Ideology, Conflict, and Leadership in Groups and Organizations [Paperback]

Doctor (M.D.) Otto Kernberg M.D. (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300073550 | ISBN-13: 978-0300073553 | Publication Date: June 16, 1998

In this book a psychoanalytic clinician and theoretician of world renown integrates current knowledge of the psychodynamics of individuals, groups, and organizations into a new theoretical framework. Dr. Otto F. Kernberg shows how the interplay of libidinal and aggressive impulses enacted within the dynamic unconscious of the individual also occurs at the level of groups and social organizations. He sheds new light on the turbulent nature of human interactions in groups, suggests how this understanding may help to resolve conflicts at the group and institutional levels, and provides a model for achieving effective institutional change. Dr. Kernberg applies his integrative frame to the analysis of the regressive processes in groups, the nature of institutional leadership, and the conditions of rational functioning that may protect the organization from the most dangerous consequences of regressive group processes. To illustrate the therapeutic uses of the model, he considers its applications to group therapy and the therapeutic community; to illustrate its consultative potential, he includes a section on problems in psychoanalytic organizations. In conclusion, the author extends his theoretical framework to the social sciences, proposing contributions to the psychology of ideology formation, bureaucracy, conventionality, and the political process.

Product Details

• Paperback: 321 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (June 16, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300073550
• ISBN-13: 978-0300073553
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,836,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Insightful and Disturbing News from Otto, March 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Ideology, Conflict, and Leadership in Groups and Organizations (Paperback)

Dr. Kernberg has looked deep into the psyche and what he finds is frightening.

Despite his difficult (at times willfully so, it seems) prose, he is worth heeding. For anyone who has seen an organization or corporation mysteriously fail, but who has felt that there is an unnamed and elusive logic to its fall, would do well to read this book. Where others see mystery, Kernberg names names. He locates dynamics at work in individuals and organizations and details their impact on the life of said groups. He doesn't provide magical answers but his theories are useful because, once one gets beyond the pessimism and the difficulty of the ideas, they seem, frankly, correct, in a gut-instinct way.

Everyone has a complex relation to their leaders, and Kernbeg explains the give-and-take of such strange intuitive feelings, the traces of which haunt all institutions. Particularly charming is Kernberg's insistence that a "slight paranoia" is a healthy attitude in a leader, to fight off envious attacks. An analyst and the head of the IPA, he knows whereof he speaks.