Private Selves in Public Organizations : The Psychodynamics of Organizational Diagnosis and Change

This book is about the psychodynamics of analyzing and changing organizations. Michael Diamond and Seth Allcorn define organizations as relational and experiential systems. They offer a contemporary psychoanalytic model for immersion, diagnosis, and intervention in organizations. The authors discover workers who view their organizations as silos'”fragmented and dysfunctional. They come across workers who demand but rarely find organizations where they feel safe and secure enough to question authority or challenge the status quo. The authors address issues of oppression, persecution, moral violence, chaos, and workplace democracy. Case examples illustrate the collision of social and psychological structure in the workplace.

Michael A. Diamond is a Professor in the Department of Public Administration, University of Missouri-Columbia. Seth Allcorn is a principal of DyAD, a consulting company that supports change in organizations.