Group Psychology and The Analysis of The EgoFreud, Sigmund
Science
Group Psychology and The Analysis of The Ego
Freud, Sigmund
Ego (Psychology); Psychoanalysis; Social psychology
The primal father of the horde was not yet immortal, as he later became
by deification. If he died, he had to be replaced; his place was
probably taken by a youngest son, who had up to then been a member of
the group like any other. There must therefore be a possibility of
transforming group psychology into individual psychology; a condition
must be discovered under which such a transformation is easily
accomplished, just as it is possible for bees in case of necessity to
turn a larva into a queen instead of into a worker. One can imagine only
one possibility: the primal father had prevented his sons from
satisfying their directly sexual tendencies; he forced them into
abstinence and consequently into the emotional ties with him and with
one another which could arise out of those of their tendencies that were
inhibited in their sexual aim. He forced them, so to speak, into group
psychology. His sexual jealousy and intolerance became in the last
resort the causes of group psychology.[55]
Whoever became his successor was also given the possibility of sexual
satisfaction, and was by that means offered a way out of the conditions
of group psychology. The fixation of the libido to woman and the
possibility of satisfaction without any need for delay or accumulation
made and end of the importance of those of his sexual tendencies that
were inhibited in their aim, and allowed his narcissism always to rise
to its full height. We shall return in a postscript to this connection
between love and character formation.
We may further emphasize, as being specially instructive, the relation
that holds between the contrivance by means of which an artificial group
is held together and the constitution of the primal horde. We have seen
that with an army and a church this contrivance is the illusion that
the leader loves all of the individuals equally and justly. But this is
simply an idealistic remodelling of the state of affairs in the primal
horde, where all of the sons knew that they were equally persecuted by
the primal father, and feared him equally. This same recasting upon
which all social duties are built up is already presupposed by the next
form of human society, the totemistic clan. The indestructible strength
of the family as a natural group formation rests upon the fact that this
necessary presupposition of the father's equal love can have a real
application in the family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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