The tavistock programme: The government of subjectivity and social life

In contemporary western societies the subjective features of social life have become the object and target of a new expertise. The paper addresses the limitations of certain influential approaches to this phenomenon, in particular analyses framed in terms of ‘social control’ and ‘medicalisation’. It offers an alternative framework based on three elements: Firstly, a conception of government as a varying set of rationales and programmes which seek to align socio-political objectives with the activities and relations of individuals; secondly, the constitutive roles of psychological and managerial techniques and vocabularies. These are seen to be crucial in the formation of new ways of thinking about and acting on the social relations of the family and the workplace; thirdly, a notion of subjectivity as a capacity promoted through specific regulatory techniques and forms of expertise. This framework is utilised in the analysis of the Tavistock Clinic and Tavistock Institute of Human Relations to explore some of the fundamental transformations in twentieth century British society. Three ‘case studies’ are provided: The mental hygiene movement in the 1920s and 1930s; the role of psychological expertise in the Second World War; and the links between industrial productivity, group relations and mental health forged in the immediate post-war period.