“…It draws on and contributes to attempts that employ object relations thinking (Klein, 1959) to make sense of anxiety and defence within organisations in general (Bain, 1998;Cilliers & May, 2010;Cummins, 2002;Gould, Ebers & Clinchy, 1999;Jaques, 1955), social service institutions (Bott-Spillus, 1990;Gibson & Swartz, 2000, 2001Menzies-Lyth, 1988;Obholzer & Roberts, 1994;Willshire, 1999) and public service organisations (Dartington, 2004;Dempsey, 2007;Hoggett, 2006;Mnguni, 2010Mnguni, , 2008. Whereas most of these studies concur that anxiety within public and social service organisations derives primarily from the intrinsic nature of their primary task, Hoggett (2006) problematises the very notion of a primary task as simplistic.…”