Paradoxes of Group Life: Understanding Conflict, Paralysis, and Movement in Group Dynamics

Introduction to the Classic Edition: A Retrospective

The reissuing of Paradoxes of Group Life, first published in 1987, gives us an opportunity to reflect on what this book means to us in hindsight and to rethink what it offers to future readers.

Paradoxes of Group Life is primarily about the processes underlying collective dynamics. It focuses specifically on how group and intergroup relations come to life in a new way when examined from a paradoxical perspective. It differs from most of the previous literature on group dynamics by arguing that opposition and conflict are inherent in group life, that it is folly to treat them as foreign forces ...