We spend most of our time on the rational ‘surface’ of our organisations. Getting things done, making decisions, responding to internal and external pressures. And most of the time this mind set gets us through. But sometimes there’s a problem that doesn’t respond to our usual approach. Maybe we just ignore it and pretend it isn’t there hoping that it will go away by itself. But ignoring something can be incredibly draining and our weariness can seep into other areas. Or perhaps we’ve tried everything but still nothing changes, and we feel exhausted.
Reason is emotion’s slave
The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion said that ‘Reason is emotion’s slave and exists to rationalize emotional experience’. On first inspection it seems that Bion has got things mixed up. Surely, it’s the other way around? The common-sense view is that we make decisions based on ‘reason’ or in more straightforward language; we decide things based on our logical assessment of the available data. But what if our interpretation of the data is coloured by strong emotions? And maybe because these emotions are uncomfortable, they exist under the surface, and we are unaware of them? I think what Bion is getting at is that what appears to us to be a rational approach can be driven by a powerful emotional response to a particular set of circumstances. The emotion reaction comes first and then we make up what seems a rational and logical argument to justify our essentially feeling driven response.
Making sense of what is going on
But this is not a counsel of despair. There is a path through which seeks to understand troubling emotions so we can become aware of them and thereby recover our ability to think. In organisations this process can be helped by an independent consultant who can help stakeholders understand and make sense of what is going on. And then it can become possible to think more clearly and take some simple practical steps to address problems which previously may have felt intractable.
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