Consulting and Leading in Organisations: Psychodynamic and Systemic Approaches (D10) MA

Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust and Tavistock Consulting

Course overview

Validated by the University of Essex this course will develop you as a leader, consultant or manager by giving you a fuller understanding of the human dimensions of organisational systems and helping you to develop a ‘consultative stance’ to organisational dilemmas and opportunities. You will be helped to see the bigger picture, from different perspectives, and acquire the skills to work more effectively.

Course outline

The course combines experiential learning with the study of psychoanalytic and systemic theory in relation to organisations.

Theory seminars and webinars will introduce you to key concepts such as the individual unconscious, the group unconscious and the institutional unconscious. Contemporary papers and case studies will bring theory to life, exploring issues such as authority and power, organisational change and the politics of difference. A range of conceptual tools will develop your capacity to think critically and systemically about organisations.

You will learn to map organisational systems and understand the effects of organisational structure on organisational dynamics and vice versa. You will be encouraged to think creatively ‘across the boundary’ between the conscious and unconscious aspects of organisational life.

In the first year of the course, you will observe an organisation which will provide you with an invaluable opportunity to watch a group functioning when it is engaged in its usual task.

In your second year, you will undertake a supervised consultancy in small supervision groups. You will also be expected to organise yourselves to plan and staff a consultancy intervention for year one students. The focus is not only on the success or failure of the intervention but on the opportunity provided for learning about group processes that emerge when engaging with a client group.

Over the two years you will participate in experiential groups, the aim of which is to learn how to observe the functioning of a group and attempt to understand the dynamics which influence it, while also participating in the group. Experiential groups allow for the study of issues such as leadership, followership, rivalry, boundaries, group defences and cultural and role differences.

Between years one and two all students take part in a Group Relations Conference which is an intensive and immersive experience of group and institutional processes. The conference is, in effect, a temporary organisation created to enable you to study relatedness and relationships between groups, boundary dynamics and issues of delegated authority.

Why study with us?

This course will give you a better understanding of yourself in a working context and a greater capacity to understand group processes that create functioning or dysfunctional organisations and teams. It will enhance your capacity for appropriate task related leadership and develop your ability to act effectively as a consultant on organisational issues.

Who is this course for?

This course is for you if you are a manager, leader, consultant or coach who wants to gain insight into the unconscious processes that affect organisational systems.