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Although systems psychodynamics is not a new field, there has been an inadequate appreciation of the formative years of the traditions that shaped it. Consequently, contemporary group relations and systems psychodynamics scholars most familiar with current incarnations of the theory and practice of group study have been cut off from the legacy of a rich and complex tradition that has shaped the field and can continue to provide important insights into practical and theoretical dilemmas confronting students of group behaviour. By providing an historical account of the intellectual foundations of the Tavistock model and the application of this method to the study of groups and organizations, this essay attempts to reintegrate systems psychodynamics with its own foundations and tells a story of the evolution of an orthodoxy, a core tradition of group study from which all sorts of off-shoots, critiques, and other models have flowed.1 It is not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, it discusses the formative years from the late 1800s, with developments in psychoanalysis and theories about groups and systems, until 1967 when Miller and Rice outlined their approach to studying organizations and attempted to systematically integrate these disciplines at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. Throughout the essay, the impact of social, political, and cultural influences during this historical period will be explored.
Scholars generally associate the term systems psychodynamics with the publication of Miller and Rice's seminal volume Systems of Organization in 1967 (Gould, Stapley and Stein, 2001). Yet, Miller and Rice never explicitly used the term in this book. It was not until the late 1980s that Eric J. Miller, then director of the Tavistock Institute's Group Relations Programme, coined the term systems psychodynamics. From then, the concept just ‘caught on’ (L. Gould, personal communication, 8 May, ). By 1997, when Mannie Sher replaced Miller as director of the