The Humanity at the Heart of Organisational Psychotherapy

Organisations are made up of people – complex human beings with emotions, dreams, fears, and relationships. Yet somehow, when we walk through the office doors each morning, we are expected to check our humanity at the door. The ostensible focus becomes targets, metrics, shareholder value – losing sight of the humans behind it all. (But also see: Your REAL Job).

Organisational Psychotherapy seeks to rebalance this by putting the person back at the centre of the workplace. Through simple techniques grounded in psychotherapeutic theory, it aims to create more humane organisational dynamics where staff can bring their whole selves to work.

Key Principles

Some of the key principles include:

Attending to folks’ needs (the Antimatter Principle)
Containment – providing a safe space for employees to process difficult emotions so they do not spill out destructively. Managers should offer non-judgemental listening and support.
Reflexivity – encouraging individuals and teams to reflect on their own behaviours and dynamics before making changes. This avoids knee-jerk reactions and promotes sustainability.
Role clarity – clearly defining responsibilities so no one feels asked to fulfil impossible expectations. This reduces anxiety and burnout.
The “good enough” organisation – perfection is impossible with human beings. Organisational Psychotherapy advocates aiming for “good enough” -and clearly stated – standards that make space for people to be fallible. This means focusing less on rigid metrics and idealised goals, and more on sustainable ways of working that protect staff health and wellbeing in an imperfect world. There is recognition that some days we can give 100%, while on others our energy and focus may falter – and both scenarios can be met with compassion rather than criticism.

Heart

At the heart of all of this is compassion – for ourselves and each other. Workplace stress often stems from a lack of self-compassion, driving harsh inner critics and causing us to lose touch with out humanity and the humanity of those around us. Creating work cultures built on mutual understanding and caring allows our organisations to more ethically support both staff and customers.

Organisational Psychotherapy Memes

The power of Organisational Psychotherapy memes speaks volumes about how desperately many organisations need more humane dynamics centred on understanding people. No matter how slick our processes, how smart our tech – an organisation relies on its people. Workers and managers alike deserve compassionate spaces where they can bring their authentic, complex, perfectly-imperfect selves to the table every day.

—Think Different

Making Lives More Wonderful

The Humanity at the Heart of Organisational Psychotherapy