Meet the Editors

The opportunities for publication in the field of psychohistory are quite extensive. There are at least a half-dozen publications which regularly welcome psychologically/historically informed articles on subjects such as psychobiography, childhood, dreams, group dynamics, the mechanisms of defense, mourning, politics, repressed memories, terrorism, violence, and war. In most of these publications there is a long-standing psychohistorical interest in the Holocaust, Presidential personality, and the paradigm of psychotherapy as well as in Freud and the other pioneers of the exploration of unconscious processes. In this issue we will interview or have articles by such leading present and past editors in the field as David Beisel, Lloyd deMause, Bruce Edwards, Stanley Renshon, Larry Shiner, and Norman Simms.

The three best known psychohistorical publications are The Journal of Psychohistory, The Psychohistory Review, and Political Psychology. As an historian I will start with the oldest of these publications, The Psychohistory Review, which began as a newsletter and is presently celebrating its twenty-fifth year of continuous publication. It was founded by the Group for the Use of Psychology in History

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(GUPH) which is affiliated with the American Historical Association and is published at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Though most of its articles are on psychobiography, it includes other approaches as well. For example, historians concerned with the history of ideas can often find articles of interest and I have noticed a regard for the paradigm of psychotherapy. It is an easy publication to read (both in terms of print size and style) and it is most moderately-priced due to the university subsidy and the fact it now comes out three, rather than four, times a year. Larry Shiner of the University of Illinois at Springfield took over as editor when Charles Strozier took on the responsibility of co-directing the CUNY Center on Violence and Human Survival that Robert Jay Lifton founded after leaving Yale University. (See the interview with Lifton in the December, 1995, issue of Clio’s Psyche).

The Journal of Psychohistory is a very different publication than The Review, mostly because of its focus on childhood and group-fantasy analysis. It was founded in 1973 as The History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory, but changed its name in 1980 because there were not enough articles being submitted on childhood and librarians were reluctant to order a journal which seemed to deal mostly with childhood. Fortunately, children have remained a central interest of the publication, though the amount of original research on the history of childhood submitted for publication regrettably remains limited. It has been a voice for an outspoken psychohistory. Its founding editor and publisher, Lloyd deMause, has extensive academic (and some psychoanalytic) training, though he has worked primarily in the field of publishing rather than academia. It welcomes articles on a variety of subjects including childhood and the family, dreams, fetal development, group-fantasies, political psychology, psychoanthropology, psycho-biography, and repressed memories.

Political Psychology, the Journal of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP), is in its 17th year of publication. The articles are predominately by the members of the highly successful parent organization, though anyone is welcome to submit papers. Currently, it is the most academic of the three publications in the sense that in turning its pages one will more readily find abstracts, numerous references within the text, smaller print, and arguments perhaps less accessible to the layman than in the two previously-mentioned journals or, for that matter, Clio’s Psyche and Mind and Human Interaction. The scope is broader than the title may indicate to many: the publication focuses on, but is not limited to, politics. Stanley Renshon, its editor, is a political psychologist at the CUNY Graduate Center who has recently become a practicing psychoanalyst. He sees political psychology as covering a broader area than psychohistory per se, though many people in the field would not agree with him.

Two newer, shorter publications have begun to make their mark on psychohistory: one

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you are reading and the other is Mind and Human Interaction, produced at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Vamık Volkan, a Turkish-American psychiatrist, is the latter journal’s founding editor, though right now day-to-day operations are in the hands of Bruce Edwards, a political scientist. Its forte is the psychodynamic understanding of ethnic and national conflicts and the process of peacemaking. Its authors are drawn from many national and ethnic backgrounds and its articles reflect their experiences as anthropologists, diplomats, historians, political scientists, psychoanalysts, and so forth.

Clio’s Psyche is the newest publication in our field, having been established in June, 1994. We are open to a wide variety of subjects including childhood, disease (especially AIDS), ecopsychology, methodology, political leader-ship, psychobiography, psychoeconomics, and violence. Our forte is interviews with major contributors to psychohistory and our unique features include a bulletin board of psychohistorical activities as well as obituaries of deceased colleagues aimed at both commemorating them and maintaining a record of the development of our field.

Clio’s Psyche is eager to publish original documents, such as Henry James’ letter on a visit to Charles Darwin (December, 1995, issue), which fit into our format and review essays of major books and the media. As editor, I am especially interested in articles on the psychological process of renunciation of such formerly normal behaviors as apartheid and all forms of racial segregation, the blood feud, child and wife abuse, female subjugation, floggings, hangings, incest, infanticide, polygamy, public burnings (the auto-da-fé), and slavery as well as the very limited renunciation of dictatorial rule and world-wide warfare. Also, the ways in which groups hold onto behaviors formally renounced by most individuals.

The Psychohistory News, not (as is commonly thought) The Journal of Psychohistory, is the official newsletter of the International Psychohistorical Association (IPA). The News reports on all aspects of the IPA and has recently added features such as interviews and profiles of new members. Jay Sherry, its current editor, has rejuvenated this publication making it a true quarterly. He welcomes submissions from all IPA members.

Norman Simms, founder and editor of Mentalities/Mentalités, increasingly has turned his publication to psychohistory and has personally published in Clio’s Psyche and The Journal. Mentalities/Mentalités comes out twice a year. After teaching in New Zealand for two decades, Simms has moved to Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. His is far from the only journal publishing psychohistorical materials outside of the United States. A few years ago in Spain I meet Adela Garon who edits psicologia politica. This publication has articles in both English and Spanish and welcomes submissions from scholars around the world. In 1994 Robert Liris of Vichy, France, began publication of a 60-page psychohistory journal, Or le temps Revue Francaise de Psychohistoire.

