Organizational Psychology Summer Seminar 2021
When:
—
Venue:
Online
The Department of Organizational Psychology is delighted to host a range of speakers for this year’s Summer Seminar which will be taking place on Tuesday 13 July between 1:00pm and 4:30pm.
This Event is open exclusively to Organizational Psychology students and alumni.
2021
Keynote Speaker – Dr Simon Western: The Meaning of Greta
We are delighted to welcome this year’s Keynote Speaker Dr Simon Western, who will explore the social meaning of Greta Thunberg, utilising psychoanalytic insights.
Time magazine made her Person of the Year 2019, claiming she has become a social phenomenon, a “global sensation”. This article explores the social meaning of “Greta”. But what does “Greta” evoke in our “social imaginary” (Taylor, 2009, p. 146). What conscious and unconscious identifications are projected onto “Greta” that have made her the unlikely famous person she is? These questions are not about exploring her individual psychological, leadership, or character traits, but focus on Greta (now eighteen years old) as a social object (Latour, 2005) with a vast social network following her, including over 4.2 million Twitter followers, a new documentary film about her, and mainstream media coverage across the globe.
Dr Western will outline five core messages that Greta transmits, and the meanings that emerge, concluding by summarising the social meanings of Greta. Dr Western will then explore with the audience, what these social meanings of Greta tell us about other relationships; to workplace leaders, to politicians, to activists, and to the environments in which we live and work.
ITINERARY
Part 1
1.00pm Welcome and departmental update - Professor Almuth McDowall
1.30pm Keynote Presentation: Dr Simon Western, The Meaning of Greta
2.15pm Dr Susan Kahn: Melancholia and Loss
2.45pm End of Part 1
Part 2
3.00pm Dr Halley Pontes: Work addiction
3.30pm Professional doctorate research in OP: compered by Dr Rachel Lewis and Dr Joanna Yarker
4.15pm Final remarks
4.30pm End
BIOGRAPHY
Dr Simon Western
Dr Simon Western is an internationally recognized thought leader and author in the field of leadership, coaching and organizational culture. His theory and practice of Eco-Leadership is taught at business schools and influences leaders across the globe. His message that ‘organizations are ecosystems within ecosystems’, radically changes how we engage with work.
Simon is founder/CEO of Analytic-Network Coaching which has trained over 300 registered coaches who deliver new forms of distributed leadership for today’s Network Society. He is previously a family psychotherapist, he is a highly gifted communicator, building trust and confidence; he coaches and consults to CEOs and leadership teams. He founded Edgy Ideas Podcast in 2020 to explore ‘how to live a good life and create a good society’.
Adjunct Professor University College Dublin, Past President/CEO of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. Previous roles: Director of Coaching, Lancaster University, Director of Masters in Organizational Consultancy-psychoanalytic approaches, Tavistock Clinic London.
Professor Almuth McDowall
Almuth is Professor of Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London where she leads her department and is part of her school’s executive team. Her research has been funded by the Ministry of Defence, the College of Policing, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Home Office, as well as a range of other funders. Almuth has won awards for her research and her commitment to furthering the practice of psychology in the workplace in the UK. She regularly contributes to the media, fuelled by her belief that research needs to speak to organisations directly to have impact and contemporary relevance.
She is a Chartered Psychologist, Registered Practitioner Psychologist, Academic Fellow of the CIPD and Fellow of the International Society for Coaching Psychology. Alongside this she is a practicing psychologist working with the private, public and third sector delivering bespoke assignments, often at senior levels.
Dr Susan Kahn
Susan is a business psychologist, a practitioner and an academic. She works as a coach, consultant, mediator and an observer of working life. She has a particular interest in the behaviour of people at work and below the surface dynamics in organisations. As a coach, she works together with individuals and their organisations to help clients to develop and enhance their authentic leadership style. As a mediator, she is skilled in improving working relationships and developing common understanding between parties in toxic relationships. In addition to her private clients, she is the Programme Director for Coaching Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, teaching coaching and organizational psychology. She is a faculty member at the School of Life, working with businesses to develop their emotional intelligence. She also works as a group relations consultant, including equine coaching. Her research interests embrace leadership, change and vulnerability at work. Her book, Death & the City, published by Karnac, uses psychoanalysis to explore organisational endings. Her latest publication, Bounce Back: how to fail fast and be resilient at work is published by Kogan Page, examines resilience in the workplace.
Dr Halley Pontes
Dr. Halley Pontes is a psychologist, lecturer, and researcher in the Department of Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London. Halley is a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol) within the British Psychological Society, Chartered Scientist (CSci) within the UK Science Council, as well as a member of the Australian Psychological Society, International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, and the Psychometric Society.
Halley is a multi-award winning leading expert in the field of psychology, with over 100 studies published to date. Prior to joining the department, Halley held appointments in the Department of Psychology at Nottingham Trent University (United Kingdom) and the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Tasmania (Australia).
Dr Rachel Lewis
Rachel is an award-winning registered occupational psychologist, specialising in work, health and well-being. Her work focuses on understanding how those working in inherently stressful and difficult occupations and job roles, continue to do what they do.
Dr Joanna Yarker
Dr Jo Yarker is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London.
Dr Rachel Lewis and Jo Yarker have worked together to develop the innovative Professional Doctorate in Occupational Psychology and MRes in Professional Practice in Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, designed to engage practitioners in evidence-based practice and supervise practice-led research across the field. Jo and Rachel are also Directors of Affinity Health at Work, a thriving consultancy and research group. These programmes are dual accredited by both the BPS and the HCPC and represent the first alternative routes to chartership and registration within the occupational psychology profession.
Contact name:
Orla Walsh