Thoughts on Healing

article

Abstract

A diverse group of psychoanalysts and others probe the natures of some of our divisions and made some suggestions about healing our country in these most divisive times.

Keywords:

American elections, American politics, American values, democracy, Donald Trump, Joseph Biden, psychohistory, social healing, tolerance

Paul H. Elovitz: Introduction

In light of the sharp division apparent both before and after the November 3^rd election, we invited colleagues on November 7^th to write “How Do We Heal America” for our Winter issue of Clio’s Psyche. The specific questions we asked were:

How do we bring the country together?
What can President-Elect Biden do to heal the country?
How can Biden get almost everyone, including the followers of the 45^th president, to wear masks, work effectively to end the pandemic, and accept defeat?

We asked for two things: one, 50-100 words in response to these questions by November 13^th; and two, articles 1,500 to a maximum of no more than 2,000 words in the file including the title, author with affiliation, a 25-word abstract, seven keywords, and a brief biography for the Spring issue on “The Psychology of Healing Divided America” by January 24^th. The responses for the Winter 2021 issue are below.

Marilyn Charles: Coming Together

Joe Biden may be the perfect person to bring the country together. What he may lack in dash or brilliance, he makes up for in a deep humanism that likely we are all direly in need of. That sincere care and respect for all humans invites healings of the splits between us, and his attention to the problems that face us invites us to move past the rhetoric to the problems at hand. Beginning to work at the problem of the pandemic means taking a stand for the reality of human suffering that is happening more and more as we close our eyes to it. We need to face reality now; failing to do so is killing us. His choice of a powerful woman as the vice president who can speak for minorities, women, and all of our children adds to the potential for healing these deep and painful splits that liberals have fed as much as conservatives.

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Burton Norman Seitler: How to Heal America After Four Years of Trump?

Healing from Trump? Were we identifying with his “super-masculinity” pose? Did he tap into and express our collective forbidden fantasies, permitting us to vicariously achieve them? If so, how do we get rid of those “bad introjects”? I believe the nation can be healed by looking inward and admitting that there were aspects of “The Donald” in which we secretly delighted. Upon facing and accepting that possibility, we can work through our fantasies without enacting them.

Paul H. Elovitz: Setting a More Humane Agenda while Listening to Trump Supporters

While working to achieve a more caring, just, and rational society in the new administration, we should listen carefully to Trump voters, putting aside any frustration and our anger at them, and work to understand their disappointment and fears as I do with my numerous Trump-supporting students. It will take patience and time to heal after such a disruptive and unpresidential presidency and transition. America and Biden need to move forward despite the obstructionism of Trump and his allies, taking steps to heal the coronavirus, our economy, and our political factionalism. They need to retake our place as an international leader advocating for freedom and progress.

Jack Schwartz: The Process of Healing America

Healing is a process. After experiencing rather severe health crises these last few years, I have come to appreciate healing as a process more than I could ever imagine. Healing takes time, patience, humility, creativity, tolerance of dark periods, sometimes

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taking painful incremental steps, listening to good advice, asserting ideas even if they are met with resistance (like advocating for yourself in the medical world), and a sense of resolve that things can get better. Perhaps what I learned most about healing is the profound value of having people there for you to offer kindness, support, and love. If we think on a larger scale, maybe we could remember this process for an idea called America.

Peter W. Petschauer: America as a Safe Space and Encouraging Trump to Act Responsibly

Create a safe space for everyone; this country is the safe space, as Biden and Harris have implied. Don’t be enemies; we are all in this together. Explain how the election system works, that is, with both parties always counting ballots together. The voices of all who vote are heard and safe.

Find a close friend or relative of Donald Trump who can persuade the unrestrained child to exit gracefully. If he does not, he will lose access to power and prestige. That in turn will mean the Internal Revenue Service, New York City enemies, and loan holders will move successfully against him. They can also explain that investigations of rental abuses, money laundering, and billing the government for unrelated expenses will mushroom. Finally, Jared Kushner’s and other family members’ chances at public office will diminish substantially.

Tom Ferraro: There Will Be No Healing

Both Trump and Biden are merely the expressions of a polarized national mindset confused by fake news. Television’s use of psychological persuasion techniques is child’s play compared to the artificial intelligence used by the major social media outlets who implement surveillance capitalism to mine human attention for profit. This process is employed by Google and Facebook, two corporations that are now the most profitable companies in human his-

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tory. The algorithms used by their artificial intelligence computers have successfully monetized human attention with incredibly addictive tools based on vast data analytics targeting each user with skewed messages that they want to hear. The result is a nation that is now plagued with fake news, polarization, paranoia, despair, loneliness, and rage. We are a nation of the walking dead, mesmerized and deadened, confused by and in the grip of this electronic revolution. I seriously doubt that any president will be a match against the power of this artificial intelligence and the human crisis it has created.

