Bureaucracy and Psychopathology

Abstract

This paper discusses recent studies of careers and emotional disturbances in bureaucracies and the implications for psychotherapeutic treatment of the disturbed. The methodology of sociopsychoanalysis, developed by Fromm and Maccoby, was employed to study individual character, unconscious passions and attitudes, work roles, and the organizationalcareerist culture of large governmental and other bureaucracies. Subjects included those in therapeutic treatment and those not; those showing overt psychiatric symptoms on the job and those who appear to be welladjusted career winners. The paper explores, with case illustrations, the role of adaptation to the external situation, including requirements for career success, versus internal conflicts in the development ofpsychopathology. Major findings were that some successful careerists are dominated by psychopathology yet show no psychiatric symptoms at work; and others who do show overt symptoms are within the range of character. These and other study results are interpreted in terms of successful or unsuccessful adaptation; changes in the normal social character and standards of social adjustment; and consequences for effective treatment of disturbed careerists.