This is the story of the French Revolution told from a psychological and group dynamic perspective. The aim is to throw light on the workings of the revolutionary mind and the emotions at work in society which pave the way towards revolution and war. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are presented as a couple trapped by the symbolism invested in them, a circumstance that turned them into scapegoats. The contrasting personalities of the two most controversial leaders of the Revolution Robespierre and Danton provide psychologically informed explanations of their success and failure as leaders. The group perspective the nature of crowd behaviour and mob violence links to the complex relationship between leaders and groups. In the Parisian case of 1789 group emotions fear, rage, euphoria and fervour influenced the course of the Revolution. The assassination of Marat and the struggle to the death between the extremists of the Left and the Moderates is a classic study in group paranoia culminating in a Reign of Terror destined to end in self-destructive violence. The conflict between the Revolution and the Church as an expression of belief in an ideal society led to a battle for the minds of a people facing two incompatible ideologies. The French Revolution was an important milestone in western social and political development. It carried within itself the seeds of a humane society, but turned into murder and execution. The dichotomies arising echo down the generations. The same split in our thinking applies to how we view today's social upheavals and conflicts conflicts of opposing mythologies with their psychological overtones interpreted as political doctrines as evinced currently in Russia's territorial claims to Eastern Ukraine, Islamic fundamentalist wars, and the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Hope lies in the application of therapeutic principles garnered from the field of group dynamics.
Industry Reviews
This is a great book, the result of many years of concentrated research on the psychodynamics of the French Revolution.Behr writes about the paranoid group dynamic as one in which those inside the group battle to protect themselves from those outside who were perceived as enemies. Such groups are endemic in human relationships. They impinge on our lives, the diversity which ranges from family jealousies, to petty business rivalries, to large-scale social conflict and global warfare. The paranoid dynamic reflects a state of mind in which there is a clear belief that good is located within the group self and bad within the other group. A notable phrase, taken from p 125, is: one mans martyr is another mans demon..This book is a major achievement and conveys to us the deep advances in our understanding of socio-political convulsions..This remarkably timely and well-crafted book is essential reading for us to understand the convulsions of the French Revolution which eventually underlay the constitution of European societies as laid down by Bonaparte whose bicentenary we are now celebrating- Malcolm Pines in Group Analysis September 2015
Regarding these carefully chiselled portraits [of Louis XVI, Danton and Robespierre] one is reminded that psychiatry as a descriptive science has become a kind of lost art which Behr brings to life againIf it were only for these few lines of elegant prose, and even if one would set aside all of its (weighty) arguments, Harold Behrs book on the French Revolution would be a pleasure to readIt is to be hoped that Behrs book on the French Revolution is met with the same enthusiasm anong group analysts that Kant observed among his contemporaries with regard to this great historical event. - Dieter Nitzgen in Group Analysis September 2015
"Victor Hugo meets Sigmund Freud (or rather, S.H. Foulkes) in this engaging group analytic account of the French Revolution. Psychiatrist Harold Behr describes a lifelong interest in this period of history, beginning in his South African childhood and developed by devouring biographies of Maximilien Robespierre, the idealist turned monster. He experienced a growing awareness of controversies and contradictions at the heart of the history and decided that the only way to unmuddle myself was to pull a few clinical tricks out of the psychiatrists bag and examine some of the dramatis personae of the Revolution as if they were patients. This would force me into empathic mode by investigating their backgrounds, rooting around in their childhoods and doing my level best to see the Revolution as they might have seen it... This interesting book has stimulated me to think more about groups and leaders, which can only be a good thing but who knows if we will ever fully understand the significance of the times in which we live?"Tom C. Russ in The British Journal of Psychiatry (November 2015)
