MULTI AGENCY WORKING

Multi Agency Working

Multi Agency Working

Foucault “Theory of Power”

Foucault analyzed what is the concept of power. According to Foucault, “power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization” ((Foucault, 1976, p.165). Power is action people engage in that exists everywhere. Foucault did not define power in conventional power terms as institutional or leadership roles. He defined power as a mode that controls individuals and their knowledge through discourse. Power cannot be possessed but is exercised through social interaction.

Power is exercised through individuals through their thoughts and feelings. Power is not a physical force or an organization in society. “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.” (Foucault, 1976, 45-96) Furthermore, individuals exercise power through discourse. Discourse communicates language and social behaviors that are specific to certain issues. Power is technique individuals engage in through discourse.

Freud “Unconsciousness in Organization”

Freud considers the unconscious psychic formed by a system which can access consciousness, as it is the product of repression, that is to say a psychological process of self defense rejecting impulses and desires. The qualified specialization of consciousness that can be located in ordinary thought about the mind provides a source of motivation that is free from conceptual confusion. The analysis of what it is to be in consciousness has a further importance for the concept of unconscious mentality.

If one assumes that all mental states are conscious alone, we will take a highly sceptical stand on Freudian theory and the topographical model of the mind proposed by him. For example, mental states like beliefs and values do not exist solely by virtue of consciousness in them. Freud's notion of unconscious mentality is arrived at by ...