“ In this kind of unconscious process particularly I think what happens is that the groups use unconscious defense mechanisms, such as denial, splitting, idealization or repression, and we need to help the manager and the group tolerate the anxiety and face the facts.”
Anna Krantz, PhD
Stockholm
Episode Description:
Steven Rolfe welcomes Dr. Anna Krantz. Anna is a psychoanalyst and a psychologist in private practice in Stockholm Sweden. She began her work consulting to organizations in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s when, after working to improve selection and hiring processes in organizations, she introduced employee assistance programs and critical incident management to the Swedish market. Her more recent experience , which we will hear more about presently, is in conjunction with Saint Luke’s in Stockholm where her interest is in helping leaders and teams function more productively and effectively. She advocates paying close attention to unacknowledged and unconscious dynamic factors in groups that interfere with the groups’ optimal functioning.
Key Takeaways:
[3:13] Anna talks about her practice.
[4:41] How Anna became interested in organizational work.
[7:04] The story of Saint Luke’s non profit organization.
[8:19] The organization’s profile.
[9:35] The kinds of organizations that Dr. Anna Krantz works with and how she does it.
[10:49] The importance of working along with a coworker.
[11:47] The nuances of working together with non-analyst consultants and with an organization.
[12:29] How groups work on an unconscious level.
[14:21] Different unconscious processes in groups.
[15:37] Including the feedback from someone outside the process.
[17:49] Getting to the core of the problems in an organization.
[18:30] Case example.
[23:41] The importance of psychological safety in work groups.
[26:24] Groups perform better under psychological safety.
[27:57] Future trends for consulting work from an analytic perspective: Neuro-Psychoanalysis.
[30:19] Becoming engaged in the biological reality.
Recommended Readings:
Bion, Wilfred. R. 1961. Experiences in groups, Tavistock Publications Limited
Edmondson, Amy C. 2018. The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation and growth
Feldman Barrett, Lisa. 2017. How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain, Houghton Mifflin
Gabriel, Yannis. 2016. Organizations in Depth, Sage Publications, Ltd.
Parker Follett, Mary. 2013. Freedom and Co-ordination: Lectures in Business Organization (1926-1933), Routledge
Solms, Mark 2015. The feeling brain: Selected papers on Neuropsychoanalysis< Karnac Books, Ltd.
I have really appreciated this IPA Podcast because of the clarity and the contained. I agree that psychoanalysis has to be in contact with biology and with sociology in order to enlarge the undestanding of the psyche whose roots are in brain and environment.
Hi Daniela!
Thank you for your comment. As dr. Shapiro says in the last episode, we as analysts are good at deepen our lens, we need also to broaden our lens and as institutions understand the need of the public, that is our mission!
Warm wishes
Anna