A Path of Radicalization: Complementary of the Group and the Individual Flaw

ABSTRACT This article analyzes and presents, in a psychoanalytic understanding, the individual and group psychic mechanisms involved in subscribing to a violent radical ideology in a young man that has now become deradicalized. The analysis is based on autobiographical documents and direct interviews. The analysis highlights how the radical group fulfills unconscious psychological functions serving to overcome prior personal weaknesses, especially narcissistic-identity suffering. The radical solution then makes it possible to reverse narcissistic and identity wandering, in particular by allowing participation in a grandiose group identity.