A Psychoanalytic Institute’s Response to Existential threats: A Case Study of Organizational Self-Inquiry and External Consultation

Abstract

The term institute is used inclusively here to refer to different organizational structures such as psychoanalytic societies and centers. Those organizations have primary tasks such as providing education and training in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Existential threats covers a range of factors, both internal and external to an organization, that may seriously impair or destroy its capacity to carry out its primary tasks and to survive as a functioning entity. Perceptions and responses relating to those threats are dynamic processes within the organization that shift and evolve over time. This case study explores one institute’s use of organizational self-inquiry and external consultation to strengthen its capacity to perceive, make meaning of, and respond adaptively to those threats. The qualitative research for this case study is based on a series of semistructured individual interviews with a representative sample of participants in the consultation, close attention to the intersubjective experiences of interviewees and interviewers, and careful thematic analysis of the interview data. Interviewees shared their understanding of what led up to the consultation, their experience of the consultation, and their perception of its immediate and ongoing impact. Many interviewees felt that the consultation helped strengthen the institute’s organizational capacity for resilience and innovation, expressed the desire for additional consultation to ensure the institute’s survival and ongoing health, recommended that the institute include the study of organizational dynamics in its curriculum, and thought it should develop its internal capacity for organizational self-inquiry.