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THE INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL LIBRARY No. 6

GROUP PSYCHOLOGY AND THE ANALYSIS OF THE EGO

BY SIGM. FREUD, M. D., LL. D.

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY JAMES STRACHEY

THE INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL PRESS LONDON MCMXXII VIENNA

Copyright 1922

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

A comparison of the following pages with the German original (Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Vienna, 1921) will show that certain passages have been transferred in the English version from the text to the footnotes. This alteration has been carried out at the author's express desire.

All technical terms have been translated in accordance with the Glossary to be published as a supplement to the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis.

J. S.

CONTENTS

Page

I Introduction 1

II Le Bon's Description of the Group Mind 5

III Other Accounts of Collective Mental Life 23

IV Suggestion and Libido 33

V Two Artificial Groups: the Church and the Army 41

VI Further Problems and Lines of Work 52

VII Identification 60

VIII Being in Love and Hypnosis 71

IX The Herd Instinct 81

X The Group and the Primal Horde 90

XI A Differentiating Grade in the Ego 101

XII Postscript 110

GROUP PSYCHOLOGY AND THE ANALYSIS OF THE EGO

INTRODUCTION

The contrast between Individual Psychology and Social or Group Psychology, which at a first glance may seem to be full of significance, loses a great deal of its sharpness when it is examined more closely. It is true that Individual Psychology is concerned with the individual man and explores the paths by which he seeks to find satisfaction for his instincts; but only rarely and under certain exceptional conditions is Individual Psychology in a position to disregard the relations of this individual to others. In the individual's mental life someone else is invariably involved, as a model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent, and so from the very first Individual Psychology is at the same time Social Psychology as well--in this extended but entirely justifiable sense of the words.