44: The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations with Dr Eliat Aram

Our guest this week is Dr Eliat Aram, CEO of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR). 

Dr Eliat Aram has been the CEO of TIHR for over 13 years. The TIHR, a not-for-profit outfit operating in the UK and abroad is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2022 and is a world-leading research, evaluation, consultancy, and professional development organisation. Believing in the abundant potential of human relationships and love for people are the drivers in the way she shapes the direction of the institute, the multitude of its activities as well as her praxis.  

TIHR was established in 1947, dedicated to the study of human relations for the bettering of working life. Eliat discusses some of the TIHR developments over the years and shares new directions they are pioneering, particularly in the areas of how aesthetics, art, and place inform our working lives today.    

TIHR developed many experiential learning methodologies, drawing on systemic thinking, anthropology, psychoanalysis, and other social sciences, the most well-known are the Group Relations Conferences. Eliat reflects on the importance of this innovative learning methodology and its continued relevance in today's disruptive world. This podcast will be of great interest to all of us indebted to the Tavistock Institute and its positive influence on work, organisations, and society. 

Dr Eliat Aram is a Chartered Scientist Psychologist (BPS), a UKCP registered Gestalt Psychotherapist, and has been one of the pioneering members of the CMC (Complexity & Management Centre) of Hertfordshire University. Her theoretical grounding is in complexity theory, organisational studies, Gestalt psychotherapy theory, and systems psychodynamics. She is a keen practitioner of Group Relations, the Tavistock enterprise’s core ‘learning through experience’ practice. She has directed many Group Relations Conferences internationally including the Tavistock Institute’s flagship GRC known as the ‘Leicester’ conference. She has been one of the two directors of the TIHR’s certified courses Coaching for Leadership and Professional Development (2014-2017) and co-founder of the Supervision for Coaching and Consultancy course, now in its seventh cohort. She has contributed to all TIHR Professional Development activities and program design. Someone told her recently that perhaps work-life balance is found when one finds their love at, and for, work and life. Working with the dynamic of shame as an integral part of any potentially transformative learning process has been her quest and the tenet of her evolving thinking over the decades of her practice. Someone told her recently that perhaps work-life balance is found when one finds their love at, and for, work and life. She unashamedly thinks this might just be so.