Wanted for breaking and entering organisational systems in complexity : Eros and Thanatos

Adrian Carr, Cheryl A. Lapp

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    In this paper we choose to enact this short story of Anais Nin. We have chosen to break out of the use of conventional narrative by using psychodynamic theory to break into the experiences that facilitate and block the emergence of participation in making meaning from story. In other words, here, we take full responsibility for using our self-organization to impose other-organization, which is to break one of the fundamental tenets of complexity theory praxis. On the other hand, we must break the rules in order to understand the rules so we learn not to predict and impose the rules. To use complexity theory in organizations is to co-create stories that cause psychodynamic anxiety, to break out of positivistic organizational systems that basically tell us what we have or have not and should or should not experience. It will be shown that the elements of complexity theory create psychodynamic tension that allows life instincts, Eros, and death instincts, Thanatos, to emerge as positive and negative transformation. Consequently, we argue that Eros and Thanatos are required for breaking in and out of organizational systems. This is a destructive-reconstruction of instinctual reactions to the effects of mutual causation, paradox, and dialectics inherent in complexity theory (Stacey, 1992, 2003). To understand complexity theory, we first need to understand the complexities of psychodynamics as described by Freud.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalEmergence: Complexity and Organization
    Publication statusPublished - 2005

    Keywords

    • psychoanalysis
    • Eros
    • Thanatos
    • self-organization
    • Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939

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