Bion’s theoretical conceptualizations regarding processes in groups and in society which he developed during the late 1940’s and 1950’s became a central factor in the pioneering work that started to develop at the Tavistock Institute after World War II regarding organizational theory and practice. This work attempted to make links and build bridges between psychoanalysis and systemic theories; between Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytic theories regarding the individual and Bion’s theories regarding groups and organizational processes and practices, especially those related to "open systems theory" of organizations (Miller and Rice, 1967).

Among the most prominent and influential pioneers in these endeavors was Jaques (1955), who conceptualized the connection between anxiety and organizational structure and culture. His conceptualizations have become an anchor for those theorizing and working with organizations from a psychoanalytic perspective. However, some forty years later, Jaques presented a sharp turn in views. In his article: "Why the Psychoanalytical Approach to Understanding Organizations is Dysfunctional" (Jaques, 1995) he rejected his previously held views on the importance of the unconscious in understanding organizational dysfunctonality and of the use of psychoanalytic methods of interventions. As an alternative to his rejected views he offered an approach to organizational effectiveness and worker’s satisfaction that is based primarily on organizational structure and design. Jaques’ dramatic change of views, where psychoanalysis became "bad" and systemic concepts such as structure, design and authority are seen as "good" may perhaps be a manifestation of conceptual splitting. Such splitting may partly be due to difficulties in conceptual integration between psychoanalytic and systemic approaches. Indeed, Armstrong (1995) raises questions regarding the meaning of organizational consultancy practice which is described as "psychoanalytic and systemic". He writes: "What kind of coupling is envisaged here? Is it simply the coming together of two frames of reference, with their associated disciplines and methods, each of which is then brought separately to bear on the issues and dilemmas presented by organizational clients? Or is it more like Bion’s "reversible perspective" in which the same phenomena can be seen now this way, now that, as in the figure/ground illusions (?) Or again, is it rather a clumsy, provisional way of pointing to or naming something new, neither ‘psycho-analytic’ nor ‘systemic, but ‘psycho-analytic – and –systemic’; an emergent but not yet fully distributed third (Armstrong, 1995, p. 1)." Jaques’ "conceptual split" between psychoanalytic and "systemic" approaches as well as Armstrong’s views on the unclear coming together of the two frames of reference, strengthen my own impression of the need to continue to explore and to conceptualize the place of psychoanalysis in organizational theory and consultation.

The purpose of this paper, then, is to grapple with some aspects regarding the place of psychoanalysis in organizational theory and consultation, with an emphasis on the connection between psychoanalysis and open systems theory.

I would like to begin by describing two experiences I had in the last two years, that helped me formulate the ideas I am presenting here.

In the summer of 1996 I attended the annual ISPSO conference in New York. In the member’s day which preceded the conference a discussion developed where members of the organization raised questions, such as: what in fact are we doing here together at these annual meetings, and what is actually the purpose of this organization? After a few minutes of a rather tense discussion, one of the members - Gordon Lawrence- got up and said that one could say that this organization is "a container available for thinking". I assumed he may have meant that this organization is a container in which we can think together about subjects related to the study of organizational processes from a psychoanalytic standpoint. It’s true, I thought to myself, this organization, which at this very moment is in a luxurious hall at the Manhattan Mariott, is in a sense a container - an almost concrete one - inside which we, the members of the organization, act, think and work, and the work we are doing now is to clarify the nature of the organization and its dynamics. It seemed to me that Gordon Lawrence’s conceptualization sounded reasonable to members and that it had to some extent dispelled the tension and opened many possibilities for further discussion. The container has been defined - now there is something that envelops us - so we can now move on and carry on with our work. The members then discussed the various dynamics of the organization: someone asked, for example, why so few members came to the conference, and how we could understand that. During the discussion on this topic, the president of the organization made a comment about his own and the executive board’s mandates which weren’t clear. I mused over the fact that once the container was defined, a topic connected with its management was raised. I said then that containers have boundaries, and that in order for good work to be done inside the container, its boundaries need to be managed in a good way; and in this connection I brought up the President’s lack of clarity regarding his own and the executive board’s mandate.

