just how one is supposed to raise issues about relationships, trust, communication, ugly games, power moves, non-response

Yes indeed... well if you are dealing with the CEO et al, you don't raise the issues. I was involved in designing statistical computer systems for the management board of a small, but financially very technical, company. I learned not to expect anyone to specify anything in plain English. A board is a sort-of political see-saw between half a dozen personalities: the see-saw is continually moving multi-dimensionally, and you are supposed to design a computer system that moves multi-dimensionally along with it. But the problems with computer system design is like houses: you build from the foundations up, and once the concrete is set in place.... etc.

That's organisational politics from the inside. BUT our conversation is more about mind-sets. I see a mind-set on some of these boards where people are so in their mental health issues and sensitivities, and I realise that I have two minds about that. When I'm in the outside world dealing with contractors, I can't be oversensitive about my personal emotions so at the end of the day I have to try to recoup my contact with my inner world. I am working towards a place of respectful, amicable distancing - controlled personal leakage, tolerance etc.

I imagine myself standing on a mud spit between two tides: one tide is therapy people who want the world to give them a living while they obsess about their internal dynamics, one side is hyper-critical mad profit-driven hierarchies. There is a middle ground because common sense says so. Or else our society would have completely disintegrated.

Eh, lol. I am a bit mental this morning Steinbeck!!! I am packing a suitcase with painter's overalls, educational equipment, fashion stuff for my inner teenager, winter raincoats, summer swimming stuff, maps, timetables, comforts. All of my inner and outer selves squashed into one airline sized baggage - with different suitcases for stuff that I can afford to lose in the hold and stuff that is going to be chained to my wrist for the duration. I have two other peeps here entertaining themselves.

And then I wondered about Steinbeck's suitcases . A different era, not enough food, desperate people and his writer's sensibility. What's in your suitcase this morning?