Doing the Business of Group Relations Conferences: Exploring the Discourse

Group Relations conferences offer opportunities to learn about group, organisational and social dynamics; the exercise of authority and power; the interplay between tradition, innovation and change; and the relationship of organisations to their social, political and economic environments.

This book, the fifth in a series of Tavistock Group Relations Conferences, contains a collection of papers presented at the fifth Belgirate conference, plus three additional papers reflecting on and making sense of several participants’ conference experiences. Taken together, these chapters study the discourse of Group Relations conferences as well as reflecting on the changing nature and shifting patterns of this discourse. In Doing the Business of Group Relations Conferences, authors reflect on the vicissitudes of meanings this expression generates.

Eliat Aram has been CEO of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR) for 10 years. She has directed the Institute’s Leicester Conference for almost a decade 2007‒2015 and contributes her experience in directing and staffing GRCs internationally.

Coreene Archer, Consultant, executive coach and senior manager at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR) since 2007. Co-Director of the Coaching for Leadership and Professional Development course and Director of the Launching Young Leaders group relations conference.

Rachel Kelly, BA, MSTAT, is the Professional Development Manager at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and a Teacher of the Alexander Technique. She manages/promotes the institute’s courses and conferences, including the annual group relations Leicester Conference: Task Authority Organisation.

Gordon Strauss represents the A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI) on the Management and Administrative Team for the Belgirate conferences. He is a former AKRI Board member and has attended all of the Belgirate conferences since they began in 2003.

Joseph Triest (PhD), Training Psychoanalyst (IPS; IPA), Clinical Psychologist. Past president of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, Lecturer at Tel Aviv University and founder of ‘Triest-Sarig Clinic’; Co-Director of the Program in Organizational Consultation and Development – A Psychoanalytic-Systemic Approach; Member of OFEK, Israel.