Volume 06 - Number 1 - June 1999
Pages: 1 - 52

MEMORIALS

Elovitz, P. H. (1999). In memoriam: Robert Chaikin [Memorial]. Clio’s Psyche, 6(1), 40.

https://doi.org/10.70763/9a83eabfb7fa303a2d85dbc6f37483e5

In Memoriam: Robert Chaikin

memorial

Intro

On April 19, Robert Chaikin of Atlanta, Georgia, was killed instantly at the age of 52 in an auto accident. An occasional member of the Psychohistory Forum, Chaikin was an active member of the IPA and of the Group for the Psychohistorical Understanding of Film. His publications included an article on the film King Kong in the Psychoanalytic Review. His most recent project was on professional wrestling to understand it as a theater of ritual group fantasy.

Keywords:

film analysis, International Psychohistorical Institute (IPhA), King Kong, memorial, Psychoanalytic Review, psychohistory, Psychohistory Forum, ritual group fantasy, Robert Chaikin, wrestling

On April 19, Robert Chaikin of Atlanta, Georgia, was killed instantly at the age of 52 in an auto accident. An occasional member of the Psychohistory Forum, Chaikin was an active member of the IPA and of the Group for the Psychohistorical Understanding of Film. His publications included an article on the film King Kong in the Psychoanalytic Review. His most recent project was on professional wrestling to understand it as a theater of ritual group fantasy.

Chaikin, who worked as a social worker, was a Harvard undergraduate when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Despite his struggle with his illness, Robert finished his bachelor’s degree at Hunter and then his MSW. His psychological struggle meant that he sometimes was unable to fulfill his professional obligations as a scheduled presenter at the IPA. In part due to Henry Lawton’s generous phone therapy with him, Chaikin was able to attend psychohistorical conferences in Amersterdam and Paris in 1997 and 1998, and was planning to go to Europe again this year.

Robert was single and there are no immediate survivors. I am indebted to Anne Deble, leader of his schizophrenia support group, for providing information for this notice.

Page 40

About the author

Paul H. Elovitz

Dr. Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, began organizing scholarly meetings when he started as a faculty member at Ramapo College and then as convener of the Institute for Psychohistory Saturday Workshops (1975-1982). In 1982, he founded the Psychohistory Forum to nurture psychohistorical research and continues to lead its Executive Council. In 1994, he created Clio’s Psyche (cliospsyche.org) to publish its scholarship, of which he is Editor-in-Chief. Prof. Elovitz is a historian, psychoanalytic researcher, and author of well over 400 publications, covering presidential psychobiography, teaching, documenting the field of psychohistory, and much more. After taking his doctoral degree in history, he trained and practiced as a psychoanalyst for three decades, and in 2019 was made the first Research Psychoanalyst by the New Jersey Institute for Psychoanalysis. Elovitz is the author of The Making of Psychohistory, editor of The Many Roads of the Builders of Psychohistory, and edited or wrote eight other books. He is a founding member and past president of the International Psychohistorical Association (1978-) who held all but one of its offices and continues to serve on its leadership council. He is the sole founder of the IPhA who has attended and presented at all of its annual meetings. In recent years, he has devoted himself to editing, publishing, and writing psychobiography.  Prof. Elovitz was a founding faculty member at Ramapo College who previously taught at Temple, Rutgers, and Fairleigh Dickinson universities. Aside from teaching Western and World Civilizations, his focus on teaching was on American, English, and European history; childhood; gender; genocide; the Holocaust; identity; leadership; psychobiography; psychohistory; the psychology of creativity and innovation; and war and peace. Presently, he teaches post-graduate courses on creativity, psychoanalysis, psychobiography, and other aspects of psychohistory online at psychoanalytic institutes. A Festschrift honoring him is scheduled for publication in Clio’s Psyche in 2024. He may be contacted at .

How to cite this article

Elovitz, P. H. (1999). In memoriam: Robert Chaikin [Memorial]. Clio’s Psyche, 6(1), 40.

https://doi.org/10.70763/9a83eabfb7fa303a2d85dbc6f37483e5

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