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Psychic prisons

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on May 28, 2007 at 1:09:24 pm
 

Organizations as Psychic Prisons

 

Summary:

 

Chapter Seven "Exploring Plato's Cave:  Organizations as Psychic Prisons" describes the idea that "organizations are ultimately created and sustained by conscious and unconscious processes, with the notion that people actually become imprisoned in or confined by the images, ideas, thoughts, and actions to which these processes give rise.  The metaphor encourages us to understand that while organizations may be socially constructed realities, these constructions are often attributed an existence and power of their own that allow them to exercise a measure of control over their creators" (p. 207).  Morgan's idea of a psychic prison comes from Plato's The Republic allegory of an underground cave where people are chained so they can't move and they can only see the cave wall in front of them.  In the cave dwellers reality, there are only the shadows on the cave wall, the sounds from outside the cave, etc.  They construct their reality and truth from what they can experience from their limited perspective.  If someone from the outside came in and attempted to describe what the world was like outside of the cave, the cave dwellers would have difficulty finding meaning in this new knowledge and would likely cling to their familiar way of seeing the world.  This would be their psychic prison.  Morgan uses this metaphor to describe how people in organizations can "be trapped by favored ways of thinking" and "by unconscious processes".  This metaphor does much to help us understand why organizational change is so difficult.

 

 

Morgan discusses the relationship between the conscious and unconscious in terms of 1) organization and repressed sexuality (the application of Freudian theory),  2) organization and the patriarchal family ( how patriarchy operates as a kind of conceptual prison that give rise and dominance to males and male values), 3) organization, death, and immortality (understanding organizations in terms of the quest for immortality), 4) organization and anxiety (looking at the impact of childhood defenses against anxiety on the adult personality), 5) organization, dolls and teddy bears (understanding the significance of transitional phenomena in organizational life), and 6) organization, shadow and archetype (the application of Carl Jung's work in terms of understanding the "general relations between internal and external life and the role that archetypes play in shaping our understanding of the external world" p.231).

Morgan sees the role of the unconscious as both a "creative and destructive force" (p. 234).  As leaders we need to understand the role of the unconscious in organizational life and learn to use its energy in transformational ways.

 

Morgan describes the psychic prison as a "powerful image" because it "encourages us to recognize how we may be caught in a self-sealing environment.  We see each other, and we see the world around us.  But what are we really seeing?  Are we seeing an independent world?  Or are we just seeing and experiencing projections of ourselves?  Are we imprisoned by the language, concepts, beliefs, and a general culture through which we enact our world?" (p 235).

 

 

 

Morgan outlines the strengths and limitations of the psychic prison metaphor.  A major strength is its contribution to understanding the "dynamics and challenges of organizational change" (p.236).  Change is seen as profoundly personal.  Another strength is that this metaphor shows how we have "overrationalized our understanding of organization" (p. 237).  We need to understand the links between the rational and the irrational because they are part of the same phenomenon.  Morgan believes that the psychic prison metaphor encourages us to "find ways of achieving better integration and balance" (p. 238).  Finally, this metaphor requires that we take a look at the ethic dimension of organization.  Limitations include 1) the need to pay attention to all the ideological processes that we use to create and sustain meaning, not just the unconscious, 2) an overemphasis on the cognitive processes in creating, sustaining, and changing organizations and society, 3) the encouragement of utopianism, and 4) raising the idea that one can manage another's mind.

 

Application of Handy's Six Concepts for Understanding Organizations

 

 

Motivation:

Roles:

Leadership:

Power and Influence:

In the psychic prison metaphor, power and influence would be seen through one or more interpretations of the unconscious.  For example, application of Freudian theory would consider driving ambition, aquisitions, mergers, etc. as institutionalizing anality.  Application of the concept of the patriarchal family would view the organization as an unconcious extension of the family where authority and influence in the domain of the male.

 

Groups:

Group dynamics are all influenced by individual and/or collective unconscious dimensions in the psychic prison metaphor.  Morgan discusses the concept of "groupthink" as a phenomenon of the psychic prison.  Groupthink is a "term coined by Irving Jarvis to characterize situations where people are carried along by group illusions and perceptions that have a self-sealing quality" (p. 211).  Morgan considers the Bay of Pigs invasion as one of the most famous examples of groupthink.  This illustrates the prisonlike qualities of culture that can define groups in this metaphor. 

 

Culture:

In the psychic prison metaphor, culture and subculture would also have an unconscious significance.  According to Morgan, "the common values that bind an organization often have their origin in shared concerns that lurk below the suface of conscious awareness" (p.226).  These underlying impulses can be destructive.  For example, people may sabotage the success of one of their colleagues because of a fear that they will be seen as not as competent even though this undermines the entire team.  "Culture, like organization, may not be what it seems to be" (p.227).  Morgan believes that the idea of managing culture has to take into consideration the unconscious aspects.  We must learn to understand both the rational and irrational aspects of culture.  We cannot ignore the unconscious human dimension when trying to create or develop a different culture.  "Culture gives us our world.  And it traps us in that world!  The psychic prison metaphor alerts us to pathologies that may accompany our ways of thinking and encourages us to question the fundemental premises on which we enact everyday reality" (p.211).

 

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