The Return of Freud’s Couch® – Management of Affectivity through Comfort Technologies

Abstract

This article explores how the affective ‘set up’ of Freud’s legendary couch today has been exported into modern work relations. The so-called psy-sciences from pedagogy, psychology and psychiatry have inspired human resource management to promote self-management among employees. Managing self-management, however, is not only a governmental strategy but also has a material-affective dimension, which works on intensities and atmospheres rather than identity. Through affective management with the couch, we argue, management can foster and maintain employees’ desire to be part of the organization and its goals. Combining Karen Barad’s notion of intra-activity, Brian Massumi’s concept of affect, and Malou Juelskjær’s concept of comfort technology, we explore how the couch participates in transforming intensities and shaping desires by affecting bodies, voices, atmospheres and relations between manager and managed. As a case study, we look into the Danish public school, which over the past decade has intensified its focus on preparing pupils to take part in a workforce based on knowledge economy. This means that much focus is on cultivating a learning subject, which desire personal development and lifelong learning. We look at the couches placed near or inside the principal’s office to explore how they participate in affective management and how they tune and charge subject formation. Through our material-affective perspective we zoom in on everyday practices in the office of principals to see how the couch, a mundane comfort technology, affects management relations between principal, pupils, parents and teachers works. We conclude with a general discussion of the implication of comfort technologies and affective management for work life. While management on the one hand becomes more all-encompassing by including affects, senses, emotions and atmospheres, it also becomes more vulnerable as affectivity is difficult to manage, maintain and predict.