We suggest that metabolism took place in this faculty workshop. The anxiety associated with learning something new about how to design an educational experience along with the anxiety of building the bridge was contained in this retreat setting. Bion’s alpha elements could be produced from out of the anxiety that was present among faculty as this workshop. A sanctuary and safe/play space were created. The exercise in considering science studios and art laboratories transformed this anxiety into a constructive interdisciplinary and innovative sharing of ideas and expertise “on the bridge” (as the workshop participants described this workshop experience). Metabolism was taking place. Alpha elements were being produced—and metabolism was not taking place in a therapy office.
Assumptive Worlds: We have offered this brief excursion into the dynamics operating in a faculty workshop partially as a way to introduce another way of envisioning the metabolic process. This third process concerns an even deeper probing of the world we are perceiving, interpreting and acting in. It concerns the differing assumptive worlds in which art and science faculty live, as well as the differing worlds in which we all live—especially in a VUCA-Plus environment.
Elsewhere, one of us has described the primarily elements to be found in the broad assumptive worlds we create and inhabit.[xxvii] These assumptions worlds are based in the social constructions of reality.[xxviii] These constructions, in turn, are strongly influenced by the linguistics of a specific society (both the semantics and syntax) and the dominant paradigm(s) operating in their society or a subset of their society.[xxix]
The assumptive worlds in which we live determine what we choose to see and what we choose to know. At a very basic level, it is about epistemology: what we know that we know (whether or not this is accurate), what we know that we don’t know, and what we don’t know that we know. Perhaps of greatest importance is a fourth epistemological condition: what we don’t know that we don’t know (often self-sealed collective ignorance). It is this fourth condition that is directly aligned with the fourth type of issue we have identified in this book: the mystery.
It is the mystery which is most closely aligned with Bion’s unprocessed Beta elements. we would suggest that mysterious elements are not just those assigned to the unconscious because they are psychically dangerous–as Bion and his psychoanalytic colleagues might suggest. In many cases, these mysterious Beta elements are those which are simply too large, complex, unpredictable, vulnerable, ambiguous, turbulence, and filled with contradictions to be easily processed. In other words, welcome to the world of VUCA-Plus! It is at this level that metabolization is most challenging. It is at this level that the container—and in particular, the sanctuary—is most needed.
How specifically would metabolism work in addressing the anxiety-saturated challenging of one’s assumptive worlds. We have already offered one example of a metabolic process as it operates in a faculty workshop. It is a matter of introducing an alternative frame of reference and, in particular, introducing perspectives held by other participants in a workshop or other people who play an important role in in one’s present (or past) life. The empty chair process used in Gestalt-oriented psychotherapy comes to mind, as do many psychodrama techniques. We will be identifying many other strategies throughout this book; however, we will now briefly suggest several assumptive-world related processes.
One way to approach assumptive worlds is offered by our colleague Will Schutz[xxx], who suggested that the most important question to ask is: “what do you know is NOT the problem?” As we explore what has been dismissed (or isolated), the assumptions are likely to be revealed in our life. We can similarly explore an “absurd” idea (such as being brutally honest with our enemy or being playful about a very serious matter) and reflect on the assumptions underlying this assessment of absurdity. Another approach concerns the role played by a leader in opening reflecting on their own assumptions regarding the operations of their unit of the organization. This can be done, as our colleague, Marybeth O’Neill notes, by inviting an executive coach to facilitate this reflection in a group setting (such as a retreat). [xxxi]
A third approach is based on a perspective offered by object-relations therapists (such as Bion): each of us holds multiple and sometimes contradictory emotion-loaded images and ideas (psychic “objects”). As Bion has noted, these objects can be intertwined with the basic collective assumptions operating in a group, as well as other (beta) elements of an individual’s or group’s assumptive world. Building on O’Neill’s approach to transparent executive coaching, a leader (or other members of a team) can identify (with the help of a facilitator) several contradictory elements of their assumptive world. Beta is metabolized into accessible Alpha elements.
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