ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a micro-historical analysis of unpublished drafts of work by S. H. Foulkes–intended to be part of his “Theory Book” on group analysis–with my reading of published writings by Norbert Elias that are especially relevant to group analysis. It focuses on two lost roots of the theory of group analysis: one, Elias’s innovative conceptualization of the simultaneous and interdependent process of individualization and socialization; two, Foulkes’s attempts to conceptualize the mind as a multi-personal phenomenon. The chapter argues that the theory of group analysis is based on the notion of interrelational individuals or persons rather than the reified “individual” as opposed to the nominalized “group”. It proposes that Foulkes’s conceptualization of the individual mind as a multi-personal and transpersonal phenomenon is compatible with Stephen Mitchell’s much later work on “multiple selves”. As late as 1973, Foulkes was reluctant to publish his theory of the mind, which was so essential to the theory of group analysis.
