: collective unconscious defences against shared anxiety. At once scholarly and imaginative, the scope of this volume's contributions is breathtaking: from careful examination of the nature of anxiety to astute observations on the interaction between organizational and societal dynamics. This book is a sweeping achievement, discerningly rooted in its tradition and yet extraordinarily rejuvenating to contemporary thinking and practice.'- M. Gerard Fromm, PhD, ABPP, President of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations; Senior Consultant, Erikson Institute for Education and Research, Austen Riggs Center'This book is a landmark defining the current status of the rich tradition arising from the application of psychoanalysis to social systems. That move from individual work to applying its results to the field of social science was obviously appropriate for psychoanalytic object relations theory with its emphasis on engagement between minds. Its conceptualization provided penetrating understanding of the psychodynamics of health provision, a framework for consulting to organizations in general, and new insights on the conceptual study of the human mind in society. The vigour of this approach, and a variety of innovative projects from a wide landscape of interests is surveyed in these explorations. They set a marker of where the tradition now lies, and point to where its contributions can most clearly be made in the future.'- R. D. Hinshelwood, Professor of Psychoanalysis at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex

• Series editor's preface Acknowledgements About the editors and contributors Introduction: revisiting the paradigm - David Armstrong & Michael RustinI Theoretical 1 Obsessional-punitive defences in care systems: Menzies Lyth revisited - William Halton 2 Beyond identifying social defences: 'working through' and lessons from people whispering - Susan Long 3 A psycho-social perspective on social defences - Paul Hoggett 4 Social defences in the information age - James Krantz 5 Defences against innovation: the conservation of vagueness - Philip Boxer 6 Reconceptualizing social defences for the purpose of organizational change: causes, consequences, and the contribution of cultural theory - Nick PapadopoulosII Health and nursing 7 Reflections on Isabel Menzies Lyth in the light of developments in nursing care - Liz Tutton & Debbie Langstaff 8 'I'm beyond caring': a response to the Francis Report - Marcus Evans 9 Anxiety at the front line - Sebastian Kraemer 10 A partnership of policing and health systems: containing the dynamics of sexual violence - Mannie Sher 11 Running the gauntlet of institutional defence: from the prison gate to the hospital wing - Anne Zachary III The private sector 12 Extreme work environments: beyond anxiety and social defence - Larry Hirschhorn & Sharon Horowitz 13 Corporate cultures and inner conflicts - Aideen Lucey 14 Defences against anxiety in the law - Jon Stokes IV Social welfare and education 15 Spotlit: defences against anxiety in contemporary human service organizations - Andrew Cooper & Amanda Lees 16 Still not good enough! Must try harder: an exploration of social defences in schools - Simon Tucker 17 Work discussion groups as a container for sexual anxieties in schools - Emil Jackson 18 Social defences in nurseries and the contemporary value of the concept - Peter Elfer 19 Projective identification and unconscious defences against anxiety: social work education, practice learning, and the fear of failure - Jo Finch & Jason Schaub 20 Unconscious defences against anxiety in a Youth Offending Service - Maxim de Sauma, Sarah Fielding, & Michael Rustin References Index