An Organization Looks at Itself: Psychoanalytic and Group Relations Perspectives on Facilitating Organizational Transition

This chapter discusses the story of an organization that was facing a major transitional change and did, indeed, take a break for one day to look at itself, reflect, and review. The story will be told from the point of view of the consultant who was called to intervene in what was felt by the management to be a major crisis in the midst of the transitional process. The chapter focuses on the day of the review as well as on the consultants&s; meetings with management before and after. The review became the starting point of an ongoing process of consultation on different levels of the organization. The client is a clinic, belonging to a network of clinics that provides psychological, psychotherapeutic, consultative, and organizational services to a large number of boarding schools and day schools for children and adolescents.