The Relational Consultant

Abstract

The rise of relational transactional analysis in conjunction with a reconnection of transactional analysis with its psychoanalytic roots raises the question of the importance of these developments for organizational consultants in transactional analysis. This article explores what psychoanalysis and group relations offer to organizational consultants. The focus is on three core aspects of psychoanalysis: its perspective, the value of the object relations approach, and the understanding of the role of the unconscious. From there three contributions of psychoanalysis to consulting in organizations are elaborated and integrated in a relational approach to consulting. The key is the understanding of the role of the consultant as the “signifier of transformation” (Bollas, 1987, p. 14), who, while working with a client-organization, supports the organization in integrating its ways of relating into its way of being.