Gods, Heroes and Groups

Brant Elwood has a MA in Social-Organisational Psychology from Columbia University and is a therapeutic consultant. He has held leadership positions within several therapeutic treatment organizations. During the pandemic, he directed a non-profit that utilised myth and archetypal theory to conduct rites of passage work with young men in the southeast US.Brant draws from the mythopoetic lineage of Robert Bly, Robert Johnson, and others in an attempt to establish a novel style of thinking about groups in communities and organisations. He first attended a Tavistock-style group relations conference in 2015.Aodhán Moran has one foot in psychology and the other in technology. Starting his career in tech and e-commerce, Aodhán worked various roles in start-ups and scale-ups across Galway, San Francisco, and Toronto before pursuing a career in clinical psychology.Aodhán is a certified executive coach through Dr Simon Western’s Ecoleadership Institute. His practice is grounded in the analytic-network systems psychodynamic lens, which he uses to coach young entrepreneurs toward self-awareness in their work.As a student of group relations since 2019, Aodhán has attended multiple group relations- style conferences in member, trainee consultant, and staff roles, including The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations’ Leicester Conference. Aodhán draws on Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Jonathan Pageau, René Girard, Simon Western, and others in his explorations of individual and group dynamics.Aodhán is particularly interested in the intersection of psychology, mythology, and religion, and how these areas can inform our understanding of individual and group behaviour.

• About the authorsForeword by Leslie BrissettIntroduction1. The work2. A little bit of theory: projection and projective identification3. Creation myths and early group stages4. Hierarchies and power in groups5. Leadership succession and worship6. Murder and death7. Unions and pairings8. Incest and group diversity9. Attraction and contempt10. War and competition11. Scapegoating12. The great floods and groupthink13. The Drama Triangle14. Sabotage and crisis compulsion in organisations15. The crisis compulsion16. The pain of transformation17. Collision of paradigms: isomorphism vs projection18. Grief and adjourning19. Here-and-now work for us as a cultureReferencesIndex

‘Brant Elwood and Aodhán Moran offer us a unique language to think and talk about roles we take in groups. The archetypal lens they use elucidates and brings freshness to experiences in groups, as well as adding emotional feel and a sense of poetry. Their work is relevant to the emerging interest in group relations communities in connecting to the legacies and cultural myths of our ancestors. While the authors are knowledgeable and experienced, it is their palpable sense of awe that makes the book fun to read.’