Search results

Socioanalysis is the study of groups, organisations, and society using a systems psychoanalytic framework: looking beneath the surface (and the obvious) to see the underlying dynamics and how these dynamics are interconnected.This book examines several of the methodologies used in socioanalytic work. Even though the beginnings of socioanalytic investigation lay in the mid-twentieth century, a broad look across several methodologies has not been done before despite separate publications dealing with particular methods. In addition, several new methods have been developed in recent years, which

SOCIAL, GROUP OR COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY. AUSTRALIAN. Socioanalysis is the study of groups, organisations, and society using a systems psychoanalytic framework: looking beneath the surface (and the obvious) to see the underlying dynamics and how these dynamics are interconnected. This book examines several of the methodologies used in socioanalytic work. Even though the beginnings of socioanalytic investigation lay in the mid-twentieth century, a broad look across several methodologies has not been done before despite separate publications dealing with particular methods. In addition, several new methods have been developed in recent years, which the present work incorporates. Connecting all these methods is their aim of 'tapping into' the dynamic operation of what the author calls 'the associative unconscious' within and between social systems. The associative unconscious is the unconscious at a systemic level.

The Perverse Organisation and its Deadly Sins begins by examining the nature of perversity and its presence in corporate and organisational life. Then, four chapters examine the "corporate sins" of perverse pride, greed, envy and sloth, each taking case studies from major organisations suffering their effects. Finally, the book enquires into the nature of the consumer/provider pair as a centrepiece of the perverse cultural dynamics of current organisational life

Key Features:A compilation of true stories of personalities who have ventured onto the unbeaten path to make a difference in their own and other people's livesSusan Long wrote the piece entitled "The NKF: Controversially Ahead of its Time" published in The Straits Times on 19 April 2004, which the National Kidney Foundation and its CEO TT Durai had claimed defamation over the mention of a "gold-plated tap". The NKF and Durai subsequently withdrew their cases, but not before how the NKF had managed the use of public funds, such as Durai's salary, the amount of reserves, etc, was revealed in the courts. This led to a huge public outcry that saw thousands canceling their donations to NKF, and the resignation of the NKF board and its CEO.

In contrast to media images of lonely deaths, stereotypes of Japanese calm acceptance of dying, and the "naturalness" of dependency in old age or illness, this paper explores the complex ways that changing perceptions of time refocus people on the question of how to live. Time both narrows to the level of medication schedules and bodily functions, and expands to more immediate engagement with others in the past and future. The idea of a moral timeline of such changes builds on recent work in the anthropology of morality by recognizing these shifts in the ideas and actions people take to retain agency through suffering. People near the end of life in Japan commonly employ cultural idioms of effort, reciprocity, and gratitude to express their continued striving to be moral persons in a social world. Ultimately such efforts determine not only how they see themselves and are seen by others through their final days, but whether theirs will be judged to be a "good death," and thus the nature of the person's continued social existence in spirit and memories after death. Ethnographic data on which this article is based come from a participant-observation study of adults of all ages with life-threatening illnesses and from an interview study of frail elderly and their family caregivers in the late 20th and early 21st century in urban and rural settings.

This paper argues that an organizational discourse on consumerism is replacing a prior discourse of dependency. This discourse encourages, and is encouraged by, economic rationales for behavior and is marked by the collapse of many complex societal roles into the simpler category of "customer." Moreover, practices emergent from consumerism and economic rationalism often act as organizational and social defences against anxieties about the uncertainties and changes occurring in a world increasingly dominated by global markets where the customer is "sovereign." Six working hypotheses are proposed to explain the operation of these new social defences. Evidence in support of these hypotheses comes from collaborative action research projects in which the author is involved. The argument moves toward a consideration of the new "consumer-provider pair" which, it is proposed, has become a major signifier within the consumer discourse and which might be considered as a transitional pair in dealing with widespread organizational change.

This paper is concerned with the idea of the group as a signifying chain. Group elements, e.g., roles, subgroups, group episodes, and social acts, are viewed as signifiers open to particular significations each of which may be represented within the imaginary history of the group, i.e., in particular people and events. This theoretical position is arrived at via an application of Lacan's ideas to implications drawn from an examination of Freud's works on narcissism and group psychology. To Freud, the group is bound together by narcissistic identifications among the members who have each incorporated important aspects of the leader into his/her ego-ideal. The myth of the primal horde exemplifies this basic group structure. Taking this myth as a basis for further hypotheses about groups, this paper argues for differential member identifications with the leader. These differential identifications seem to be the imaginary effects of the signifying chain (group structure) that is anchored by the central signifier of the group, i.e., the symbolic father/leader. A particular group is exampled.

This article accounts for the early stages of group integration by drawing parallels between this and the early psychological integration of the infant as outlined by Winnicot and Mahler. An intensive study of the first two hours of a laboratory learning group is presented in order to explore the concepts detailed in the early section of the paper.

"Final Days represents a new perspective on end-of-life decision-making, arguing that culture does make a difference but not as a checklist of customs or as the source of a moral code. The final stage of life is as rooted as any other in political and economic constraints and social relationships. Policy, technology, and institutions - as well as biology - set limits on what is possible, defining the set of options from which people choose. Culture provides a vocabulary of words, metaphors, and images that can be drawn on to interpret experiences and create a sense of what it means to die well." "Grounded in ethnographic data, the book offers an examination of how policy and meaning frame the choices Japanese make about how to die. As an essay in descriptive bioethics, it engages an extensive literature in the social sciences and bioethics to examine some of the answers people have constructed to end-of-life issues. Like their counterparts in other postindustrial societies, Japanese find no simple way of handling situations such as disclosure of diagnosis, discontinuing or withholding treatment, organ donation, euthanasia, and hospice. Through interviews and case studies in hospitals and homes, Susan Orpett Long offers a window on the ways in which "ordinary" people respond to serious illness and the process of dying."--Jacket

Shikata ga nai : resignation, control, and self-identity / Susan Orpett Long -- Reinterpreting mate selection in contemporary Japan / Kamiko Takeji -- My other house : lifelong relationships among sisters of the Hayashi family / Scott Clark -- Power in ambiguity : the Shidō Shuji and Japanese educational innovation / David L. McConnell and Jackson H. Bailey -- Logomotion : Shiranai Station -from JNR to JR / Paul H. Noguchi -- Kenka Matsuri : fighting with our gods in postindustrial Japan / Keiko Ikeda -- Caught in the spin cycle : an anthropological observer at the sites of Japanese professional baseball / William W. Kelly -- Constructing sushi : culture, cuisine, and commodification in a Japanese market / Theodore C. Bestor -- Autonomy and stigma in aging Japan / Christie W. Kiefer -- Formulating attitudes towards death : a case study of a Japanese Jōdo Shin Buddhist woman / John Barth Grossberg -- Eternal engagements : solidarity among the living, the dying, and the dead / Morioka Kiyomi -- The living and the dead in Japanese popular religion / Robert J. Smith