Psychoanalysis

Nathan Gerard and Duarte Rolo

Chapter 3 in Handbook of Critical Work and Organizational Psychology, 2026, pp 43-60 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Psychoanalysis has influenced W-O psychology since the field's inception and continues to inform critical scholarship on work and organizations. Various approaches to psychoanalysis help to illuminate unconscious processes that both shape organizational behavior, individually and collectively, and reinforce broader patterns of oppression and domination. This chapter provides a historical overview of applying psychoanalysis to work settings, demonstrating its distinct propensity to disrupt ordinary (rational) sense-making by disclosing the fantasies, desires, and defenses at play in workers. Specifically, we discuss the application of psychoanalytic thinking and techniques across several geographical contexts—the French, German, British, and North American—to mark distinctive developments in the psychoanalytic understanding of work and organizations, while at the same time noting the various tensions and controversies between psychoanalysis and W-O psychology. This chapter goes on to frame the theorizing of worker subjectivity (or the “working subject”), in particular, as the defining contribution of psychoanalysis to critical scholarship in W-O psychology. We conclude by pointing the way toward more specific dialogue and collaboration between critical psychoanalytic scholars and the emerging sub-field of critical W-O psychology.

Keywords: Psychoanalysis; Work and Organizational Psychology; Critical Scholarship; Subjectivity; Unconscious (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035331055
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