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Mannie Sher is principal social scientist at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations where he is engaged in research and consultancy which focuses on the impact of thought on the dialectic relationship between social constructivism, the unconscious, and liberal democracy. He is the former director of Group Relations at the Tavistock Institute (1997–2017).
David Lawlor is a professional partner at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations where he specialises in research and consultancy practice with a particular interest in the impact of stressful environments on staff functioning.
Contributing authors to the volume include David Armstrong, Leslie Brissett, Halina Brunning, Susan Long, Juliet Scott, Philip Stokoe, Mark Stein, and Heather Stradling.
In his foreword to the book, Larry Hirschhorn notes that the authors provide the readers with “a comprehensive overview of systems psychodynamics with an eye towards its origins, its development as a theory and practice, and its current prospects and challenges”. This is indeed an accurate precis of what the authors set out to achieve.
Drawing from the Introduction, the purpose of the book is to introduce the reader to systems psychodynamics theory and its application for organisations and consultancy and indeed to raise systems psychodynamics to the level of a paradigm. As the authors describe:
Throughout the series, the authors strenuously hold the view that the systems psychodynamics paradigm means taking a view of and working as far as possible with the total system and not just one part of it; nor does one theory or approach explain the complex nature of organisational systems, organisations of organisations; or systems of systems. (pp. 4–5)
This first book in this series—“Dawn”—explores the current state of knowledge about this paradigm, illustrated by several case studies. It gives an account of its historical and theoretical development and demonstrates its practical application to organisational life. This book, wh