Comment on ‘The many faces of charisma’ by Harold Behr

My comment I have to admit will not do justice to Harold’s careful study of charisma (Behr, 2021). My focus differs and is probably less wide than his. Rather than teasing apart the different strands and strata of charisma and its relation to analytic group therapy, I will apply the group analytic theory of Foulkes as a tool to think about the notion of charisma. Obviously, Foulkes was neither ignorant of Max Weber’s sociological work (Weber, 1922) nor on his notion of charisma. As a German intellectual who studied in Frankfurt and in Heidelberg in the 1920s, how could he? In his paper on Leadership in Group Analytic Psychotherapy (Foulkes, 1949), Foulkes referred to Weber when he concluded his reflections on the group conductor and his qualities, saying:

When all is said, there will remain a nucleus, not at present further reducible by science, more nearly expressed perhaps by art and religion, bound up with his own personality, a primary rapport (charisma Max Weber called it) based on love, respect and faith.

Without these, Foulkes explained

he cannot awaken nor bind the spell of what the poet called ‘the old enchantment’. (Foulkes, 1984: 65)

It interesting to note though that Weber’s work is not listed in the references of Therapeutic Group Analysis (Foulkes, 1984). However, in his statement Foulkes highlighted, although highly condensed, on one of Weber’s main concerns, namely that of the ‘dis-enchantment’ of the world effected by science. Charisma, Foulkes seems to suggest, is a way of re-enchanting it, and thus may be considered as an antidote to scientific disillusionment. Therefore, and regarded in relation to therapy, it is a leftover (‘when all’ is said) of what Foulkes called ‘the old enchantment’ we cannot do without in any analytic therapy, individual and/or group, a left over ultimately ‘bound up’ with the conductor’s personality.

However as it is evident in his account of the ‘Northfield Experiments’, Foulkes considered charisma as part of a much larger picture. The Northfield Experience, he argued in his first book

was a happy confluence from various sources, which had sprung up independently, as it always happens when the group situation, the conditions in the community at large, are ripe for it to happen. Which individuals play a more or less prominent or conspicuous part in such developments is partly a matter of chance and position, partly an outcome of their particular sensitivity to the currents permeating the group and its foremost needs at the moment, and part of their particular personal gifts, which enable them to make their contribution. (Foulkes, 1983: 18)

The Northfield Experiments as a historical event depended on a variety of factors, namely chance, position, conditions in the community, the group’s needs and the sensitivity to address them as well as the individual’s particular personal gifts. As all of these influenced each other they must be conceived as inter-linked, each of them depending on all others and all of them on a particular socio-historical situation. In so far, the comprehension of charisma is an example of heuristic group analytic ‘principle’ that ‘the total situation in which we operate determines the meaning and significance of all communications’ (Foulkes, 1990: 260). Consequently, to elucidate the meaning and significance one of factor, for instance charisma as ‘personal gift’, that all others have to be taken into consideration. Accordingly, we could assume that all concepts at play within this situation are interdependent, i.e. related and relational concepts constituting a particular ‘region of reality’ (cf. Cassirer, 1910).

Interestingly, this view of Foulkes can be fruitfully applied to Weber’s three ‘ideal types’ of political leadership, namely:

Viewed through group analytic lens Weber’s terms can also be conceived as both inter-linked and inter-dependent: charismatic authority cannot do without tradition whilst tradition cannot do without legal regulations (and vice versa). Therefore, to study this inter-dependency an interdisciplinary approach is required—as Foulkes had indeed suggested to the members of the British Psychoanalytic Society in April 1946 (Foulkes, 1990: 129) when he said: ‘In my approach, the word “analysis” does not refer to psychoanalysis alone but reflects at least three different influences which operate actively’ (Foulkes, 1990: 129) (with Weber he could have included the influence of legislation and the law). To emphasize this is to acknowledge that group analysis is not only ‘a form of psychotherapy in small groups’ but also a ‘method of studying groups and the behaviour of human individuals in their social aspects’ (Foulkes, 1983: vii). Moreover, group analytic theory allows us to think about charisma in context. With respect to this latter aspect which I think currently is under developed, Weber’s sociology, namely his types of leaderships are clearly relevant—as can be gathered from the daily postings of the GASI forum.