Holding the Turbulent World at Work

A Joint NIODA and ISPSO Symposium

24 - 27 September 2026

Holding the Turbulent World at Work

The goal of this joint NIODA/ISPSO symposium is to deepen our collective understanding of the underlying psychological and systemic forces at work in this turbulent world, their impacts at work and on organisations and how we work with them.

Explore the full list of presenters and their papers

Opening Panel 1: Systemic Turbulence

Dr Simon Western & Otti Vogt

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Opening Panel 2: Turbulent Work Today

Dr Mishel McMahon, Dr Larry Hirschhorn, & Brett MacFarlane

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Parallel Paper Session 1

Anastasia Evstigneeva

Living in Between: Organisational Identity in Relocated Russian Technology Companies After 2022

Dr Alexander Schall

Conflict Capability as a Foundation of Holding in Turbulent Environments

Professor Tim Roberts-Ferguson

Containing Commercial Turbulence: The Unconscious Life of Sales Organisations and What It Reveals About Holding at Work

Dorrit Kromann

Building Bridges in the Boardroom: Holding Turbulence Through Psychodynamic and Systems Thinking in Board Dynamics

Parallel Paper Session 2

Dr Manon de Jongh

Working with Interorganizational Group Dynamics in the Green Transition: Insights from Simulation-Based Leadership Development in the Danish Green Tripartite

Dr Joram Feitsma

Working on Earthly Escape: Exploring the Systems-Psychodynamics of Spacefaring Organizations

Charlotte Williams

The Earth as Holding Environment: Planetary Instability and the Crisis of Containment

Mark Argent

Being with turbulence

Parallel Paper Session 3

Dr Michael Lindsay

Centering Sentience Centering Sentience: Restoring the Role of Felt Experience in Systems Thinking

Dr Philip Boxer

Asymmetric Demand, the Doubling of the Double Task, and the Cost of Defending Against Anxiety

Mariana Vargas

Doing Business in a Temporary State of Mind: War, Displacement and Containment in a Small Service Organization

David Hartwich

Organisational Holding Environments: Generative Practice or Sophisticated Defence?

Parallel Paper Session 4

Fred Wright

Between Certainty and Curiosity: Tending the Organisational Mind in Vortical Conditions

Thea Mikkelsen

When The Desire of the Creative Class is Challenged by Defences Against Innovation

Irina Brazhnikova & Tatyana Ezhova

Identity Matrix: Seeing the Turbulent World Through Belonging to Large Groups

Javad Mohamadzade

Communicative Suffocation and Defensive Organizing under Conditions of Total Digital Disruption in Iranian Organizations

Panel 3

Avi Nutkevitch, Vusi Uj Vilikati & Kalina Stamenova

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Parallel Paper Session 5

Dragana Vranješ, Dr Judit Gáspár, & Jim Krantz

Babel curse or cure? - role of language in holding the turbulent world

Dr Elisabeth Prchla

Mourning After Unplanned Midlife Career Transitions: Identifying Ballast and Treasures in the Family Baggage

Professor Andrew Sharman

Taking “We Care” Seriously: A Socioanalytic Inquiry into Corporate Care, Psychological Safety and the Invisible Life of Organisations

Ajoy Datta

Holding Turbulence from within: internal consultancy in an NHS psychiatric intensive care unit

Closing Panel

Professor Susan Long, Professor Aaron Nurick, & Thomas Mitchell

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