Affiliation

School of Social Sciences, University of Western Sydney, AUS

Biography

Adrian N. Carr is an Associate Professor and holds the research-only position of Principal Research Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. Dr. Carr’s major area of research interest is psychodynamic theory and its implications for organizational application. Dr. Carr is the author of over 200 refereed journal publications and number of books the most recent of which are: Leadership is a matter of life and death: The psychodynamic examination of Eros and Thanatos working in organizations (with Cheryl A. Lapp, ISBN 1403991634); Cyberspace romance: The psychology of online relationships (with Monica Whitty, ISBN 1403945144); and Art and aesthetics at work (co-edited with Philip Hancock, ISBN 0333968638).

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Articles

Wanted for breaking and entering organizational systems in complexity
Volume: 7, Issue 3-4
In this paper we choose to enact this short story of Anais Nin. We have chosen to break out of the use of conventional narrative by using psy chodynamic theory to break into the experi ences that facilitate and block the emergence of participation in making meaning from story. In other words, here, we take full responsibil ity for using our self-organization to impose other-organization, which is to break one of the fundamental tenets of complexity theory praxis. On the other hand, we must break the rules in order to understand the rules so we learn not to predict and impose the rules. To use complexity theory in organizations is to co-create stories that cause psychodynamic anxiety, to break out of positivistic organizational systems that basi cally tell us what we have or have not and should or should not experience. It will be shown that the elements of complexity theory create psy chodynamic tension that allows life instincts, Eros, and death instincts, Thanatos, to emerge as positive and negative transformation. Conse quently, we argue that Eros and Thanatos are re quired for breaking in and out of organizational systems. This is a destructive-reconstruction of instinctual reactions to the effects of mutual causation, paradox, and dialectics inherent in complexity theory (Stacey, 1992, 2003). To understand the complexities of psychodynamics as described by Freud.