Consulting Psychology: Selected Articles by Harry Levinson

by Arthur M. Freedman PhD, Kenneth Bradt

Overview

In today's fast-paced business world, there is rapid and continuous change in organizational direction and guidance. To stay ahead, many contemporary managerial practices in leadership, performance appraisal, and executive selection require serious revision. I/O consultants increasingly need to focus on sound organizational diagnosis to successfully modify executive maladaptive behavior. By applying psychodynamic theory to the workplace, consultants can more effectively assess and correct dysfunctional organizational practices in evaluating, supervising, and managing employees.

For over 50 years, Harry Levinson, a pioneer in the field of organizational consulting psychology, has applied his extensive clinical expertise to the understanding of organizational assessment and intervention. In this volume, the editors present 18 of Levinson's landmark contributions that explore how and why consultants diagnose organizational and managerial pathology. These chapters showcase Levinson's astute clinical and counseling insights on organizational diagnosis, leadership, consultation, and stress. I/O and business management consultants will learn how to expertly apply these techniques to various organizational problems, as well as enhance their own self-reflective awareness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433803765
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Publication date:	08/15/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	334
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Arthur M. Freedman, MBA, PhD, is a principal in Freedman, Leonard & Marquardt Consultancy and chair of the research committee for the nonprofit World Institute for Action Learning. He earned both his BS and his MBA at Boston University's College of Business Administration and his PhD in personality and clinical psychology at the University of Chicago. He has been a member of the NTL Institute since 1969.
 
Dr. Freedman is a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. He has consulted throughout North America as well as in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Sweden, Germany, Russia (and the former Soviet Union), Vietnam, Singapore, and Zimbabwe. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association's (APA's) Division 13 (Society of Consulting Psychology) and 52 (International Psychology). He is a past president of the Society of Psychologists in Management. Dr. Freedman is a member of the Board of Advisors for the National Hispanic Institute and cofounder of the Nieto–Freedman Center for Organization and Community Development. He is a member of the editorial boards of both the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and the Consulting Psychology Journal.
 
Dr. Freedman received the RHR International Award for Excellence in Consulting Psychology from APA's Division 13 in 1994. He received the Most Outstanding Article award from the editorial board of the Consulting Psychology Journal in 1998, for his article "Pathways and Crossroads to Institutional Leadership." In 2007, he received the Harry and Miriam Levinson Award for Exceptional Contributions to Consulting Organizational Psychology.
 
Kenneth H. Bradt, PhD, is an organizational psychologist whose interest in and efforts to help with the "people problems" faced by organizations derive from his training and experience in many areas. After receiving his PhD in general psychology from Northwestern University, he worked for the U.S. Army, as a civilian and in uniform, as a specialist in both personnel and attitude–opinion research and as chief clinical psychologist in an Army hospital. After serving as chief psychologist with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, he focused on leadership training for managers, heading programs under the auspices of the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, and others developed by Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is a founding member of the Society of Psychologists in Management, a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), and a past president of APA's Division 13 (Society of Consulting Psychology).
 

Table of Contents

Preface
—Arthur M. Freedman and Kenneth H. Bradt

Prologue
—Harry Levinson

Introduction: Quelling the Quills
—Harry Levinson

I. Theory/Diagnosis

1. Psychoanalytic Theory in Organizational Behavior
2. Reciprocation: The Relationship Between Man and Organization
3. Anger, Guilt and Executive Action
4. Intuition vs. Rationality in Organizational Diagnosis
5. Organizational Character
6. Why the Behemoths Fell: Psychological Roots of Corporate Failure
7. Psychological Consultation to Organizations: Linking Assessment and Intervention

II. Consultation

1. Assessing Organizations
2. Executive Coaching
3. Consulting With Family Businesses: What to Look For, What to Look Out For
4. What Motivates Directors?
5. How Organizational Consultation Differs From Counseling
6. Giving Psychological Meaning to Consultation: Consultant as Storyteller
7. The Clinical Psychologist as Organizational Diagnostician

III. Stress

1. A Psychoanalytic View of Occupational Stress
2. Between CEO and COO
3. Approaching Retirement as the Flexibility Phase

IV. Leadership

1. You Won't Recognize Me: Predictions About Changes in Top Management Characteristics

About Harry Levinson

Index

About the Editors