From Crowd Psychology to the Dynamics of Large Groups

This book offers transdisciplinary research on the history of the study of social formations, ranging from nineteenth-century crowd psychology in France and twentieth-century Freudian mass psychology, including the developments in critical theory, to the study of the psychodynamics of contemporary large groups.

From Crowd Psychology to the Dynamics of Large Groups offers transdisciplinary research on the history of the study of social formations, ranging from nineteenth-century crowd psychology in France and twentieth-century Freudian mass psychology, including the developments in critical theory, to the study of the psychodynamics of contemporary large groups.

Carla Penna presents a unique combination of sociology, psychoanalysis, and group analysis in the study of social formations. This book revisits the epistemological basis of group analysis by introducing and discussing its historical path, especially in connection with the study of large groups and investigations of the social unconscious in persons, groups, and societies. It also explores early work on group relations and contemporary research on the basic-assumption group in England, particularly Hopper's theory of Incohesion as a fourth basic assumption. From Crowd Psychology to the Dynamics of Large Groups enables the reader to map out the field of the unconscious life of crowds illuminating the darkness of twenty-first century collective movements.

The reflections in this book present new perspectives for psychologists, psychoanalysts, group analysts, sociologists, and historians to investigate the psychodynamics of contemporary crowds, masses, and social systems.

Autorentext

Carla Penna, PhD, is a psychoanalyst and a group analyst in Brazil. She is a member of the Psychoanalytic Circle of Rio de Janeiro and the Group Analytic Society International.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments

Series Foreword by Earl Hopper

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE

Nineteenth-century crowd psychology

CHAPTER TWO

Twentieth-century Freudian mass psychology

CHAPTER THREE

Twentieth-century left-wing mass psychology

CHAPTER FOUR

Reflections on a society of individuals **

CHAPTER FIVE

The Northfield experiments: the cradle of group work in England

CHAPTER SIX

Group relations and Bion's legacy

CHAPTER SEVEN

Towards new basic assumptions in groups

CHAPTER EIGHT

Foulkes and group analysis: the development of the theory of the social unconscious

CHAPTER NINE

Large-group psychodynamics in group analysis

CHAPTER TEN

Traumatic experience in the unconscious life of social systems: Earl Hopper's theory of the fourth basic assumption of Incohesion: Aggregation/Massification or (ba) I: A/M

Epilogue

References

Index