The second experience is connected with my work as an organizational consultant in a human service organization, where I worked for several years. The director of the organization who had recently taken on that position invited the consultation. Already at the early stages of the organizational diagnosis it turned out that the organization was in a bad state: splits, coalitions, hostile relations and distrust. The management of the organization had not been convened for over a year due to the poor relations between the management members. During the first months of my work with the management, I dealt mainly with helping it to define the boundaries of its members, the management’s roles, the task of its meeting, and to formulate the patterns of work based on these roles and tasks, such as: the length and frequency of meetings, their structure including breaks and a review at the end of each meeting, the creation of a joint agenda, as well as to clarify the mechanism of decisions making at meetings. Later during that year, I helped the director and the entire management to assimilate these changes, and also worked with the management on other issues.

It was clear, beyond any doubt, that the poor interpersonal dynamics between members of the management, their impact on everything taking place at lower levels, as well the impact that the organization members had on the management, which exacerbated the breaches, distrust and hostility in it, were constantly present. I chose not to devote a meeting to these fundamental issues, even though they came out in the open from time to time, and it was clear that nearly every discussion, no matter how task oriented, was suffused by these dynamics. Over a year passed before it was agreed with the director that the management would discuss the topic of "trust at work," a discussion I had decided then to pushed for. At that time in my consultation my working arrangement with the management was such that I would spend several hours with it on a number of topics, after which I would leave and the management would continue with its daily work. The discussion held on the subject of trust at work was acrimonious and stormy, and at long moments during it it was hard to see how the members of the management could continue to work together, and how they could continue the meeting after I left. I found my role to be difficult, and as the person responsible for running this part of the meeting, I was forced to cancel the discussion on another topic I was supposed to lead. There was a lot of pressure to continue and not to close the meeting at the appointed time. The heated discussion was at its height when that time came. "We just can’t stop now when such harsh things are being said," one of the members said. During the discussion, I skipped the scheduled break, but it was clear to me that there were many things that hadn’t been said, and that these problems would not be resolved during the discussion. Despite the pressure, and a certain reluctance I felt, I closed the discussion only a little after the scheduled time. Everyone understood that I was keeping more or less to the time boundaries that had been planned, even though such hostile statements were being made. I left with a very discomfited feeling. That evening the director called to tell me that the rest of the meeting had been productive and effective.

This description can serve as a basis for discussing large variety of subjects, including various ways of understanding what took place. At this stage, I will only say that I then thought to myself that it had been impossible to hold such a discussion in the management a year or six months earlier. I also believed that it was the fact that the management had been meeting regularly for more than a year and had established more or less permanent patterns of work that had created a framework - a container in the language of this paper - that could contain the contents that came up without falling apart. While thinking about the "container" that was able to hold such heated discussion, I remembered how at the beginning of my work with this organization, in the consultancy contract with the director of the organization and the Director-General of the relevant government ministry, I had defined the key goal of the consultation – borrowing from Winnicott (1960) the term "the holding environment" - as that of assisting the organization to create a "holding organizational environment."

Let me turn now to reviewing the concepts of "container" and "containment". In psychoanalytic theory, the term "container" is associated first and foremost with the development of the concept of projective identification. While Melanie Klein (1946), who coined the term, was referring to projective identification as representing an intrapsychic phenomenon, many of her followers, the most well-known of whom is Bion, referred to it as an inter-personal phenomenon. Hence one can define projective identification as a phenomenon in which a person projects a part of himself into another object, and not onto it, as occurs in projection. Consequently, projective identification brings about a change in the psychic reality of the receiver of the projection. One can speak in terms of the projective identification of "bad" parts that spoil the object or of "ideal" and "grandiose" parts which lead to the idealization of the object, but an idealization experienced by the receiving object as controlling and precarious (Nutkevitch, 1991). Since in projective identification, a part of the self is projected into an object, the object then is a container that contains, at least in the descriptive sense of the word, what has been projected into it. Projective identification in its inter-personal sense has become a cornerstone of theories developed by Bion in relation to infant development, the development of thought, the analytic situation, as well as in relation to processes in groups and in society in general. In the mother-infant relationship, the infant projects into the mother parts of the self that are intolerable and suffused with anxiety. The mother then constitutes a container for the projected parts of the infant. To the extent that the mother is aware of what has been projected into her and does something to alleviate the child’s distress, one can say that the mother has contained what was projected. The infant is then open to reown what it has projected, and can also then internalize an object capable of containing and coping with anxiety. However, when the mother is unable to cope with what has been projected into her, denies it and tries to get rid of this part via projective identification, then we would say that the mother has not contained what was projected; the infant feels then even greater anxiety, is unable to reown what it has projected and to connect it with the self. Bion ( 1962) developed various concepts linked to the described process. In his terms, we would say that the infant projected a beta element into the mother. A beta element is a psychic element, which one constantly strives to get rid of through projective identification. The affective and mental condition of a mother capable of taking in what has been projected and remaining with it, Bion called reverie. In a state of reverie, the mother turns the beta element into an alpha element with the help of an alpha function. An alpha element is a psychic element that has a name, that can be used for thinking, which enables the mother to act in ways characterized by an understanding of the anxious infant, rather than acting to rid herself of what has been projected into her.

