Abstract

This conversation, an interview of Sergio Benvenuto by Leonardo Provini originally in Italian, centres on the book by Sergio Benvenuto, Soggetto e masse. La psicologia delle folle di Freud, Castelvecchi, 2022 (The Subject and the Masses: Freud’s Group Psychology). In 1921, a year after the publication of Beyond the Pleasure Principle,[1] Freud published an essay entitled Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse—Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. A century later, what has remained of the important reflections it contains? This is one of the questions Sergio Benvenuto tries to answer in his latest book. The tendency to create more or less organized groups is a major characteristic of humans and social animals in general. In these first two decades of the new century, the importance of Freud’s studies on the dynamics that emerge in such groups has by no means diminished. In fact, the tendency towards homologation, towards the constitution of groups united by a leader or an idea, with everything it entails, is of central relevance to several contemporary fields of study. Moreover, certain institutions that seem to possess all the resources and instruments necessary to address some of these dynamics associated with “grouping up” end up displaying the same characteristics and traits described so well by the father of psychoanalysis in this important essay. In the first part of his book, Benvenuto revisits and contextualizes Freud’s essay, and then tries to interpret both contemporary events and theories to see how far-reaching Freud’s thought may be. An open-ended thought, “unsaturated” some would say, which explores precisely the unconscious and its interpretation as a reservoir and baggage of meanings.

Keywords: group psychology; freud; leader; masses; subjectivation

How to Cite:

Benvenuto, S. & Provini, L., (2024) “Idiom: The Subject and the Masses: A Discussion”, The European Journal of Psychoanalysis 11(1), 1–12.

Rights: In Copyright