Art and Science in Psychohistory

John Jacob Hartman is a talented intellectual, psychologist, and psychoanalyst who has made valuable contributions to psychohistory. In the late 1970s, when most colleagues in New York City were focused on psychobiography and childhood, he urged us to examine groups as well. He helped influence the Institute for Psychohistory and the International Psychohistorical Association (IPA) to become self-analytic groups and to explore group fantasies. Many colleagues were intrigued by his description of the amazing predictability of the self-analytic groups he worked with at Harvard and the University of Michigan. We were soon broadening our horizons, reading the exciting work of Wilfred Bion, Graham Gibbard, Hartman, and Richard Mann.

Dr. Hartman starts with two main ideas. His “Proposition I” is that “groups develop in ways that can be measured as reactions to emotional stress.” His “Proposition II” is that “groups develop solutions to reduce stress and return the group to homeostasis in adaptive and defensive ways.” Both of these propositions represent the scientific paradigm this psychologist is pursuing, and they are correct. They are also very general.

Partly under the spell of the ideas he and other IPAers advocated, I experimented with using small group theory in my teaching, research, therapy, experiential dream group leadership, and psychohistorical leadership. The unevenness of the application of theories of historical group behavior left me fascinated but cautious. For six months, I drove into Manhattan with Henry Lawton to participate in a fantasy analysis seminar with several colleagues. Gradually, I came to the conclusion that groups were incredibly powerful but that they are also far more complex than they initially seemed. I originated and coordinated the Fantasy Analysis Project to test the validity of some of the applications of group ideas. Henry Lawton, George Luhrmann, and I anonymously sent out Thomas Jefferson’s “Declaration of Independence” and Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars Speech” (based on the New York Times text) to all the people we could identify as those doing psychohistory who had any interest in group psychodynamics. The results were published in the Journal of Psychohistory (“The Fantasy Analysis Project,” 1985). Though this article was often cited for empirical evidence for the value of fantasy analysis, I would have felt better about our findings had we been able to do research with a sample of people who had had no contact with Lloyd deMause, who had developed a detailed methodology for doing fantasy analysis, which he disseminated as an organizer, editor, and publisher of psychohistory. This, in fact, was impos-

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sible. I also recognize that both of the documents which we sent out anonymously would be known at a conscious or unconscious level by many of our subjects. Most importantly, there was the question of determining just what each researcher was projecting onto his (there were very few women involved in this research) materials. I then did considerable work applying for a foundation grant that would pay three seasoned psychoanalysts skilled in understanding the unconscious and the language of fantasy to anonymously judge the conclusions of the psychohistorical group. Regrettably, this project was never funded.

Meanwhile, I learned a great deal about my own projective pattern in my personal and group analysis, as well as through groups I participated in and ran. In reflecting on the types of groups Hartman had described, I came to believe that the high levels of predictability of behavior were based upon the special quality of the teaching groups which deprived members of the anticipated leadership, causing a high level of anxiety and disturbances within the groups. My interest in theory waned as I decided that I was far more interested in running groups effectively than in doing research on them.

Periodically, Hartman returned from Michigan and, more recently, Florida to present at the IPA. His paper, originally presented at the IPA in 2005, seems to be a call for the association to bring the clear scientific standards he believes in to group process. That he got little response to his presentation, except from this editor, appeared to disappoint him. It seemed to me that using it as a basis for a symposium would be of value to our field and John Hartman agreed. I did this despite the fact that, in the last two decades, I have come to pursue a quite different paradigm.

As a historian, psychoanalyst and psychohistorian, I see myself as far more of a humanist than a scientist. To me, psychohistory is more akin to art than science, with intuition—the tapping of the unconscious—being an essential instrument of knowledge. Of course, whenever possible, I employ rigorous scientific standards to examine evidence and motivations, but I know that there is no way I can repeat experiments under laboratory conditions. Despite some common threads and patterns, our human laboratory is forever changing.

Hartman deserves credit for focusing on the evidential basis of psychohistory. To my mind, undertaking group psychohistory is a much more daunting task than either psychobiography or even the history of childhood. The old adage, “fools rush in where wise men dare not tread” is especially apropos in this regard. Many who use the language of psychohistory online make a variety of ill-informed generalizations about humankind. These are often the product of individuals who know next to nothing about the methodologies of history, psychoanalysis, or psychohistory and are delighted by the opportunity to vent among a group that includes published authors and people with doctoral degrees. It can be interesting to examine the projective screen of individuals who are venting since, without ever using the word “I,” “my,” or “me,” they reveal an enormous amount about themselves.

Of course, highly accomplished scholars and therapists are also known to vent endlessly outside of their areas of expertise. This is especially evident when you approach issues of American foreign policy and the policies of whatever administration happens to be in power. As an editor, I have found myself having conversations with some learned and even brilliant colleagues along the following lines: “remember, I am asking you to rewrite your submission as ‘John Doe Psychoanalyst/Psychohistorian,’ rather than ‘John Doe—Political Activist/Advocate of Children’s Rights’!” Sometimes they groan, laugh or mutter but they get the message and usually write the type of article that we can publish with pride.

Personally, I avoid group psychohistory much of the time and engage in it much more cautiously than in psychobiography. This is because I know how incredibly difficult it is to do it in a credible way. As a historian, I am so aware of the different thought patterns and conclusions of people living in the same physical space. As a psychoanalyst and psychohistorian, I am so aware of the complexities of our minds and how our own fears, hopes and other thoughts are unconsciously projected onto whatever we are discussing.

In the end, of course, I make generalizations about vast groups like “Americans,” though usually with caution and as rhetorical questions. I notice that I do this much less than most of my academic colleagues, but they sometimes give me a puzzled look because they start from different premises. One generalization that comes to mind was when, in writing about the Clinton impeachment efforts in 1998, I told

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my students that most of the public preferred to be focused on Clinton’s sex life rather than the complexities of policy issues. After 9/11 this statement changed to most of the public preferred to be titillated by Clinton’s adolescent type of sex life with Monica Lewinsky than with the danger from terrorists like Osama Bin Laden, despite Congressional hearings on the subject and the publication of Yossef Bondansky, Osama Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America (1999). I also said that America narcissistically assumed we were untouchable. Consequently, I must acknowledge doing group psychohistory, but I do this with far more caution than most.

Obviously, I do not think that group psychohistory and group process are pure projections. As I indicated in the December 2004 issue of this journal (“The Costly Group Process Experiment”), I worked extremely hard over a period of many years to raise the level of group process at the IPA, both as a learning tool and a new instrument for serving the human needs of attendees. Ultimately, I felt the endeavor was not worthwhile. Similarly, the group process analysis that I experienced at the Saturday workshops of the Institute for Psychohistory and the IPA seemed to me to be as much an instrument for “acting out” as one of group and self-knowledge.

Returning to the paper I am commenting upon, I think it far more important to do psychoanalysis and psychohistory than to spend time justifying them in terms of science. While I take my hat off to John Hartman, I do not find it necessary to attempt to emulate him. I do wish many others would take his work more seriously.

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