Assessing future disorders in organizations: implications for diagnosing and treating schizophrenic, depressed or paranoid organizations

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to highlight the relevance of the inner future of an organization for diagnosing and treating organizational disorders, as it relates to the concept of future‐oriented psychotherapy. Design/methodology/approach – This paper combines the concept of future‐oriented psychotherapy, with the categorization of organizations using the means of psychiatric disorders. Findings – The paper finds that the importance of an organization's future is underlined by evidence from psychiatry. Time distortions in psychiatric illness can cloud the personal future of an individual and distort the view of the future and thereby disrupt goal‐directed behavior. The claim of future‐oriented psychotherapy is that in order to treat mental disorders, the future needs to be brought under self‐control; this process is futuring. It is suggested that in an organizational context, the Scenario technique or Strategic Issue Management can be applied to treat organizational disorders. Research limitations/implications – Additional research will be needed to explore the implications of future‐oriented psychotherapy for other disorders, besides those discussed here (depression, schizophrenia, paranoia), and which methodologies beside the Scenario technique and Strategic Issue Management can be applied for future‐oriented psychotherapy for organizations. Practical implications – The paper suggests that how the future is dealt with in an organization, has implications for diagnosing the mental health of an organization and for treating such disorders in an organization. Originality/value – This paper fills a gap in the research on organizational disorders by highlighting the relevance of the inner future of an organization.