What is Psychodynamics?
Probably the fastest growing and most widely applied branch of psychology, psychodynamics was first defined by Freud as the study of the interplay between the conscious and unconscious forces which determine how people behave.
At the same time, perhaps the most conservative of psychological theories, and certainly one of the oldest established, yet also one of the most exciting and important ones as it allows us to understand how people are motivated, how they can find confidence, how they can achieve their dreams.
Everyone of us is different and, in acknowledging this, psychodynamics provides the theory and the practice that allows us to understand the unique combination of elements that determine an individual’s behaviour.
Psychodynamics allows athletes, artists, dancers, mathematicians, scientists, chefs, and, of course, business people, to lose themselves in their inspiration and so to achieve peak performance.
Psychodynamics isn’t a science of techniques and exercises, it’s about being able to tap into someone else’s emotional core (some might even say their ‘soul’) while being able to distinguish between their essence and your own. Once you can do that, it is about being able to remain sufficiently detached that your objectivity isn’t compromised – at least with regard to the individual.
My own interest, which again built on my previous experience, is to apply this not only at the level of the individual leader and their one-to-one relationships, but also to their interaction with groups and organisations.