This process of mother-infant relations is reconstructed in the therapeutic situation. We speak then in terms of the therapist as a container, the therapist who has containment ability, a meeting in which the therapist could contain, and another in which he could not contain what was projected into him, and had acted out in the counter transference. With the development of the intersubjective approach in psychoanalysis (Berman, 1997), one can no longer relate to the container as an empty container. The reactions of the therapist to his patient in many cases are not only the result of the patient’s projective identification, but rather a mixture of projected parts of the patient and denied and split off parts of the therapist. One can now ask on what, then, does the therapist’s ability to contain both projected parts and anxiety-laden parts of his own self depend? Are there preconditions that determine this ability? Can one create conditions that will serve the therapist in his difficult task, which requires the containment of the patient’s projective identifications? Unquestionably, the structure of the therapist’s personality is a key factor in his containment capability. But can we not argue that the clear boundaries that exist in the psychotherapeutic situation, particularly in the psychoanalytic situation, in relation to time, method of work, payment arrangements, and the like, play a role in the therapist’s containment ability and in the creation of a containing therapeutic environment? The literature review and discussion of these questions is beyond the scope of this paper, yet the questions are relevant to organizational processes, on which I will focus from here on.

To preface the discussion on this aspect of organizational life, I will sum up the phenomenon of containment as follows: one can state schematically that "to contain" and "containment" are concepts that describe the capacity of any entity to keep within itself parts that arouse anxiety. Thus we can say that the infant as an entity is unable to contain parts that arouse anxiety in relation to himself and hence projects them via projective identification into another entity - the mother. The mother, in one situation, leaves this part inside her, despite the anxiety it arouses, digests it, or detoxifies it - in Bion’s terms - in order to turn it into an alpha element, and thus contain it; or in another situation, is incapable of containing it, and projects it into another entity with which it is interacting.

In parallel, I would say that an individual in an organization, a group, a system and an entire organization are all entities which may have inside them anxiety laden and unbearable parts, or into which anxiety-provoking parts can be projected. And like any object at the receiving end of projective identification, these entities can either keep and contain these unbearable parts or get rid of them by projecting them into a sub-entity inside them (a sub-group or sub-system) or into an external entity.

For example, in an organization in the private sector where I served as a consultant, workers were in the habit of furtively whispering derogatory comments about various management members to other members of the management, or reporting things that "were said" about one of them by a certain management member. This situation naturally created an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility among the management members, as well as between the workers and the management and among the workers themselves. This relationship between workers and management can be understood, on the one hand, as a result of processes of projective identification of suspicious and aggressive parts into the management space, and on the other hand, as a result of a dynamic of suspicion and aggression between management members in which the workers have become involved. The management members accused each other of conspiring against one another, of disloyalty, and of responsibility for the poisonous atmosphere. If the management members had been capable of openly discussing these phenomena, talking about the dilemmas the situation raises, suggesting hypotheses regarding these processes, taking responsibility for their share in "being dragged into" these conversations with workers, or even initiating some of these phenomena, and taking decisions to prevent such situations, then one could say that the management is containing what has been projected into it and/or exists inside it. Or in other words, it could be said that such a work by the management would have entailed transforming beta elements into alpha elements, a process that would have allowed for constructive actions to be taken . In actual fact, no such discussion took place. The management members continued to accuse each other and some of them tried, in various ways, to get back at the workers and/or their fellow members of the management. In this way, they significantly impaired the functioning of the entire organization: the management perpetuated this situation of non-containment.

