Change is a Social Phenomenon

It is often said that Man is a social animal, meant to live in communities and derive meaning from interactions with others. We are fundamentally shaped by the social structures and relationships around us from birth. Our beliefs, assumptions, values and behaviours are heavily influenced by the culture, norms and people we grow up around. (And don’t overlook pets and other flora and fauna).

Just as our individual psyches are moulded by social forces, so too is change itself a profoundly social phenomenon. True shifts in mindsets, behaviours and beliefs rarely happen in isolation. They tend to arise organically from the interplay of ideas, the cross-pollination of perspectives, and the prevailing Zeitgeist of the times. People’s views evolve through conversations, observations of others, ingoup vs outgroup influences, and the gradual reframing that comes from immersion in new environments.

The Power of the Group

This underscores the potential power of groups and organisations in catalysing change. When people come together around common goals or experiences, there is a meaningful interaction of minds. Assumptions are challenged, new syntheses arise, and space is created for evolution of thought. Just as individuals can undergo therapy to overcome unhealthy patterns, so too can groups undergo a kind of psychotherapeutic process to overhaul outmoded and dysfunctional paradigms.

Organisational Psychotherapy

This is the premise behind the emerging field of organisational psychotherapy. Just as individual therapy provides a container for people to explore their inner landscapes in order to grow, organisational psychotherapy involves creating facilitated spaces for teams, companies or communities to engage. Using insight from psychology, group dynamics and systems thinking, trained practitioners can help organisations gain self-awareness around dysfunctional patterns, beliefs and behaviours that may be holding them back. From this raised vantage point, new narratives and ways of operating can emerge organically.

The Group as Crucible

Organisations and teams are microcosms where the full spectrum of human behaviour and group dynamics are constantly playing out. As such, they become rich territory for exploring how change actually happens. Real transformation happens not through rigid policies or top-down mandates, but through people-led shifts in culture, mindsets and relationships. The group itself acts as a crucible for these new ways of being to gestate and be stress(!) tested. In being witnessed and worked through collectively, outmoded mindsets can be let go of, making space for what needs to emerge.

In this way, organisational psychotherapy is not just about imparting new models or frameworks, but about harnessing the innately social and emergent nature of how humans actually change and evolve. It is a way of working with the group mind itself as the catalyst for transformation.