Introduction to Social Dreaming: Transforming Thinking (Psychology, Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy) - Softcover

Lawrence, W. Gordon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1855753421 ISBN 13: 9781855753426

Publisher: Routledge, 2005

Synopsis

This book explains social dreaming by situating it in the context of thinking, culture, and knowledge and distinguishes how it differs from conventional, therapeutic dreaming, making the case for how it can be used in systems, like business organizations, educational institutions, and hospitals.

About this title

About the Author

W. Gordon Lawrence is a former member of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, where he discovered social dreaming in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Currently, he is a visiting Professor at Cranfield, the University of Northumberland at Newcastle, and the New Bulgarian University, Sofia. He is a Fellow of AISA and is on the editorial boards of Free Associations, Freie Assoziation, and Organisation and Social Dynamics. He has published a number of books, as well as writing numerous articles and papers, of which the most recent are Roots in Northern Landscape (1996), Social Dreaming @ Work (1998), Tongued With Fire: Groups in Experience (2000) and Experiences in Social Dreaming (2003). He is a managing partner of Symbiont Ventures, London, which is directed at advancing the idea of social dreaming and its application.

Review

'This is as fine an introduction to Lawrence's concept of social dreaming as one could have hoped for. It is lucid, concise, full of vignettes that are unusually clear, and as one would by now expect of anything written by this author, it is inevitably creative, even if it is meant to be "just" an introduction.'- Christopher Bollas'Lawrence unbinds the dream from the confines of the private (including the world of the consulting rooms) and reinstates it in its primordial role as a useful mental instrument with unlimited social function.'- Dr Judit Szekacs, psychoanalyst 'And now we have it at last, the perfect primer on social dreaming, and in the master's voice. As social dreaming moves more and more firmly into mainstream organizational development, Lawrence's book arrives in time to explain the history, to examine the underpinning conceptual frameworks, to explicate the practice and to encourage new ways of thinking about accessing the layers of reality in our working lives. This will become a textbook in time.'- Ruth Silver, CBE, Principal, Lewisham College London, Visiting Professor at London Southbank University 'Social dreaming adds depth to group-analytic explorations in workshops and conferences. Lawrence's work provides new and important pathways to unconscious thoughts and phantasies. This book should be essential reading for group analysts.'- Dr Malcolm Pines, Past President of the International Association of Group Psychotherapy and founder member of Institute of Group Analysis, London

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1855753421
• ISBN 13: 9781855753426
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128