In his article "Container and Contained" Bion (1977) developed another angle regarding what needs to be contained in groups and society, and the role of the leading entity in this respect. He asserted that the individual in a group or society that is perceived as a "mystic" is felt to be threatening to the group or to society. The group might then ostracize or actually get rid of that individual. Bion claims that if that individual is not kept – thus contained - in the group, that might lead to the group’s destruction. He gives the example of the non-containment of Jesus by the Jewish religious establishment, and the damage this caused to the Jewish people. It is not only that the group must be capable of containing such an individual within it, a containment that prevents a possible destruction of the group; but according to Bion the group has the function of enabling the existence of – and even creating – the "mystic", who is not only potentially destructive, but is also potentially creative, and who might thus advance the group. He speaks about the group’s "establishment’ whose function it is to contain the threatening individual. He thus assigns a decisive role in the containment process to the "establishment", to the entity with authority in the group and the organization, to the entity that we might call the "management".

Stokes (1994) relates to this issue of containment and the management’s role concerning it. In his article he deals with the relationship between the distress of the individual in an organization and the organization’s capability of containment. According to him, the individual, in his affiliation with the organization, is psychologically supported by it, but this does not prevent the individual from also harboring feelings of hatred towards the organization, and fearing it, owing to the power he attributes to it. He asserts that the individual must be capable of attributing to the organization and the management that heads it characteristics that arouse his hatred, hostility and envy. However, when the management is perceived as weak, the individual will direct such feelings to other factors in the organization, a situation that will be expressed in interpersonal and inter-group conflicts, as well as in personal distress. In order to avoid the creation of such a situation, the management must be stable enough to provide a clear goal, and to serve as a "reliable container" (Stokes, 1994) that contains what is projected into it. What, then, is essential so that the management will constitute a reliable container? Stokes (1994) enumerates two major factors: 1) ongoing work by the management in clarifying the primary task of the organization; 2) work by the management in planning and defining roles in a manner consistent with the primary task. Obholzer (1994) widens the sources of projections and enumerates the necessary requirements for the organization to be able to contain these projections. According to him, society needs various institutions - he relates mainly to organizations in the public sector - as containers for the anxieties it projects. When these institutions do not acknowledge their function as containers and are not aware of the anxieties projected into them, they will create a structure and will function in modes that constitute a defense against these anxieties. This situation will impair not only the work itself, but also the psychic and physical health of workers and their families. In addition to these anxieties projected from the society, Obholzer also notes anxieties that arise from the very nature of the work, and anxieties of workers arising from their personal histories. He states that institutions must contain these anxieties, and he enumerates a number of factors that will promote what he calls "the containing function of an organization": 1) there should be an ongoing discussion in relation to the organization’s primary task; 2) the structure of authority should be clear, including who decides at the end of the discussion what the primary task is; 3) there should be open communication between the parts of the organization. For this purpose, there should be a forum in which topics will be discussed in relation to what is taking place in the organization, or between it and other systems and organizations; 4) teams should have regular meetings in which they speak about their feelings and their work-related difficulties; 5) managers need special support. Obholzer doesn’t assign overtly a special role to the management of the organization. Although Obholzer doesn’t specify overtly, it could be assumed that the fulfillments of these requirements requires a management who can function as to initiate and implement Obholzer’s recommendations. Bion, Stokes and Obholzer - each from his own vantage point – attribute to an organization a containing function, and they attach, overtly or implicitly much importance to the entity which has the power, be it the "establishment" or the "management".

