Suffering at meaning: containment in crisis

Abstract

When anxiety about survival is high it can interfere with the capacity for containment in organisations. The very anxieties that are in such need of containment can be damaging to ways of functioning that are necessary for containing relationships. In certain organisations the ability to tolerate painful feelings is limited and as a result the capacity for containment is impaired. As a consultant working in these circum-stances the task that is required is that of building or rebuilding the container before thinking, in Bion’s sense, can take place. Having an awareness of the state of the organisational container can help the consultant to make a judgement about the level of complexity they are likely to encounter in the work and enable them to plan interventions accordingly. Using examples from my consultancy practice I describe a process of “suffering at meaning” as the way in which containing relationships might be developed so that painful experiences can be faced.