Customer Reviews

Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (Norton Library)

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Freud wrote this book in 1921, and its themes are related to his books Beyond the Pleasure Principle-First Edition text and The Ego and the Id - First Edition Text.

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"(I)n a group the individual is brought under conditions which allow him to throw off the repressions of his unconscious instinctual impulses. The apparently new characteristics when he then displays are in fact the manifestations of this unconscious..."
"Since a group is in no doubt as to what constitutes truth or error, and is conscious, moreover, of its own great strength, it is as intolerant as it is obedient to authority. It respects force and can only be slightly influenced by kindness, which it regards merely as a form of weakness."
"But we do not separate ... one the one hand, self-love, and on the other, love for parents and children, friendship and love for humanity in general, and also devotion to concrete objects and to abstract ideas. Our justification lies in the fact that psychoanalytic research has taught us that all these tendencies are an expression of the same instinctual impulses; in relation between the sexes these impulses force their way toward sexual union, but in other circumstances they are diverted from this aim..."
"From being in love to hypnosis is evidently only a short step. The respects in which the two agree are obvious."
"The group ... agrees with hypnosis in the nature of the instincts which hold it together, and in the nature of the replacement of the ego ideal with other individuals, which was perhaps originally made possible by their having the same relation to the object."

This review is for the 1922 hardcover edition, in which there are no typos or misprints.

This is a compact in-depth examination of group psychology (which Freud correctly refers to as the oldest human psychology). I was blown away by the clarity of writing that I just don't see anymore in modern nonfiction.

It was a pleasure to read and I recommend it to anyone interested in human group formation, group psychology, and leader dynamics. Actually everyone should read this, it is extremely relevant today.

Classical Freudian Psychology...his discussion on Group Behavior and the Ego (leadership functions and issues) is insightful and provides provocative understanding of group process....traditional Psychoanalytic thought.....

This is the worst book I've ever received in my life. In one paragraph only there were over 100 typos. The book is absolutely unreadable. All footnotes are meshed with the text. You need a hieroglyph decoder to work on it for a year to bring the text to normal condition. Publisher must be sued and banned from publishing any other book.

In his Pulitzer-Prize winning book, The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker wrote that Freud's "great work, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego...in my opinion is probably the single most potentially liberating tract that has ever been fashioned by man." I haven't read this work of Freud's yet, but I will soon, because of Becker's comment. I've read many of Freud's works and have found them fascinating and very helpful, even though they're far fetched at times and I don't share Freud's disdain for religious faith. Becker's work is wonderful (I'm reviewing now from cover to cover the many passages I've highlighted) and voices both appreciations and criticisms of Freud throughout his work. So if he says this about Group Psychology, I've got to read it!