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Invitation to the Psychohistory Forum meeting November 20, 2021, on the impact of child abuse in Nazi Germany and society generally.

Notice of the new Psychobiography Research and Publication Group of the Forum: 

This link will describe a definition of psychobiography and the following: our vision, mission statement, membership benefits, and methodology. 

If you are or becoming a psychobiographer, to join, fill out this membership questionnaire.

The Many Roads of the Builders of Psychohistory was published on November 9th and is available from ORI Academic Press in ebook ($19.99) and softcover ($24.99) formats. 

Call for Papers:

Call for Papers due on March 15, 2022 are on:
Our Emotional Connections to Art, Books, Media, Music, Objects, Podcasts, TV, etc. (Note, this may be divided into three parts.)
The Emotions of Facing Death, Dying, and Life in the Era of COVID

Additional Call for Papers are on a variety of special issues. Some upcoming Call for Papers are on The Psychology of Film and Screens Our Anxious Digitally Connected World.

Notices of our forthcoming presentations:
Sven Fuchs’ PowerPoint presentation, “The Childhood Origins of (Political) Violence and Peacelessness,” will be held virtually on 11-20-2021, from 10:30am to 1:00pm.

Links enabling you to view some recent Psychohistory Forum meetings.
Lawrence Friedman Psychohistory Forum  Meeting, “Erik Erikson Retrospective” 4-13-19
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
Brian D’agostino Psyohistory Forum Meeting 3-9-19 (TBA)
David Lotto Meeting, “The Male Perspective on Sex and Power in the Age of #MeToo Meeting Report” 1-26-2019
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

Welcome to Clio’s Psyche and the Psychohistory Forum

Our mission is to enlarge and disseminate the related paradigms of applied psychoanalysis, political psychology, psychobiography, and psychological history. We seek to do this in non-technical language.

Our goal is always to stimulate psychohistorical thought, publications, research, and teaching. Some specific objectives are as follows:

  • To encourage the general public to think psychohistorically
  • To disseminate psychohistorical knowledge
  • To communicate with Psychohistory Forum members and Clio’s Psyche subscribers
  • To assist the networking of colleagues, especially in the Forum research groups
  • To grow the psychohistorical community and the larger group of people interested in what we do
  • To help clinicians focus on history and current events
  • To assist academics in all disciplines — history, literature, political science, psychology, sociology, anthropology — to utilize the insights and tools of psychoanalysis, psychobiography, and psychology
  • To foster psychohistorical debate, discussion, listening, publication, research, and thought
  • To help transmit the knowledge of an older generation of psychohistorians to those just entering the field
  • To research and publish the history of our field, honoring the work of those who have built it
  • To make available online obituaries of those who die, memorializing their work

In conclusion, we welcome others joining with us to achieve the goals articulated in this mission statement.

1994   2019


Paul H. Elovitz, PhD
Editor, Clio’s Psyche

Psychohistory

What happened why is the historian’s
 Agenda.  What potentially extends
 To every action of the common man’s,
 So that the controversy never ends
 Concerning which bits of the human past
 To privilege. The stakes are high because
 The what can shape the why.  Why empires last,
 Or birth rates fall, or tools emerge, or laws,
 Are loaded questions that construe the what
 As empires, birth rates, tools, or laws—that float
 These as the active entities and not
 The people doing what those terms denote.
 All whats come down to human doings.  See:
 All whys thus end in psychohistory. 

Rudolph Binion
Written for the annual compendium of Clio’s Psyche

Announcements and Forthcoming Events

Spring 2021, Volume 27 Number 3, of Clio’s Psyche is now available.  See Table of Contents below.  To join/subscribe, see Membership.  Back Issue Spring 2020, Volume 26 Number 3, can be viewed online.

Until further notice, our Psychohistory Forum Work-In-Progress Seminars will be online.  The Psychology of the Presidential Election meeting will be on October 31st with the following presenters: Dan McAdams (Northwestern University), “The Episodic Man: Donald Trump,” Denis O’Keefe (NYU), “Donald Trump and Stochastic Terrorism,” and Paul H. Elovitz (Ramapo College), “Reflections on Biden’s Personality.”  Jim Anderson’s (Northwestern University/psychoanalyst) presentation on “Heinz Kohut’s Vulnerable Self” will be held when it is safe for him to fly from Chicago and the group to meet in person.  Additional seminars will be announced online. 

Interview with Paul H. Elovitz, PhD

Author of The Making of Psychohistory

(Conducted by Ken Fuchsman, EdD,

week of July 2, 2018)

Read Excerpts from Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 and Table of Contents from The Making of Psychohistory.

NOW AVAILABLE: The Making of Psychohistory: Origins, Controversies, and Pioneering Contributors by Dr. Paul H. Elovitz, PhD – Ordering information through the publisher (as a paperback ISBN # 978-1-138-58749-6, it is reduced at checkout at the Routledge publisher’s site with the code FLR40 from $38.95 to $31.16).

