Product Description: Working in the human services has always been stressful, and the current massive changes in the organization of these services, together with dwindling resources and ever greater demands for cost effectiveness, add to the stresses inherent in the work...read more

Product Description: Observing Organisations presents a unique approach derived from direct participant observation of small units within institutions, all in the health and social services sector. A range of contributors bring together the results of their own observational projects to show how they were able to come to a psychoanalytically informed understanding of the cultures that arise within healthcare organisations, and how this understanding can be used to overcome difficulties that arise...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Unconscious processes in organizations add greatly to the stresses inevitable in caring work. "The Unconsious at Work" is designed for people actually managing and working in the human services and offers them new ways of looking at their own experiences of stress at work. The contributors, all past and present members of the Tavistock "Consulting to Institutions" Workshop, explore the difficulties experienced by managers and staff in a wide range of care settings, including hospitals, schools and community care agencies. They draw on ideas from psychoanalysis, open systems theory, Bion's work with groups, and group relations training, ideas which will enable readers to increase their understanding of the processes which undermine effectiveness and morale within institutions.