The controversy continues around the extent to which David Laws knowingly continued to claim his expenses when he was no longer eligible. Other commentators have pointed out that he could have been legitimately claiming more and that it would have been possible to do so without details of his relationship emerging. Apparently key to his situation was his very strong need to avoid his mother becoming aware of his homosexuality. It appears to have been this that has driven the painful series of poor decisions and misjudgments that seem to have got him into his current circumstances.

Laws is not the only minister to find himself struggling with a profound personal dilemma, and being both so afraid and so intensely private as to feel they have nowhere else to go to seek counsel. So where do people of considerable power and influence turn when they find themselves in such a space?

Almost by definition, confidants to people of power are difficult to find and generally eschew the limelight. They work behind the scenes. In the past, they were often friends formed during the last few years of adolescence, who impressed at the time with their wisdom and who the rising star remained in touch with throughout. Perhaps the best know example of recent years, was the important relationship between the late Rev. Peter Thomson and Tony Blair,  initiated in Blair’s Oxford days and continued until Thomson’s death earlier this year. These relationships depend largely on trust and a set of overt values which the recipient held in great esteem.

More recently, there have been a small number of professionals emerging, mainly in New York and London, who are known to provide a service to their clients – exclusively ‘people of power’ – allowing them to explore the politics of situations as they unfold, to unravel the dynamics of organizations, and understand the personalities and likely behaviour of other people with whom they have to deal. These confidants are almost all highly educated (most, if not all, have PhDs) and specialists in a field known as psychodynamic psychotherapy or counselling. They have usually worked in a variety of institutions, and early in their careers either specialised in the field of organization development or psychiatry.

Typical of this breed is Kerry Sulkowicz MD, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, based in New York, who advises CEOs on psychological aspects of leadership in complex organizations. He has written columns on the psychology of business for BusinessWeek and Fast Company magazine, is on the Faculty of the Psychoanalytic Institute at NYU Medical Center and is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine. In France, Manfred Kets de Vries, a Professor at the international management school, INSEAD, combines his knowledge of economics and management with a professional training in psychoanalysis to work with top executives. The UK is home to one of the few training bodies with a long track record of preparing psychodynamic consultants for the world of work and organisations – The Tavistock Centre (known affectionately as ‘The Tavvy’) – and the handful of graduates from their very long training are eagerly awaited by City CEOs and well known politicians.

So how would one of these psychodynamic confidants have helped David Laws avoid the embarrassment that he is experiencing now? My own work, which involves corporate leaders, high profile academics, and a politician or two, is fairly typical and probably highlights the potential perfectly. The origin of psychodynamic work lies in three assumptions.

Firstly that our behaviour as adults is shaped by our experiences as children.

Secondly, that when working inside organisations, unconsciously, we respond within them as if they were our family and our own family dynamics frequently act themselves out through our work.

Finally, while much of the processing of these issues is unconscious, psychoanalytically trained confidants are able to use what is known as ‘transference’ to give voice to the material.

Whether we had begun working together early in his career as a politician or subsequently as a minister, almost certainly in the course of exploring the dynamics of the work he was doing, his behaviour and how it related to his maternal influences, would have been sensitively unravelled. Out of this would come a clear line of enquiry about his present-day relationship to her, to the keeping of secrets from our parents, the importance of privacy and the contrasts of risk taking in politics, in relationships, and in family dynamics. This is the stuff of life, and Laws is not exceptional in having issues (both large and small) that are influencing the life choices he makes. By understanding these a different perspective would emerge, less weight placed on some aspects and more on others, and fears and taboos would have been reduced or addressed.

Leaders in the know are aware of the importance of, what is called, ‘reflective practice’ and happily build a relationship with a confidant of this kind because they have seen the impacts that it can have enhancing their productivity and making life more enjoyable.