You may wonder who are the editors, where do they come from, and what are their interests? David Beisel was born in Hazelton, Pennsylvania; Lloyd deMause in Detroit; Larry Shiner in Oklahoma City; Stanley Renshon in Philadelphia; Vamık Volkan on Cyprus and Bruce Edwards in Doylestown (Buck County), Pennsylvania; and Jay Sherry and Norman Simms in New York City, while Bridgeport, Connecticut, was where I was born and raised. More information on the lives of the editors is included in the following interviews and articles.

The research interests of the editors vary considerably. Lloyd deMause has published a number of books on subjects as varied as childhood, fantasy analysis, Presidential personality, and psychohistorical methodology. Larry Shiner has published non-psychohistorical books on Alexis de Tocqueville and the secularization of history. New York University Press has just released two of Stanley Renshon’s books on Clinton and on the methodology of studying Presidential candidates. He has four other books, three of which are edited, including one on the political psychology of the Gulf War. Vamık Volkan is the author of a variety of important books on conflict resolution, including The Need To Have Enemies and Allies: From

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Clinical Practice to International Relations, as well as The Immortal Attaturk (with Norman Itzkowitz of Princeton University). Jay Sherry is a social studies teacher in a New York City high school. He is currently researching Jung’s career and hopes to eventually write a book on the subject. Norman Simms is the author of numerous books and articles including My Cow Comes Home To Haunt Me: European Explorers, Travellers… in 1994. My own list of articles and chapters is lengthy. In addition, I have edited Historical and Psychological Inquiry (New York: International Psychohistorical Association, 1990) and co-edited the forthcoming, Immigrant Experiences: Personal Narrative and Psychological Analysis (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press).

Two of the three major journals in the field have traditional refereeing systems and the third has a less formal, systematic one aimed at encouraging innovation. During the nine years that David Beisel was editor of The Journal of Psychohistory he followed a consistent system of peer review. The subject is very much on my mind as editor of a publication which strives to establish and maintain the highest standards. When Clio’s Psyche began in 1994 we did not referee articles, but since our first year we have informally refereed unsolicited articles and some which are solicited. Currently, we are examining the mechanics and consequences of eventually submitting all articles to referees providing there is enough time for submissions on contemporary issues. Presently, the articles we reject are mostly unsolicited, but we require that most articles be rewritten. This is not easy for a few authors who feel so invested in their writing that our editorial attempts at clarity for our readers are experienced as unwelcomed intrusions. The associate editor or I make an initial judgement about the suitability of the submission and then we confer. We then submit certain materials to members of our Editorial Board or others with expertise in the subject matter. Before we formalize a system we will carefully explore its implications for our readers and the field.

But will a traditional refereeing system ultimately stifle innovation? Clio’s Psyche strives to be innovative in its task of developing the new paradigm of psychohistory. If the referee system is based upon an older paradigm, is there not a serious risk that it will smother the creativity of the newer one? Psychohistory, like all new methods of understanding, is being developed by a relatively small group of innovators. Do we have the human resources to have an effective referee system? If we had taken the time to referee our articles on the Hebron Massacre, the Oklahoma City bombing, and other current events, wouldn’t they have lost their timeliness? These are questions with which we, in producing a small, new publication, must come to grips.

There are many other questions, worthy of consideration, about psychohistory publications which I have heard colleagues ask. Is The Psychohistory Review so centered on psychobiography that it is not close enough to the cutting edge of psychohistory? Is The Journal of Psychohistory so closely associated with the ideas of its founding editor that its significant contributions are too readily dismissed by some top people in our field? Is Political Psychology, as one devoted ISPP member noted to me the other day, losing its position on the cutting edge of knowledge in its drive to become more academic? Can Mind and Human Interaction become a mainstream psychohistorical publication with its focus primarily on ethnic and national conflict as well as violence? Can Clio’s Psyche, with its emphasis on avoiding jargon, stay true to its mission statement and gain both a lay and a psychohistorical audience?

Many fine psychobiographical articles are published in journals which are not psychohistorical per se: for example, in American Imago, The International Review of Psycho-Analysis, and The Psychoanalytic Review. These also welcome literary studies which one does not usually find in the five journals mentioned above. However, in recent years there has been a growing interest in the relationship of literature and history; psychohistorical aspects of this renewed concern is beginning to be manifested in psychohistorical journals. Several journals which were mentioned to me in the course of my research for

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this article are History and Memory (Saul Friedlander is one of the editors) and JPC: Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society. Even more importantly, at the present time there are many mainstream journals which have occasional psycho-biographical articles. In the concluding article to this special “Publishing in Psychohistory” section, David Beisel provides an encouraging, bibliographic survey of the extent to which psychohistory and psychohistorians are being published.

Psychohistory is now a part of the consciousness of educated America. It has become sufficiently mainstream so that the current editor of The Psychohistory Review need not regard himself as a psychohistorian while doing an admirable job as editor. Biographers and intellectual historians are two categories of researchers who regularly use psychohistorical materials and methods without necessarily identifying themselves as psychohistorians. Readers now have access to an enormous backlog of psychohistorical research and methodology. These can be applied to recent events to provide unique insights. The opportunities for writing in the field are quite extensive. Editors and referees of psychohistorical journals are not primarily making their determination to publish or reject on the basis of the prior publication record of the author or institutional affiliation, but rather on the quality of the ideas and the literary style. If you are planning to write for these publications, my recommendation is that you first read them to get a sense of which one is most likely to say “yes” to your materials. All of the publications, other than the one newsletter, The Psychohistory News, welcome submissions by individuals who are not members of any sponsoring organization. We also recommend that you ask your libraries to order (usually at institutional rates) these fine psychohistorical publications, so that others will know about our exciting field.

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