Group Psychology And The Analysis Of The Ego on Superphysics

A Differentiating Grade In The Ego

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If we survey the life of an individual man of to-day, bearing in mind the mutually complementary accounts of group psychology given by the authorities, we may lose the courage, in face of the complications that are revealed, to attempt a comprehensive exposition. Each individual is a component part of numerous groups, he is bound by ties of identification in many directions, and he has built up his ego ideal upon the most various models.

Being In Love And Hypnosis

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Even in its caprices the usage of language remains true to some kind of reality.

Thus it gives the name of ’love’ to a great many kinds of emotional relationship which we too group together theoretically as love; but then again it feels a doubt whether this love is real, true, actual love, and so hints at a whole scale of possibilities within the range of the phenomena of love. We shall have no difficulty in making the same discovery empirically.

Further Problems And Lines Of Work

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We have hitherto considered two artificial groups and have found that they are dominated by two emotional ties. One of these, the tie with the leader, seems (at all events for these cases) to be more of a ruling factor than the other, which holds between the members of the group.

Identification

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In psycho-analysis, identification is the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person.

The Oedipus complex

It plays a part in the early history of the Oedipus complex.

A little boy will exhibit a special interest in his father. He would like to grow like him and be like him, and take his place everywhere. He takes his father as his ideal.

Introduction

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The contrast between Individual Psychology and Social or Group[1] Psychology might seem to be full of significance at first glance.

Le Bon's Description Of The Group Mind

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instead of starting from a definition, it is more useful to:

begin with the range of the phenomena
select from among the phenomena a few striking and characteristic facts

Le Bon’s famous work “Psychologie des foules” does this.[2]

More of Le Bon's Description Of The Group Mind

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Let us now leave the individual, and turn to the group mind, as outlined by Le Bon.

It shows not a single feature which a psycho-analyst would find any difficulty in placing or in deriving from its source. Le Bon himself shows us the way by pointing to its similarity with the mental life of primitive people and of children (p. 40).

Other Accounts Of Collective Mental Life

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Le Bon’s description fits in so well with our own Psychology in the emphasis which it lays upon unconscious mental life.

But none of Le Bon’s statements bring forward anything new.

Other Accounts Of Collective Mental Life

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We started from the fundamental fact that an individual in a group is subjected through its influence to what is often a profound alteration in his mental activity.

His emotions become extraordinarily intensified, while his intellectual ability becomes markedly reduced, both processes being evidently in the direction of an approximation to the other individuals in the group; and this result can only be reached by the removal of those inhibitions upon his instincts which are peculiar to each individual, and by his resigning those expressions of his inclinations which are especially his own.

Postscript

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In the course of the enquiry which has just been brought to a provisional end we came across a number of side-paths which we avoided pursuing in the first instance but in which there was much that offered us promises of insight. We propose now to take up a few of the points that have been left on one side in this way.

The Group And The Primal Horde

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In 1912, I took up a conjecture of Darwin’s to the effect that the primitive form of human society was that of a horde ruled over despotically by a powerful male.

The Herd Instinct

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The intense emotional ties which we observe in groups are quite sufficient to explain one of their characteristics—the lack of independence and initiative in their members, the similarity in the reactions of all of them, their reduction, so to speak, to the level of group individuals.

Two Artificial Groups: The Church And The Army

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We may recall from what we know of the morphology of groups that it is possible to distinguish very different kinds of groups and opposing lines in their development.

There are very fleeting groups and extremely lasting ones; homogeneous ones, made up of the same sorts of individuals, and unhomogeneous ones; natural groups, and artificial ones, requiring an external force to keep them together; primitive groups, and highly organised ones with a definite structure.