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The eleven chapters of this book recount the working experiences of the contributors in therapeutic communities; organisational consultancy; professional training and development conferences; and studies of working systems in action. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Rina Bar-Lev Elieli, Harold Bridger, Caroline Drevon, Ernest Frugé, Alan Harrow, Mark Horowitz, Dominique Lhuilier, Derek Rafffaelli, Rafael Ramirez, Dominque Rolland, André Sirota and Marie-Jeanne Vansina-Cobbaert.
The editors suggest that the transitional approach to change, though not always labelled as such, is central to the minds and hearts of many action researchers, consultants, social workers, and managers. In essence it aims to achieve positive change by engaging respectfully and democratically, rather than authoritatively and manipulatively, with the client system. However, they assert that many change agents who seek to engage cooperatively with their client systems lack both the understandings and skills needed for working with unconscious ‘resistances’ that may surface as enacted regressions, fears, and repetition compulsions. In contrast, it is claimed that the contributors to this book, drawing on deeper insights, work ‘effectively’. (That is, they achieve results which ‘help systems to develop, while keeping people lucid, energetic and healthy’.)
The opening contribution, by Harold Bridger, recalls the effectiveness of the first UK ‘therapeutic community’ initiated during the second phase of the Second World War Northfield experiment aimed at rehabilitating ‘shell shocked’ soldiers. He describes the ‘tremendous energy, directive ability and personal and social healing’ generated when a democratic setting is created in which insights from therapy are allied with social purpose. His chapter concludes with the reflection