I would now like to suggest viewing "management" from two perspectives: First, as a container for threatening and anxiety-arousing parts that stem from the inner dynamics of the management itself as well as from the projective identifications that come from both within and without the organization. From this perspective, a management that is capable of transforming the anxiety-arousing parts – thus "beta elements" – into "alpha elements" will then diminish the damage and the personal and organizational distress that Stokes (1994) and Obholzer (1994) describe. Second, management has work related tasks to perform in order for the organization to function and exist. As such, I view the management as a container in which work is performed (see Lawrence’s, remark in my first example). Management, important as it is, is In fact, only one example of a work group in an organization. I view every group of persons - small or large - every system or organization that have a common task as a container in which work is performed. Now I can expand the meaning of a "reliable container", or borrowing from Winnicott (1960) his term "good enough mother", speak of a "good enough container." A "good enough container", which may refer to any organizational entity, is one that can: 1) like a mother or therapist, contain the anxiety-arousing parts that originate both within that container, and/or projective identifications originating in the container’s environment (close and remote). 2) enable and promote efficient and creative work connected with the container’s work related tasks. A "good enough container" is not only "a shock absorber" (of projective identifications); it also enables personal and team excellence. A good enough container enables people to realize their personal potential, makes possible the existence of the mystic, in Bion’s (1977) terms, enables the expression of the mystic that is in each one of us, and harnesses them to the tasks of the container.

All of us have experienced, I assume, group processes that Bion (1961) would have described as anxieties and defenses related to his theory of group’s "basic assumptions"; processes that impair the group’s ability to work on its task. There is also a link - covert or overt - between what takes place in a certain group and what takes place in other parts of the organization, or in systems outside it. These intra-group as well as inter-group processes, may adversely affect the functioning of every working group. A working group or a system that constitutes a good enough container allows for good work despite these processes, which are an inseparable part of the life of groups and organizations. I would like now to remind us of my first example regarding the ISPSO symposium. As I thought back then in New York that the functioning of ISPSO as a container depends to a larger extent on the way its boundaries are managed, I would like to suggest that boundary management is a central factor in the ability of any organizational entity, be it the secretarial staff or top management, to function as a "good enough container". To develop further these ideas I will turn to "open systems theory" (Miller and Rice, 1967), a theory that regards "management of boundaries" as a central concept.

The open systems theory of organizations, as it was developed by Miller and Rice (1967) asserts that the management of the system’s boundaries is essential for its efficient functioning. Based on this approach, a manager at every level is not situated above the system; he is at the boundary of the system, and his role is to manage this boundary. In other words, his role is to manage the boundaries of the task, the time, the place, the decision-making process, etc. In the conceptualization of the present article, I could say that the manager manages the boundaries of the container, in order to enable the existence of a good enough container. Figuratively, one could think of the manager (at any level and in any framework) as one whose role it is to hold the container in his hands and see to the existence and intactness of the container’s envelope: an envelope of task, of time, of place, etc. He moves over the envelope and is busy managing, keeping and holding it.

Thus, one could say that every container in order to function as a good enough container - containing threatening and anxiety-arousing parts and providing space in which work is performed - needs "a function" that will maintain and manage its boundaries. This function can have many names: director-general, team head, manager, instructor, chairman, president, commander, and the like. These are all functions that bear responsibility and have authority. As figures of authority the persons in these functions arouse anxiety, aggression and envy - or transference, in psychoanalytic terms - and the group’s projective identifications are directed at them (Bion, 1961). They themselves are containers too, one person containers; and like the mother and the therapist should be capable of containment. Most of us would recognize the pressures under which every manager operates in his attempts to keep and hold the container’s boundaries. To perform this task, the manager must possess leadership and courage. We all, in our various jobs, are familiar with statements like: ‘Let’s leave this topic now and move on to another one," "We need to shorten the meeting," "Uzzi is on vacation, so let’s cancel the scheduled management meeting." These statements can be viewed as concrete examples of the manager’s role of managing the container’s boundaries, which means constantly having to take decisions relating to various aspects of these boundaries. However, statements like the above, in a management meeting, for example, can sometimes arise from processes of rivalry, divisiveness, and projection that threaten the manager’s functioning and the intactness and functioning of the management as a good enough container. One obvious conclusion is that the management as a container, or for that matter any other organizational entity, also has to be contained. Organizational consultants always strive to work with those who are at the top of the system, as persons who naturally have much influence over the system. Yet, I consider working with those at "the top" as highly relevant to the notion of container: these persons are not only at the top of the system but also at the top of the management (when there is one). Their ability to manage the boundaries of the container/ management, and thus to contain the container/management in order to maintain a good enough container, is extremely important for the organization’s functioning and the well being of its members. The manager’s personality make-up is a significant factor in his containment ability, but it is not the sole important factor. I would like to suggest that while the manager, as part of his role, has to manage the boundaries of the container, these boundaries also sustain him. In difficult and stormy moments, his reliance on or adherence to boundaries of task, of time, of place, etc., is what, in the final analysis, will maintain the intactness and vitality of the container.

