I first ran into this when I did an internship in psychiatry. The team that treated people with dissociative disorders, got themselves suffering from the same problems in the team dynamics. The same is true for organizations. What you deal with affects you. Police start to look like criminals, teachers like students, youth care like the youth that they handle. It’s quite special to also capture the essence of your work this way; where you, your target group and organizational structure coincide.
The same can be seen in family and organizational systems. Many things occur in different generations as well as in different levels of the organization. It is inside the system, as they say. The good news about this is that we can do something about it, namely to be aware of it. The other side is that it shows us the limited feasibility of our lives and organizational cultures.
Parallel Processes
Dear Hylke, I have experienced the same phenomenon, but classified it primarily as a contrary motion. For example in the police department, observing that the rules are being followed created an attitude of looking for the legislative loopholes (labour law and internal laws and values) within … Or a former manager who always had to work orderly and structured outside with the customers and thus wanted to work within no tight frameworks and agreements when in the office. Can you classify this as a systemic phenomenon?
Dear Martijn, Thank you for your message. You sometimes see prisoners being deeply relieved inside when they are caught eventually. Than the balance between giving and taking can be restored. That includes the wallpaper coming off the wall at the plumbers place. Jung also noted that we have this contrary motion it inside of us. In the Catholic Church you see the abuse and the canonising. Everything has its contrary motion .