Why Team Conflict Isn’t About the Work

Abstract
Team conflict in human service organizations is often misunderstood as a result of task breakdown or communication failure. However, evidence from clinical psychology, neuroscience, and systems theory reveals that deeper psychological and interpersonal dynamics—particularly projection, schema activation, and unconscious emotional memory—are frequently the true drivers. This article introduces a four-layered healing framework (Conscious, Pre-Conscious, Unconscious, and Existential) developed through the SWEET Healing Circle for Teams. The model supports organizations in transforming reactivity into responsibility, burnout into alignment, and conflict into collaborative growth. Implications for agency culture, staff sustainability, and leadership practice are explored.

Keywords
Team conflict, organizational culture, schema, projection, burnout, healing systems, SWEET Institute, trauma-informed teams, psychological safety, agency transformation

Introduction
In human service systems—housing programs, mental health agencies, harm reduction centers—team dysfunction is often blamed on communication breakdowns, personality clashes, or operational overload. But beneath these surface-level explanations lies a deeper, often unexamined truth: team conflict is rarely about the work itself. It is more often the product of psychological processes that are misrecognized, reenacted, and reinforced within organizational culture.

The Role of Perception and Projection
Viktor Frankl (1946) stated that “between stimulus and response, there is a space.” Yet in most agencies, that space is rarely used. In the fast pace of service delivery, a colleague’s tone, email, or silence is interpreted not as neutral input, but through the filter of the perceiver’s history, emotion, and unconscious narrative.

Projection—first described by Freud and later expanded by Jung (1959)—is the process by which an individual unconsciously attributes their own unwanted feelings or assumptions onto another person. In workplace teams, this takes shape through:

• “They don’t respect me.”

• “She’s trying to control everything.”

• “He never pulls his weight.”

These interpretations may feel objectively true, but they are often subjectively driven by reactivated schema, prior emotional wounds, or internalized beliefs formed in early relationships (Young & Klosko, 2003).

The Four Layers of Dysfunction—and Healing
The SWEET Healing Circle for Teams applies a four-layer framework that mirrors psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and existential models:

1. Conscious Layer
This is the level of behavior—observable actions, routines, nonverbal tone.
Interventions: Breathwork, communication scripts, meeting rituals, stress reduction tools.

2. Pre-Conscious Layer
Schemas and belief systems not fully conscious but easily activated under stress.
Example: “I have to do everything myself” → overfunctioning and resentment.
Interventions: Schema awareness tools, group reflection, feedback reframing.

3. Unconscious Layer
Internalized emotional memory, projection, and displaced emotion.
Example: “She reminds me of my mother” → anger disproportionate to context.
Interventions: Symbolic inquiry, facilitated conflict debriefs, healing dialogue circles. 

4. Existential Layer
The layer of meaning, freedom, and personal responsibility.
Without reconnecting to purpose, team members stagnate or withdraw.
Interventions: Mission realignment, values exploration, purpose journaling.

Organizational Impact
When conflict is addressed only at the behavioral level, agencies see temporary compliance. When addressed through all four layers, teams experience sustainable transformation:

• Increased psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999)

• Reduced staff turnover

• Healthier supervisor-staff relationships

• Greater alignment with agency values and mission

The SWEET Healing Circle creates a structured space for this work to happen, integrating clinical depth with operational pragmatism.

Conclusion
Team conflict is not a surface issue. It is a mirror.

What is reflected in that mirror—resentment, resistance, withdrawal—is not the end point. It is the invitation.

When agencies respond to that invitation with curiosity, humility, and structure, healing becomes not just possible, but inevitable.

References

• Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.

• Frankl, V. E. (1946). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.

• Jung, C. G. (1959). The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press.

• Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. Norton.

• Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation. Bantam.

• Young, J. E., & Klosko, J. S. (2003). Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide. Guilford Press.

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