To partially sum up, I can state that the clarification of the boundaries of task, time, role, authority, decision-making processes, etc. is important, as many have claimed, for the effective functioning of the organization. I maintain that the clarification and maintenance of these boundaries constitutes a kind of "safety net" for the existence, intactness and effectiveness of a container in its diverse meanings. This is a man-made net, and its continued intactness also depends on people, but the very fact of its existence helps people in a managerial role maintain their containment ability, and hence the intactness of the system/team/container they manage. In this context, there is much relevance to the saying: "More than the Jewish people observes the Sabbath, the Sabbath preserves the Jewish people."

Let me go back to my second example in the organization where I worked as a consultant. At the management meeting called to discuss the subject of trust at work, the existence of the task boundaries, manifested in the agenda, the planned time boundaries, and the boundaries of my authority as the person running the meeting, all helped me to steer the discussion through the stormy waters. In my estimation, my ability in keeping to the boundaries of the time frame, despite the difficulties that entailed, constituted an act of containment that enabled the management to continue functioning, and even effectively, after my departure. The time boundaries thus maintained or "preserved" me while I maintained them, and constituted a kind of safety net that helped me contain the container/management that was "boiling over."

The dialectic that exists between "the preservation of the Jewish people" and "the observing of the Sabbath" represents the dialectic that exists between the intactness of the container and its boundaries; between measurable boundaries (of time, place and decision-making processes) and evasive anxieties and defenses that often threaten these boundaries and thus the container. It touches therefor on a dialectic between the open systems theory and its applications in relation to primary task, to structure, to roles and to work procedures, and psychoanalytic theory and its expressions in an invisible field of anxieties and projective identifications that do not submit to the authority of boundaries, and which we and the containers to which we belong have to work through and contain.

The "container" and the "means of containing it" thus constitute a meeting place between psychoanalytic theory and open systems theory. Hence, an organizational consultant working with the aim of assisting organizations and their managers to create and manage "good enough containers" is in fact operating from a psychoanalytic perspective as well as from an open systems perspective. Furthermore, working for example with the management of an organization on formulating its tasks and roles, on establishing meeting procedures regarding time, frequency, agenda setting, decision-making processes, may seem to be focusing on "technical" and "practical" issues. However, I claim that these issues that are related to open systems theory concepts, are in fact guided to a no lesser degree by psychoanalytic concepts. The emphasis the consultant places on the structure of organizational entities constitutes, in my view, a pivotal factor in organizational consultancy guided by a psychoanalytic approach. This emphasis in no way disregards the need for understanding, relating to and working on unconscious processes on the level of the individual, the group, the organization or associated with society at large. Anxieties, defense mechanisms and defensive structures (Menzies, 1960) are an extremely important prism through which to gain an understanding of what is happening, to decide on consultative intervention and to navigate ourselves through the complex and difficult terrain of the consultative process.

Concluding Thoughts

The stormier the container is, the more serious the organization’s pathology is, the worse the relations within the organization’s management are, the harder the task of containment is for the manager with his personality make-up, the more important is then to build and maintain the "safety net," which becomes critical for the containment of the container. The more there are good enough containers in the organization, at all levels - management, department, team, working group - the more efficiently it will function. The members of the organization will thus be more efficient, creative and satisfied with their jobs. Thus, establishing "good enough containers" in an organization can be viewed as a "consultancy vision" that contains within it not only the effective achievement of the organization’s tasks, but also values of creativity and satisfaction, which make the individual and his well being a key value in the work of the consultant. This vision, which embraces professional concepts and professional values, points out to the consultant the direction of an important intervention strategy: a strategy that helps to establish and maintain organizational entities on all levels as "good enough containers." From this strategy, various consultation activities are derived, one of the most important of which is consultation to managers and managements centering on their role in establishing "good enough containers" and managing the containers’ boundaries.

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