Unconscious manifestations in the leader-follower relationship: contributions of psychoanalytic theory to organizational studies

Abstract This study aimed to understand the unconscious manifestations that transgress the leader-follower relationship in organizations. These dyads were formed by opposing dependent pairs, namely: transference-counter transference; projection-introjection; idealization-identification - Freud’s constructs and all of them unconscious phenomena. The theoretical framework presents the history of the psychoanalytic approach of organizations: a) the analysis of psychoanalytic studies, from the social field to the organizational field (considering that, according to Freud, the unconscious is social. In this section the reader will find a brief tour of the five so-called Sociological Studies of Freud); b) the core of the theoretical framework is already constituted by a psychoanalytic reading of the phenomena of leadership, and finally; c) the theory about the three main unconscious dyads that act in the leader-follower relationship. As a method, psycho-sociology and Lévy’s clinical interview were used. The results allow psychoanalytic interpretations by identifying the presence of the dyads, in both leaders and followers discourse. The analysis of the results initially planned in the objectives of this study had to be - for many reasons - altered during the research. One of the reasons is that the relation transference-counter transference dyad found during the study was more complex than expected and that could not be ignored in the analysis. As one of the relations most evidenced, the analysis of the transference-counter transference dyad allows a better understanding of the way in which the identification is generated from the dual relationship between projection and introjection.摘要 本研究旨在探析组织中僭越领导者-追随者关系的无意识表现形式。本研究的分析对象为三类对立依存的二元关系，分别为：移情-反移情（transference-counter transference）、投射-内摄（projection-introjection）、理想化-认同（idealization-identification）——上述均为弗洛伊德提出的理论建构，且皆属于无意识现象。 本研究的理论框架梳理了组织精神分析研究路径的发展历程：a) 精神分析研究的演进脉络，从社会领域延伸至组织领域（需说明：根据弗洛伊德的观点，无意识具有社会性。本节将简要介绍所谓的弗洛伊德五项社会学研究）；b) 理论框架的核心为基于精神分析视角对领导现象的解读；最终c) 阐述了作用于领导者-追随者关系的三类核心无意识二元关系相关理论。 研究方法上，本研究采用精神社会学（psycho-sociology）与莱维（Lévy）临床访谈法。研究结果可通过识别领导者与追随者话语中存在的上述二元关系，开展精神分析层面的解读。 本研究原定的结果分析方案因多重原因在研究过程中作出调整。其中一个原因是，研究中发现的移情-反移情二元关系较预期更为复杂，无法在分析中予以忽略。作为被观测到频次最高的关系之一，对移情-反移情二元关系的分析可帮助我们更好地理解认同是如何通过投射与内摄的二元关系得以生成的。