What’s So Weird About Organisational Psychotherapy?

I mean, it’s not like most businesses are run on purely rational, logical lines. Many businesses run on Faith (or various denominations), Astrology, Tarot, iChing (e.g. iChing divination), cleromancy, clairvoyance, Haruspicy, Hepatomancy, Anthropomancy, the Magic 8-Ball, HiPPO, and the like.

Why then does Organisational Psychotherapy trigger the “Wow, that’s weird!” response, more often than not? And more often that most of the above-listed approaches?

Is it some carry-over from the world of individual psychotherapy? Certainly,  in many parts of the world still, individual psychotherapy is often seen as weird.

Or maybe is the idea that organisations have a collective psyche that folks find weird?

Or maybe it’s the idea that collective assumptions and beliefs have any role in organisational performance and effectiveness?

Or maybe it’s because folks working in IT, seeing themselves as masters of technology, are blind to the role of people things, interpersonal relationships, and the like, in organisational performance?

Or maybe its the scientific basis for psychotherapy and Organisational Psychotherapy that disturbs?

Or maybe it’s just its sheer novelty and departure from the prevailing norms of business and organisational management?

Or maybe some combination of all the above?

In any case, the overwhelmingly most frequent reaction whenever I mention Organisational Psychotherapy is definitely “Wow. That’s weird!”

I take solace from the observation that psychotherapy itself was thought wildly weird by most people up till the 1950s (Freud started his practice in Vienna, Austria, circa 1886).

What’s your view on the “Wow, that’s weird!” response to Organisational Psychotherapy?

– Bob