Deep causes of critical incidents in industrial enterprises

APPLIED PSYCHOANALYTIC RESEARCH

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study underlying causes of critical incidents in industrial company. We examined the features of the organizational unconscious’ functioning, the protective mechanisms used to suppress anxiety in the organization. The study tested the hypothesis about existence of significant differences in employees ' fantasies about the work process according with presence or absence of fatal accidents at the enterprise. It was shown that there are differences in the employees ' perception of the work process in enterprises where fatal accidents occurred and did not occur. Drawings of subjects (obtained using the "Metaphor" method) at enterprises where fatal accidents occurred are in clusters associated with fatigue, depression, and protection. At the same time, none of the subjects working at enterprises where there were no fatal accidents fell into these categories. It was noted that in enterprises where fatal accidents occurred, the fantasies of employees analyzed with the help of drawings present a sense of unsuitability, fatigue and anxiety; in the enterprise where fatal accidents did not occur, involvement and meaning were analyzed. Analyzing the dynamics of anxiety in the organization, the assumption about the masochistic tendency that caused this dynamics was made. This assumption was confirmed by the results of variance analysis of organizational behavior factors.