Awards

• Nominated for Gradiva Award 2021

Overview

An inspirational look at the vital role curiosity plays in life which offers an intriguing perspective on human interaction. The Curiosity Drive explores the central importance of curiosity in developing the human mind and the consequences of this for human behaviour and thinking. It provides clear models for understanding the mind and how people relate to each other, and examines such crucial themes as the 'healthy' organisation, group dynamics, the unconscious, ethics, hate, politics, therapy, and love through the lens of Shakespeare. After eighteen frustrating months heading a specialist adolescent unit, Philip Stokoe applied for a training in consultation at the Tavistock Clinic based on the 'Tavi' aka 'group relations' model. This experience changed his life and, ultimately, led to this book, The Curiosity Drive: Our Need for Inquisitive Thinking. Embedding the training into his working life, Stokoe came to recognise the crucial importance of curiosity to the development of the mind. Alongside love and hate, it is a primary drive inside each of us. Without the desire to 'know', human evolution would take a very different path. Philip Stokoe outlines the work of Freud, Klein, and Bion to provide a firm foundation to his exploration of individual development and how it relates to groups and organisations. He lays bare why so many organisations are dysfunctional, takes an in- depth look at the problems unique to psychoanalytic institutions, and gives clear insight into how groups function as a separate entity to the individuals involved. He also investigates curiosity's shadow side, detailing the 'alternative' processes needed when it becomes a problem. This is a truly excellent book for trainees, professionals, and anyone who has ever been frustrated by work! AUTHOR: Philip Stokoe, BSc, MSc, CQSW, FInstPsychoanal is a psychoanalyst (Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis) in private practice working with adults and couples, and an organisational consultant, providing consultation to a wide range of organisations since he qualified in 1983 at the Tavistock Centre.

Full Product Details

9781912691456

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Reviews

Engaging, challenging, peppered with fresh ideas about the developing mind, organisations, and individual and couple relationships, this book is as lively as it is informative, as enjoyable as it is profound. Steeped in psychoanalytic thinking and enriched by systems theory and Shakespeare, the work is an inspiring expression of the author's own curiosity and capacity for original and creative thought. --Hobson, R. Peter, Emeritus Tavistock Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, UCL In a truly encyclopaedic re-examination of the Klein/Bion tradition of psychoanalytic theorising, Stokoe demonstrates his view that, by focusing on the curiosity drive in the course of human development, our understanding of the growth of the mind is significantly changed and that this change is crucial to our understanding of how human beings behave and relate to each other. The book has depth in its theoretical explorations and breadth in its descriptions of the applications of that theorising. . . --Ruszczynski, Stanley, psychoanalyst and Consultant Adult Psychotherapist (and past Director, 2005-2016), Portman Clinic Philip Stokoe is to be commended not only for writing such an interesting and well-informed book on such a crucial subject, but also for being willing to engage with its political ramifications. --Mawson, Chris, training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society

Author Information

Philip Stokoe, BSc, MSc, CQSW, FInstPsychoanal is a psychoanalyst (Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis) in private practice working with adults and couples, and an organisational consultant, providing consultation to a wide range of organisations since he qualified in 1983 at the Tavistock Centre. He was Honorary Visiting Professor, Mental Health for three years at City University, where he is helping to set up a radically new way to train mental health nurses based on psychoanalytic principles. He worked as a Consultant Social Worker in the Adult Department of the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust between 1994 and 2012, where he was the Clinical Director of the Adult Department from 2007 to 2011. He has developed a reputation as a successful teacher and has taught and written about the application of psychoanalysis in a wide range of settings: supervision, leadership, groups, organisations, ethics, borderline disorder, adolescence, residential work, working with victims of sexual abuse, psychological services in the NHS, couple relationships, and politics. Whilst at the Tavistock, he developed a model for understanding organisational dynamics, which has come to be called the Healthy Organisation Model. With his wife, Mary Morgan, he has developed a theory about a stage of human development that they call the “Creative Couple” state of mind. He has a particular interest in human creativity as it relates to the development of the mind and the central role of curiosity and interest. His early experience as an actor has left him with an abiding interest in theatre, art and cinema. He has published a number of papers and his first book, based around the importance of curiosity to the continuing development of the human mind, published by Phoenix Publishing House in April 2020.

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