Michael Maccoby: Bringing This County Together

The only way to bring this country together is to reinforce and develop our shared identity as American citizens and a common purpose to improve our country. This requires retreating from divisive identity politics and building on the values that made this country great.

Americans have found meaning in the rights promised by the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founders viewed happiness as resulting from living a productive and virtuous life. They knew that governments can’t provide happiness, but they recognized that the pursuit required basic education provided by the government. That was for a simpler society, and those rights were only applied to White men. To pursue happiness today, all Americans need to be equipped for a much more demanding workplace and complex society. Bringing the country together will not be easy, but by focusing our furthering human development and the pursuit of happiness all Americans can share a common purpose.

Denis O’Keefe: Thoughts on Healing

Could we imagine anything before Donald Trump but a peaceful presidential transition of power? Yet here we are. A consequence, it may seem, of the increasing focus on difference as op-

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posed to commonalities. But we need not be defined by our differences. Arguably, we have more in common than not. Much is needed for healing. Those who deliberately seek to heighten division and conflict for their political and economic advantage need to be publicly identified. The mediums used to spread division (i.e., social media), need meaningful regulation. Observable truth, as opposed to ideologically driven unreality, needs to be rewarded. This is a start.

Matthew H. Bowker: Bringing Democrats and Progressives Together to Heal America

The simplest ways Democrats and Progressives can create a broader coalition are: one, to move away from their preoccupation with identity politics; two, to reframe (à la George Lakoff) their values in universal terms, such as “progress,” “individual freedom,” and “justice,” where justice is construed as fairness rather than as “dueness” (i.e., what is owed to whom); and three, to be wary about relying on concepts such as help and care, owing to the ambivalences about autonomy they engender.

Richard Brookhiser: An Anti-Trump Conservative’s Thoughts

Biden as president can consistently wear masks and ensure that his administration does so. He should highlight Trump-supporting converts to the mask policy, like Chris Christie. He should make a show of working with governors. He should sympathize with people’s exhaustion. He should criticize celebrations of his own victory or political protests when they violate whatever social distancing policy he adopts. He has a sense of humor and finds ways to use it.

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Lawrence A. Tritle: Tolerance Can Heal and Intolerance Can Destroy Our Democracy

Democrats killed Socrates, soldier and philosopher, for his liberal ways and supposed rightist beliefs. Such divisions are now common in contemporary American democracy. Liberal, Progressive, Conservative: values worth advocacy and struggle, but to the point of wrecking the community? The goose and the golden egg offer a cautionary tale.

Hannah Hahn: Dialoguing with the “Political Other”

When elected, Trump used projective identification to further split an already divided country: he projected disliked aspects of himself onto others, such as calling East Coast liberals “liars” and “crooks.”

Political and religious leaders can help individuals on opposing political sides mentalize and thus take back projections, which is necessary for the healing process. In this process, people can “take responsibility for their behavior” and “discuss differences between and among others in an atmosphere of respect” (Karyne Messina, Aftermath: Healing from the Trump Presidency, 2020, 248). Through this process, remembering, repairing, and reconciliation can occur.

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Kenneth Rasmussen: Healing Our Fractured Nation

Healing our fractured nation will require not bromides, but a serious attempt to do two seemingly contradictory things: push the left with a practical progressive agenda, and also begin the arduous psychohistorical task of dialoguing with and listening (especially for unmet emotional needs) to those who have been drawn to the siren song of the contemporary right.

In addition to practicing decency and empathy, a concerted effort to curtail extremism and fanaticism on both ends of the political spectrum is also needed. In this, practitioners of applied psychology and psychoanalysis should be able to play a key role individually, in the community, on social media, and in the public arena.

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About the authors

Burton Norman Seitler

Burton Norman Seitler, PhD, a clinical psychologist in private practice, Director of the New Jersey Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis, a board member of the International Society for Ethical Psychiatry and Psychology, and is on the Editorial Boards of the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, and the International Journal of Controversial Discussions. He is also a Research Associate of the Psychohistory Forum and may be contacted at .

Denis J. O’Keefe

Denis J. O’Keefe, LCSW, PhD, teaches social policy analysis and developmental/clinical practice theories at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work and for six years taught psychohistory at SUNY Rockland. He is treasurer and a past president of the International Psychohistorical Association as well as a member of the leadership team and a research associate of the Psychohistory Forum. Dr. O’Keefe makes his living primarily as a psychotherapist in private practice and may be contacted at .

