Participants will explore their own experiences of managing the tension between neutrality and engagement in small groups led by panelists presenting five different perspectives.

Presenter: Gerry Fromm – Bringing the Clinical to Consulting
One source of the term ·neutrality’ is clinical psychoanalysis. In 1912, Freud recommended adopting a stance of “evenly suspended attention” as the “counterpart” to the patient’s effort at free association. What sorts of engagement follow this unusual partnership? How do we understand that engagement? Members· case examples will be used to examine how clinical psychoanalysis, which includes neutrality, finds its way into consultative work.

Presenter: Larry Hirschhorn – Neutrality or Engagement: Personal aims and organizational goals in forming strategy
The pursuit of one’s own self – interest in an organizational context is often seen as illegitimate. The presumption is that executives in various roles should shed their interests “at the door” and commit to pursuing the organization’s goals. It is also evident that this stance is unrealistic, and when it becomes a cultural norm, drives interests underground where they are pursued covertly and behind the scenes. People appear to be neutral – without a personal agenda – while creating coalitions for achieving their personal aims. I would like to explore an alternative conception where under conditions of strategy formation, and in the face of a primary risk, self -interest become a vehicle for exploring the organization’s alternative futures. To engage fully with the organization’s prospects people must make their own personal interests manifest. Participants in this seminar should be prepared to talk about how they have experienced the expression of self-interest in organizational settings, whether as organizational actors, observers or consultants, and when this expression was either developmental or regressive. The facilitators will present a brief framework for examining this issue. We will conclude by asking what organization development techniques can help articulate the link and productive tension between personal aims and organizational interests.

Presenter: Richard Morgan-Jones – The search for an engaged position in a turbulent world
This workshop will explore the search for a value based position of engagement, in situations in working with organisations, where emotional experience and systems dynamics are invaded by contextual dynamics that are divisive.
There will be a brief introductory presentation to set the scene and outline the dynamics of “Schizmogenesis” (=Creation of splits). This idea is drawn from anthropology (Gregory Bateson) and illustrated by situations where competition for limited resources goes unregulated or where media propaganda sets one group against another exacerbating aggression. It is also illustrated by the propaganda technique of “gaslighting” where lies are used to drive people out of their hold on reality and towards being coercively controlled.
Participants will have the chance to understand how these ideas and dynamics are reflected in their own experience in organisations. The workshop will provide members the chance to work on consulting and role dilemmas where finding a values based engaged position is vital to effective work.

Presenter: Arianna Rondos – Refugee crisis: what does it mean to be “neutral” and “engaged”?
The current refugee crisis is revealing a complex set of issues affecting the world at large, and Western Europe in particular. What is the responsibility of democratic countries in this crisis? Is there a way for the Western world to do better, or to do anything at all? Should it engage or, on the contrary, let History follow its course? 
If the answers to these questions were merely pragmatic, they would be simple. But the refugee crisis stirs archaic unconscious fears of destruction and invasion and can inspire manifestations of guilt in the Westerner feeling suddenly obliged to fix the woes of the world. These emotions influence our reflections and our capacity for action, as well as our defensive reactions. Based on these considerations, what is neutrality, and what is engagement? Can we find solutions at the interface between well-tempered neutrality and a responsible engagement? And how, as practitioners working with the chronic insecurity of the refugee client experience, is it possible to remain engaged in their psychological support whilst neutral to the chaos of their life in Europe.

Gabrielle Rifkind will explore with the group whether there is any such thing as neutrality? She will draw on the experience and knowledge of the group, her background as a group analyst, psychotherapist and art therapist and working in conflict resolution in the Middle East for the past 20 years.