Management Training Without Social Defences

Abstract

In this article the author describes and reflects upon a ‘clinical seminar’ attended by midcareer professionals working in various branches of education. The challenge he set himself was to run management training which did not reinforce those defences which lie at the heart of the problems the participants were most anxious to solve. Each participant was required to prepare and present a case study of a particular management issue or problem of real concern to them in their institution. The rest of the group worked with them on the issue, and it is this mode of working which lies at the heart of the course, relying as it does on psychoanalytic insights and understandings. The process is illustrated by one of the cases presented to the group.