"Negative capability": managing the confusing uncertainties of change

Explores how psychoanalytic thinking can contribute to the management of th e conflicting emotions stimulated by change. Suggests that successful chang e management depends on a combination of "positive" and "negative" capabili ties. The positive capabilities involve the management of the substantive c ontent of any change initiative, the change process itself, and the roles a nd procedures required by both of these. However, even when these three "te chnical" aspects are well managed, change always arouses anxiety and uncert ainty. As a result, there is a tendency to "disperse" energy; that is, to b e deflected from the task into a range of avoidance tactics. Through a part icular understanding of such "dispersal" and its opposite, the "capacity to contain", psychoanalysis can suggest how this counterproductive tendency m ay be more effectively managed. The British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion call ed this capacity to contain "negative capability".