FREUD'S TIME BOUNDED GROUP CONCEPTS

Abstract

In contrast to his minute and careful observations of his own and his patients' individual behavior and intrapsychic life, Sigmund Freud was an armchair philosopher when it came to groups and mass phenomena. He failed to observe directly and systematically and instead relied on the observations often available in the literature. Freud wrote four books on social-psychological topics which demonstrate Freud's recognition of the importance of social-psychological aspects of human existence (Totem and Tahu; The Future of an Illusion; Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego; Civilization and Its Discontent).