ISPSO ANNUAL MEETING 2027

Key Idea
Bion’s ba dependency is usually read as a one-way, off-task dynamic: an anxious group projecting omnipotence onto a leader who is expected to know it all. This PDW challenges that reading of Bion’s legacy, together with the fashionable understanding, that containment is a leader’s capacity alone. Drawing on my 2-month ethnographic research within a convent—where dependency is continually worked with — I show how it is co-constructed: leader and group co-contain each other’s incompleteness while remaining on task.

I am passionately convinced that our discipline gives practitioners the courage to work with their own incompleteness, but only if theoretical rigour and practical applicability are held together, not traded off; this workshop makes the two cross-fertilise throughout. I offer a collaborative journey through critical, provocative reworking of the “untouchable” basic assumption dependency and its relationship to containercontained, before translating the argument into a hands-on, five-step decision-making model for consultancy and leadership in an BANI-world, helping teams stay assertive between the pulls of omnipotence and incompleteness.

Working Methods
This is a genuinely interactive workshop with whole-group discussion and reflection in pairs or triads, where ideas are critically applied. You are encouraged to bring your own case material to work on in small groups, alongside mine. The session closes with space for each participant to consolidate their key insight and propose in depth how it might inform their own practice.

Why join?
Five good reasons:

1. Theory meets practice. ISPSO has always brought academic scholars and practitioners together in one room, and this session mirrors that spirit. Expect a genuinely balanced conversation in which neither side holds the floor alone. Together we will ask: how can we cross-fertilise our different specificities to create real synergies?
2. Traditional theory, seen through an innovative lens. Our foundational, historic theories deserve to stay alive without becoming dogma. Together, we will honour our systems-psychodynamic roots while freeing them from rigidity. Ideas stay cutting-edge and relevant, turning with the world rather than standing still.
3. Rigorous, high-quality debate. Come ready to think, question and be questioned. This is a space for lively, in-depth debate about Bionian thinking and 5 group dynamics, and you are warmly welcome whether you are an ISPSO “veteran” or “newbie”.
4. A practical tool you can apply immediately. You will get to know, and work interactively with, a hands-on tool for team development that is soundly based on scholarly insight. You will leave with something ready to use in your own professional practice as consultant and/or leader.
5. Be inspired, provoked, amused and enriched - not only through my own unusual convent case study, but also through the case studies you and your fellow participants are invited to bring.