This study began with the premise that people can use varying degrees of their selves, physically, cognitively, and emotionally, in work role performances, which has implications for both their wor...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/256287.pdf

Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work

Development sequence in small groups.

50 articles dealing with stages of group development over time are separated by group setting: therapy-group studies, T-group studies, and natural- and laboratory-group studies. The stages identified in these articles are separated into those descriptive of social or interpersonal group activities a

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Developmental sequence in small groups.

December 1978, volume 23 This article describes the deficiencies of positivist science for generating knowledge for use in solving problems that members of organizations face. Action research is introduced as a method for correcting these deficiencies. When action research is tested against the criteria of positivist science, action research is found not to meet its critical tests. The appropriateness of positivist science is questioned as a basis for judging the scientific merits of action research. Action research can base its legitimacy as science in philosophical traditions that are different from those which legitimate positivist science. Criteria and methods of science appropriate to action research are offered.

An Assessment of the Scientific Merits of Action Research.

This study of the complete life-spans of eight naturally-ocurring teams began with the unexpected finding that several project groups, studied for another purpose, did not accomplish their work by progressing gradually through a universal series of stages, as traditional group development models would predict. Instead, teams progressed in a pattern of “punctuated equilibrium,” through alternating inertia and revolution in the behaviors and themes through which they approached their work. The findings also suggested that groups' progress was triggered more by members' awareness of time and deadlines than by completion of an absolute amount of work in a specific developmental stage. The paper proposes a new model of group development that encompasses the timing and mechanisms of change as well as groups' dynamic relations with their contexts. Implications for theory, research, and practice are drawn.

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Time and Transition in Work Teams: Toward a New Model of Group Development

'As the problems raised in this book are fundamental to learning they have a long history of investigation and discussion. In phsycho-analytical practice, particularly with patients displaying symptoms of disorders of thought, it becomes clear that psycho-analysis has added a dimension to problems if not to their solution.'This book deals with emotional experiences that are directly related both to theories of knowledge and to clinical psycho-analysis, and that in the most practical manner.'- Wilfred R. Bion, from the Introduction

Learning from Experience

Using his psychoanalytic experience Freud (1913, 1921) attempted to illuminate some of the obscurities revealed by Le Bon, McDougall, and others in their studies of the human group. I propose to discuss the bearing of modern developments of psychoanalysis, in particular those associated with the work of Melanie Klein, on the same problems. Her work shows that at the start of life itself the individual is in contact with the breast and, by rapid extension of primitive awareness, with the family group; furthermore she has shown that the nature of this contact displays qualities peculiar to itself, which are of profound significance both in the development of the individual and for a fuller understanding of the mechanisms already demonstrated by the intuitive genius of Freud. I hope to show that in his contact with the complexities of life in a group the adult resorts, in what may be a massive regression, to mechanisms described by Melanie Klein (1931, 1946) as typical of the earliest phases of mental life. The adult must establish contact with the emotional life of the group in which he lives, this task would appear to be as formidable to the adult as the relationship with the breast appears to be to the infant, and the failure to meet the demands of this task is revealed in his regression. The belief that a group exists, as distinct from an aggregate of individuals, is an essential part of this regression, as are also the characteristics with which the supposed group is endowed by the individual. Substance is given to the phantasy that the group exists by the fact that the regression involves the individual in a loss of his 'individual distinctiveness' (Freud, 1921, p. 9), indistinguishable from depersonalization, and therefore obscures observation that the aggregation is of individuals. It follows that if the observer judges a group to be in existence, the individuals composing it must have experienced this regression. Conversely, should the individuals composing a. group' (using that word to mean an aggregation of individuals all in the same state of regression) for some reason or other become threatened by awareness of their individual distinctiveness, then the group is in the emotional state known as panic. This does not mean that the group is disintegrating, and it will be seen later that I do not agree that in panic the group has lost its cohesiveness. In this paper I shall summarize certain theories at which I have arrived by applying in groups the intuitions developed by

Experiences in Groups

Bion's central thesis in this volume is that for the study of people, whether individually or in groups, a cardinal requisite is accurate observation, accompanied by accurate appreciation and formulation of the observations so made. The study represents a further development of a theme introduced in the author's earlier works, particularly in Elements of Psychoanalysis (1963) and Transformations (1965). Bion's concern with the subject stems directly from his psycho-analytic experience and reflects his endeavor to overcome, in a scientific frame of reference, the immense difficulty of observing, assessing, and communicating non-sensuous experience.Here, he lays emphasis on he overriding importance of attending to the realities of mental phenomena as they manifest themselves in the individual or group under study. In influences that interpose themselves between the observer and the subject of his scrutiny giving rise to opacity, are examined, together with ways of controlling them. Problems of language are considered: In order to express and communicate, the analyst is obliged to use words and formulations deriving from a background of sensuous experience and designed for a different task. Furthermore, the author says "It is too often forgotten that the gift of speech, so centrally employed, has been elaborated s much for the purpose of concealing thought by dissimulation and lying as for the purpose of elucidating or communicating thought".The practical value of this volume for those engaged in psycho-analytic work is self-evident; furthermore, its implications extend to many other areas of study. The discussion is wide-ranging: based on Kleinian theory, it encompasses theological dogma and mathematics, and the relationships between these fields. In particular, an attempt is made to show the analogy of certain psychological concepts with mathematical formulations such as set theory.Readers already familiar with Bion's work will welcome this further statement of his views. Those encountering his writing for the first time will at once perceive the originality of his approach and the precision of his theoretical exposition.

Attention and Interpretation

Acknowledgements. Introduction. Pre-View. Intra-Group Tensions in Therapy: Their Study as the Task of the Group. Experiences in Groups, I-VII. Re-View. Group Dynamics. Index.

Wilfred R. Bion

Papers

Learning from Experience

Experiences in Groups

Attention and Interpretation

Experiences in Groups

Experiences in groups and other papers