Insight
The Possibility of Difficult Conversations: A Systems‑Psychodynamic Perspective
21 April 2026
In preparation for an upcoming workshop “Navigating difficult conversations and defences – a systemic approach to challenging situations” Rachel Stephen, Organisational Consultant, reflects on the varied and complex dynamics that sit below the surface when difficult conversations are required.
The Emotional Weight Behind Difficult Conversations
In many organisational and clinical settings, we know from experience that practitioners and leaders encounter conversations that carry significant emotional and relational weight. These moments often involve concerns about wellbeing, risk, performance, or behaviour-issues that sit at the intersection of individual experience and wider system pressures. Such conversations can feel fraught and at times deeply unbearable to all parties, because they activate powerful anxieties, both in those delivering the message and in those receiving it.
For example, as a health visitor discussing concerns about a baby’s wellbeing, parental mental health, addiction, safeguarding worries, and the agonising fragility of a family under pressure, the question was always present “How do I say what needs to be said without losing the connection that allows this family and I to work together?”
What Makes These Conversations Difficult: The System Beneath the Surface
From a systems‑psychodynamic standpoint, the difficulty of these conversations is rarely located solely in the content. Instead, it emerges from the complex interplay of roles, expectations, unconscious processes, and the emotional climate of the system. What we mean by this is that, when stakes are high, individuals may experience heightened anxiety, leading to defensive patterns such as avoidance, minimisation, or over‑control. These responses are not simply personal tendencies; they are often shaped by the wider organisational context and the unspoken dynamics within it.
A common fear that is often voiced is that naming difficult truths will damage relationships or destabilise the relationship, team or organisational system. This can lead to a culture where important issues remain unspoken, creating what organisational theorists describe as “undiscussables.” Over time, these silences can erode trust, distort communication, and increase the emotional burden on individuals and teams.
Yet systems‑psychodynamic practice suggests that difficult conversations, when held thoughtfully, can have the opposite effect. When practitioners and leaders can stay emotionally present, curious, and reflective, even in moments of tension, conversations that initially feel threatening can become opportunities for deeper understanding and strengthened connection. Rather than rupturing relationships, they can enhance them. A key insight from experience is the importance of holding the relationship whilst also allowing honesty.
Mentalization Under Pressure
A key component of this work is the capacity to mentalize: to hold in mind one’s own thoughts and feelings while remaining open to the inner world of the other. Under stress, mentalization often collapses. People may become certain about others’ intentions, move into defensive postures, or feel compelled to persuade or control. These shifts are not merely interpersonal; they reflect the system’s anxieties being enacted through individuals.
Reintroducing a mentalizing stance means slowing down, staying curious, tolerating uncertainty, and attending to the emotional meaning of what is happening. This helps restore the capacity for shared thinking. In this mode, difficult conversations become less about delivering information and more about co‑creating understanding. The emotional responses that arise are not obstacles but valuable data about what is being held, avoided, or projected within the system.
Example:
Imagine a Children and Families team that has just experienced a serious near miss. The atmosphere is thick with blame, anxiety, and a fear of getting it wrong. Everyone is carrying the system’s tension in their bodies, even if no one names it.
Later that day, a practitioner visits a family at home. She’s shown into the living room where the father has fallen asleep on the sofa with the baby resting on his chest. Her body tightens before she’s even aware of it. The earlier incident is still echoing inside her.
Without pausing to wonder what’s happening for this family, she blurts out, “That’s not safe.”
The parents instantly feel judged and exposed. Their own fear spikes, and they move into a defensive stance. The practitioner feels their defensiveness and becomes even more certain she needs to take control.
In that moment, none of them are truly responding to each other. They’re all responding to the system’s anxiety, which has narrowed everyone’s capacity to stay curious about one another’s intentions. The effect can be catastrophic to the relationship.
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
Expanding What Becomes Possible
This approach does not remove the inherent discomfort of challenging conversations. Some interactions will always evoke strong feelings or expose tensions within the organisation. But it expands what becomes possible within them.
When people develop the confidence and capability to stay in dialogue even when things feel difficult, relationships and systems become more resilient.
In comparison, avoidance, by contrast, often amplifies the very dynamics it seeks to prevent. Problems grow in the shadows. Misunderstandings calcify. Relationships become more brittle. Teams and organisations lose the capacity to think together under pressure.
Example:
A team leader has a neurotype that makes distractions extremely difficult to manage. To stay focused, they work with the door closed, their back to the room, and headphones on. Once they’re in that setup, they tend to hyper‑focus and lose awareness of what’s happening around them.
Over time, the team begins to interpret this as avoidance, a sign the leader doesn’t want to be approached or isn’t available to support them. Frustration builds quietly, then starts spilling into meetings and planning sessions, gradually eroding trust and performance. The avoidance on both sides – the leader avoiding distraction and the team avoiding the conversation just amplifies the tension.
Now imagine someone finally saying, “It feels like you’re not available to us when you shut the door and put your headphones on – almost as if you don’t want us to come to you.” It’s an uncomfortable moment, but it opens things up. The leader explains their neurotype and what helps them work; the team shares how the setup has been landing with them. Assumptions soften and understanding grows. The team begins to think together again. Better than that the team gradually feel able to share their own vulnerabilities and needs and really develop as a functioning unit able to lean into strengths and mitigate deficits.
Staying in dialogue strengthens the system, while avoidance quietly magnifies the very problems everyone hoped to avoid.
Developing the ability to engage in difficult conversations is therefore not simply an interpersonal skill; it is a systemic resource. It supports healthier team functioning, more robust leadership, and organisational cultures that can tolerate complexity rather than defend against it.
This workshop offers an opportunity to explore these dynamics in depth. Participants will examine what makes certain conversations feel so charged, how unconscious processes shape communication, and how a mentalizing, systems‑aware stance can transform moments of difficulty into moments of possibility. The focus is not on becoming more forceful or directive, but on cultivating the reflective capacity needed to hold complexity, stay connected, and think together-even when the conversation feels hard.
Because in many systems, the conversations that are most avoided are often the ones that matter most.