Ledaren På Den Inre Scenen. Psykoanalytiska perspektiv på grupper och ledarskap. (The leader on the inner scene. Psychoanalytic perspectives on groups and leadership.): Else-Britt Kjellqvist. Stockholm: Carlssons, 2001.

In this book, the ambition of the author is to capture how the expressions of the unconscious colour leadership and the relationship between the leader and the group. The author states: “We populate our inner scene with leaders from different periods in our mental development. These early leaders are idealized parental imagoes that can be good or bad, ill-willing, suspicious, hating or loving. But they all have one thing in common: they are powerful, due to the fact that we as adults give them power” (reviewer's translation). In this way, the author describes her project in this second edition that is a major revision of the first edition from 1989.

This book addresses itself to a wide reading audience, and is in my opinion successful in this difficult endeavour. The author thus begins by giving a clear and simple view of the basic psychoanalytic concepts and perspectives in this area. For an analyst reader, this naturally leads to some well-known repetitions of various basic perspectives, but is certainly necessary in the context of a broader audience.

In dealing with basic psychoanalytic concepts, as, for instance, defence mechanisms, the author uses the ordinary descriptions and exemplifications from the dyad of mother/child or patient/analyst. The book seems, not in a substantial degree, to relate the description and exemplification to the field of leadership, group understanding and organisations. This is better accomplished for instance when Kjellqvist describes transference.

The book has three parts: the theme of the first is the leader. The second part deals with his counterpart: the group in relation to which he is in a reciprocal dependency. The last part describes the powerneeding person, the making of illusions (as a deviance from the reality principle), and the autonomous person.

The first part describes the danger of regression in the leader due to his particular position of solitude. Of utmost importance is therefore that leaders have the necessary ego st