Organisational muddle and gender ideology

Part 2 - A psychoanalytic view

Following the previous discussion of institutional capture, this blog will focus on the dynamics behind major shifts in policy and culture in organisations, from a psychoanalytic perspective on thinking. It will also discuss the purpose of restrictive work practices that quash dissent.

The psychoanalytic perspective and what changed

In the mid 20th century, the most radical challenges to Freudian orthodoxy in psychoanalysis, came from several Scottish theorists who emphasised the importance of the social world of family and community in understanding both human development and mental health. Those psychoanalysts, (1) as founders, leaders, and clinicians of the Tavistock Clinic, (founded 1920) applied psychoanalytic insights, particularly about unconscious processes, to the fields of individual, family, and group therapy, as well as to the dynamics within organisations. Until recently this ethos dominated clinical work and research there, so it was no surprise to learn, that when very different theories of the relationship between a person's sense of self and their sexed body were imposed within the controversial Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), four of the clinician-whistleblowers, (2) were all psychoanalytically trained. Subsequently, we have come to understand what happened at GIDS as 'institutional capture' by a closed belief system which put forward unscientific theories around a concept known as 'gender dysphoria'.

How can we understand what happened to staff at the Tavistock?

Some of the most frequently asked questions about institutional capture and gender ideology are:

• ‘How did it happen that very intelligent people lost their power of reasoning?’

• ‘Why are professionals abandoning their training?’

• ‘Why are some scientists rejecting science?  

• ‘How can people believe in what is impossible?’

These are questions that imply a loss of contact with reality. They resonate with the anxiety and bewilderment that families face when a relative suffers a breakdown, or a psychotic episode, in which rational thinking is impaired, often to the point of delusion. In the case of organisations that uphold and promote gender ideology, a breakdown of sorts also occurs when an ideology is formalised through the creation of new structures and policies that ultimately depend on the compliance of staff for their operation. But what is it that enables rational thinking to be abandoned so readily, and what makes staff comply and collude with their leaders, aside, of course, from the very obvious fears of harsh, punitive repercussions of dissent, and the prospect of being declared a bigot in public?

Thoughts without a thinker

The roots of collusion and disavowal in the workplace

In order to make sense of the widespread collusion with gender ideology, the contribution of one particular Scottish clinician stands out in her understanding of crises in organisations and, in particular, the anxiety within them that causes restrictive measures to be introduced.  Isabel Menzies Lyth, the only woman in the group of founders of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in 1947, studied the ways in which organisations can unconsciously create rigid, authoritarian structures in response to staff anxiety, as a social defence system and as a means of controlling emotional states that could easily turn into staff burnout and disarray in the workplace. (Link here) According to her, rigid defence systems in the form of new policies, structures, and practices, operate not only as a means of avoiding 'the conscious experience of doubt, uncertainty, or guilt', but also 'inhibit conceptual and abstract thinking.'

What is interesting in the 'gender dysphoria' situation is that the dynamics of urgency (or more accurately anxiety), and the fixation on the sexed body are recognisable at all levels. They appear in the urgency of parents presenting their justified concerns to the medical profession, and at schools where the pressure to act, and to get others to affirm naive and troubling fantasies, is met with compliance and further preoccupation with questions of changing the sexed body. Urgency can also be seen politically and socially, not only through activists pushing to change legislation to accommodate gender ideology, but also in intrusive and disturbing sexual images that appear in many forms throughout society. In other words the features of what is seen to present as an individual disturbance are contagious, spilling into groups and organisations, making it difficult to differentiate cause from effect. In other words, anxiety about sex is easily transferred to others, and has the power to emotionally affect others into acting rashly without due thought. For example, GPs feel under pressure to prescribe, surgeons to operate, politicians to legislate, and schools to use graphically sexualised teaching materials provided by ideologues.

No human is immune from anxiety, and leaders are just as likely to be driven by their own psychological weaknesses, and a lack of experience in dealing with mental health issues, as they are by external pressures to find quick solutions to complex organisational difficulties. Often fearful of being wrong, and bombarded by confusion, they have unconsciously relinquished the arduous task of thinking through the problems facing their organisations, and instead focus on creating diktats provided by ideologues to whom they have outsourced their thinking.   Lyth recognised that impulsive responses to unfamiliar pressures in the workplace may give the illusion of stability and expertise, and thus create temporary relief for staff, but when professional decisions are based on empty slogans or the abandonment of science and rationality, it risks people going beyond their own knowledge base, and in so doing, making errors that cannot be reversed.

Preparing for future difficulties

Whilst the psychoanalytic view is unable to change anything in the short term, it can be helpful to see that the hasty imposition of rigid rules, displays of loyalty to false beliefs, slogans, and rituals, do not represent the acceptance of an ideology per se. Instead they are products of defensive measures to shore up an illogical rationale that began as a means of controlling anxiety, and, in nature, is more emotional than intellectual. And analytic thinking may have its uses later, as it is already apparent that the edifice of gender ideology will cast a long shadow over the future, due to real fears of the emotional fall-out from the disruption and damage already caused.

It will be hard to overcome the resistance in organisations to giving up what has already been put in place, and will require the continuation of analysis, debate, and attempts at understanding all the vagaries of the human condition, by all means. The current opportunities provided by the legal system and in grass roots activities are invaluable in re-establishing the thinking processes so required within individuals and in organisations, and can lead to a decrease in societal anxiety about sex. It goes without saying that new thinking will have to include the essential need for strong, moral, and benevolent authority and leadership in society.

June Campbell, Retired Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, and formerly lead clinician in CSA Service, Royal Edinburgh Hospital

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1) Amongst the Scottish psychoanalysts and psychiatrists who influenced clinical practices at the Tavistock Clinic were Hugh Crichton-Miller (Founder), John D Sutherland (Director 1947-1968, and author 'The Autonomous Self'), W. R. D. Fairbairn (Object Relations theorist, author 'Psychoanalytic studies of the personality'), R. D. Laing (Author 'The divided self' etc), David Henderson (Founder of the Henderson Hospital) and Isabel Menzies Lyth. (Founder Tavistock Institute of Human Relations)

2) The first whistleblower in 2005 was Sue Evans, (psychoanalytic psychotherapist), followed by Dr Az Hakeem, (psychoanalytic psychotherapist and group analyst), Marcus Evans, (psychoanalyst), Dr David Bell, (psychoanalyst)., and Sonia Appleby, Psychoanalytic psychotherapist