Vol 39 (3) 2021
Editorial Introduction – Commemorating Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego Alexander Miller
Freud’s Mass Psychology Today: Psychoanalysis, Politics and Populism in the Age of Post-Truth Yannis Stavrakakis
On the ‘Absent Cause’ in Freud’s Political Theory: Mass Psychology at 100 Years Etienne Balibar
The Vagaries of the Superego Slavoj Žižek
A Mass Psychology Beyond the Ego: Sympathy, Enthusiasm, and Unconscious Transmission in the Age of Revolution Tracy McNulty
From Mass to Mess: Identification and its Discontents Marcus Coelen and Jamieson Webster
The Human Remains to be Discovered An Interview with Willy Apollon
THE VAGARIES OF THE SUPEREGO
Abstract: Freud’s analysis of crowd psychology is the final result of the traumatic impact of the Great War. First, he introduced the notion of death-drive as the dimension beyond the pleasure-principle; then, he analyzed the formation of social groups which bring...
‘THE HUMAN REMAINS TO BE DISCOVERED’ AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLY APOLLON
Psychoanalyst and philosopher (PhD, Paris-Sorbonne), Willy Apollon is the founder and past president of GIFRIC. He is supervising analyst and consultant analyst at the ‘388,’ the Center for the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Young Adult Psychotics created by GIFRIC in...
FROM MASS TO MESS: IDENTIFICATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Summary: Getting to the heart of Freud’s Massenpsychologie, from one angle, depends on an understanding of the term ‘identification’ in Freud, precisely as, analysis of the ego. The problem is that, according to Freud, and his faithful reader, Lacan: There is no...
A MASS PSYCHOLOGY BEYOND THE EGO: SYMPATHY, ENTHUSIASM, AND UNCONSCIOUS TRANSMISSION IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION
Abstract: Freud, in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, restricts his focus to ‘stable’ or ‘artificial’ groups organized around identification with the leader as ideal ego, and not the political and revolutionary masses that were the primary focus of his...
ON THE ‘ABSENT CAUSE’ IN FREUD’S POLITICAL THEORY: MASS PSYCHOLOGY AT 100 YEARS
Abstract: This commentary of Freud’s seminal essay from 1921, Mass-psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, celebrating the 100th anniversary of its publication, is an experiment in reading the text and assessing its problems at the intersection of several...
FREUD’S MASS PSYCHOLOGY TODAY: PSYCHOANALYSIS, POLITICS AND POPULISM IN THE AGE OF POST-TRUTH
Abstract: This year marks one century from the first publication of Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego by Sigmund Freud. What has been the importance of this text for social and political inquiry diachronically? What is its relevance today? It is to these two...