Taking Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

Abstract

Psychodynamic approaches to the study of organizations note the importance of organizational defense mechanisms, that is, processes and practices that protect the organization from painful realizations. The overuse of defense mechanisms may lead to the organization becoming detached from reality, dysfunctional, unable to learn, and resistant to change. This article develops the concept of therapeutic organizational double bind as a method of intervention to enable "working through" in organizations "stuck" in a specific type of defense mechanism, namely, a pathogenic organizational double bind. The case of the Greenpeace campaign against whaling in Norway serves as an example. This campaign was dysfunctional, yet Greenpeace, being caught in a pathogenic organizational double bind, was unable to change its behavior patterns for quite a long time. A therapeutic organizational double bind enabled Greenpeace to partially work through and remedy this. The article discusses implications for practice and advocates a systemic approach to organizational analysis. Keywordsdouble bind, therapeutic double bind, defense, resistance to change, paradoxical intervention, working through Psychodynamic approaches to the study of organizations form a long-standing research tradition and have produced a substantial body of literature (