Most Recent Tables of Contents

Clio’s Psyche

Understanding the “Why” of Culture, Current Events, History, and Society

Winter 2022          Volume 28 Number 2

Human Space in our Modern, Virtual, and COVID World
COVID-19 and the Changing Spaces We Inhabit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
      Peter W. Petschauer
COVID-19, Psychoanalysis, and Zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137
      Krystyna Sanderson
Spaces We Create, Enjoy, Fear, and Live in During a Pandemic  . . . . . . . . . 141
      Paul H. Elovitz
Abe Isaac’s Ode to Melanie Klein’s Breast  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .148
      Howard Covitz
Some Reflections on Using and Altering Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
      Richard Booth
Inner Spaces During COVID-19: Mount Meru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
      Padmavathy Desai
Space and Transcultural Identity Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156
      Claude-Hélène Mayer
Mean Girls Go Online while Invading the Psychological Space of Others . 159
      Karyne E. Messina
The False Neutrality of Corona Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
      Peter W. Petschauer
Cinema: The Art of Psychogeography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168
      Holger Schumacher
Space in a Time of Pandemic and Madness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
      Norman Simms
Recuperative Spaces in African American Children’s Literature  . . . . . . . . 176
      Mark I. West
Symposium on the Paranoid Tradition in American History and Politics
An Introduction to Paranoid Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182
      Paul H. Elovitz
The Paranoid Style in American History and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183
      Ken Fuchsman
Degrees of Suspicion and Paranoia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193
      Paul H. Elovitz
Sources on the Psychology of Conspiracy to Supplement Fuchsman . . . . . 196
      Ted Goertzel
Targeting the Foreign Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
      Juhani Ihanus
Some Psychodynamic Interpretations of the Paranoid Tradition . . . . . . . . 202
      Dorothea Leicher
Mass Psychosis and the Paranoid Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205
      David Lotto
The Geographical “Solution”: A Source of National Paranoia? . . . . . . . . . . .208
      Candace Orcutt
Seeking to Understand the Fears Leading to Paranoia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211
      Pamela Steiner
The French: European Champions of Anxiety and Mistrust? . . . . . . . . . . . .213
      Brigitte Demeure
The Paranoid Style Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .216
      Ken Fuchsman
————————————————————————————————————From Suspicion to Paranoia: The General Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
      Richard Booth
Donald Trump & the Paranoid Style in the 2020 Presidential Campaign . 226
      Roderick P. Hart
The Anatomy of Paranoia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
      Michael Maccoby
America’s Paranoid Fear and Denigration of Indians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .234
      Howard F. Stein
————————————————————————————————————
Claude-Hélène Mayer: A Multifaceted Psychobiographer in Two Cultures . 235
      Paul H. Elovitz
Meeting Report
Petschauer’s Fine Online Presentation on Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
      Paul H. Elovitz
Book Review
Anne Sebba’s Psychologically Astute Account of Ethel Rosenberg . . . . . . . 248
      Paul Salstrom
Announcing the Psychobiography Group of the Psychohistory Forum . . . 251
Bulletin Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .252
Call for Papers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .228, 253, 255

Fall 2021                Volume 28 Number 1

David Beisel Festschrift Essays in Honor of David R. Beisel
David R. Beisel: Extraordinary Psychohistorian and Colleague . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
      Paul H. Elovitz
The Unique Approaches of Two Authoritarians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
      Peter W. Petschauer
The Tyrant’s Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
      Peter W. Petschauer
David Beisel: A Scholar’s Scholar in Psychohistory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
      Howard F. Stein
Resistance and Transformation in Psychohistory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
      Juhani Ihanus
David Beisel is Also a Psychohistorian of the Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
      Ken Fuchsman
Beisel Appreciations
Passionate Journeys to Psychohistory: Honoring the Brilliant Psychohistorian . 31
      Olga Shutova
Collaborating With Dave: New Perspectives/New Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
      Irene Javors
Celebrating My Friendship with a Splendid Human Being: David Beisel . . 35
      Tom Artin
Doing Psychohistory with David Beisel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
      Gerhard Bliersbach
Toasting Dave Beisel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
      Kenneth Alan Adams
Enjoying Jazz with David Beisel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
      Martin Quitt
Coping in Our Anxious World
Coping with Anxiety in Our Fearful Digital World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
      Paul H. Elovitz
Anxiety, Help, and Helplessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
      Matthew H. Bowker
Virtual Anxiety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
      Juhani Ihanus
Coping In Our Anxious World: Implementing Mentalization . . . . . . . . . . . . .56
      Karyne E. Messina
The Illusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
      Howard H. Covitz
Our Anxieties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
      Peter W. Petschauer
Our Anxiety Can be Reduced by Addressing the World’s Problems . . . . . . . 65
      Pamela Steiner
Music as a Powerful Reducer of Anxiety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
      Julie Jaffee Nagel
The Psychology of Teaching: Part II
Psychoanalytic and Psychohistorical Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
       Judith Harris
Psychoanalysis and Education: A Developmental Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
      Burton Norman Seitler
Psychoanalytic Pedagogy in the Works of Bracher, Berman, and Alcorn . . 80
      Judith Harris
Teaching Therapeutic Imagination: A Neglected Competency in Psychology . 85
      Claude Barbre
A Psychoanalytic Literary Pedagogy: Practices for Identity Development . 91
      Mark Bracher
Learning and Helping People Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
      Paul H. Elovitz
Education and Learning: Strangers to Psychoanalysis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
      Juhani Ihanus
_____________________________________________________________________
Danielle Knafo: The Psychology of Creativity and Perversion . . . . . . . . . . . 106
       Paul H. Elovitz & Peter W. Petschauer
Our Virtual Psychohistory Forum Meeting on Paranoid Politics . . . . . . . . . 117
      Paul H. Elovitz
The Journey of History to Psychohistory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
       Peter W. Petschauer
Book Review
The Armenian Genocide: Can Conciliation Replace Denial ? . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
      Harold Takooshian
Memorial
Remembering Richard L. Rubenstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
      Howard F. Stein
Bulletin Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127
Call for Papers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119, 129