Hannah Hahn

Hannah Hahn, PhD, is a psychologist and author of a 2020 psychoanalytic study of Jewish immigration focusing on trauma, loss, and memory, titled, They Left It All Behind.

Jack Schwartz

Dr. Jack Schwartz, PsyD, NCPsyA, is a nationally certified psychoanalyst as well as a faculty member, lecturer, and control analyst for The Object Relations Institute and the NJ Institute for Training while maintaining a full private practice in Northern New Jersey. He is a contributor and writer for a variety of clinical journals and is the author of a psychoanalytic novel called Our Time Is Up (2007). Dr. Schwartz has been a regular presenter for ORI, NJI, and NAAP. He can be contacted at .

Kenneth Rasmussen

Kenneth Rasmussen, PsyD, PhD, is an historian and psychoanalytical psychotherapist who teaches at Santa Monica College and has a private practice in Santa Monica. His research interests include the psychohistory of political ideologies, left and right, and the psychological dimension of philosophy and the “philosophy as therapy.” Dr. Rasmussen may be contacted at .

Lawrence Tritle

Lawrence Tritle, PhD, emeritus Daum Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, is author and editor of 13 books, including From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival (2000), A New History of the Peloponnesian War (2010), and The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World (2013, edited with Brian Campbell). He is currently at work on The Beast War. The Story of Us Humans. He can be reached at .

Marilyn Charles

Marilyn Charles, PhD, ABPP, is a psychologist on staff at the Austen Riggs Center and a psychoanalyst in private practice in Stockbridge, MA who is affiliated with Harvard University, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, and the University of Monterrey. She is a Contributing Editor of Psychoanalysis, Culture, & Society, and serves on the editorial boards of a number of psychoanalytic journals. As the Co-Chair of the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (APCS) and past president of Division 39, she is actively engaged in mentoring and promoting community involvement for those in the helping professions and supports psychoanalytic training, outreach, and research initiatives. An artist and poet, her research focuses on creativity, psychosis, and resilience. Dr. Charles has presented her work nationally and internationally, publishing over 100 articles and book chapters as well as six books: Patterns: Building Blocks of Experience (2002), Constructing Realities: Transformations Through Myth and Metaphor (2004), Learning from Experience: A Guidebook for Clinicians (2004), Working with Trauma: Lessons from Bion and Lacan (2012), Psychoanalysis and Literature: The Stories We Live (2015), Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Defining Terms and Building Bridges (2017), and an edited volume with co-author Michael O’Loughlin: Fragments of Trauma and the Social Production of Suffering (2014). She is currently working on two edited volumes: Women and Psychosis (with Marie Hansen); and Building Bridges: The Importance of Play in Early Years Education (with Jill Bellinson). She may be contacted at .

Matthew H. Bowker

Matthew H. Bowker, PhD, is a professor of political science at Medaille College in Buffalo and the author of 13 published or forthcoming books and numerous papers and chapters on the subjects of psychoanalysis, political and social theory, and critical pedagogy. Educated at Columbia University, Sciences Po, and the University of Maryland, College Park, he is currently pursuing postdoctoral coursework in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society & Institute. His most recent titles include The Destroyed World and the Guilty Self: A Psychoanalytic Study of Culture and Politics (2019, with David P. Levine) and Misinterest: Essays, Pensées, and Dreams (2019). Dr. Bowker is Founding Co-Editor of Routledge’s book series Psychoanalytic Political Theory, North American Editor of the Journal of Psychosocial Studies, and Associate Editor of the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. He can be contacted at .

Michael Maccoby

Michael Maccoby, PhD is a psychoanalyst and anthropologist who is globally recognized as an expert on leadership. He has written/edited 16 books, some with co-authors. He edited Psychoanalytic and Historical Perspectives on the Leadership of Donald Trump: Narcissism and Marketing in an Age of Anxiety and Distrust (2020) with Ken Fuchsman. He is currently editing Leadership, Psychoanalysis, and Society with Mauricio Cortina, which will be published in fall 2021. He can be contacted at .

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 .

Peter W. Petschauer

Peter W. Petschauer, PhD, New York University, taught at Appalachian State University, 1968-2006. (Now a writer and poet.) Initially courses in European and Russian History, later women and children.

Several administrative positions.

Also chair of Appalachian’s faculty senate and then chair of UNC-System’s faculty assembly.

Now on two arts-related boards at ASU and on two boards of psychohistorical journals.

Books: Faustina. Ein freies Mädchen und eine gefangene Fürstin. Das einzigartige Paar auf dem Römerhof bei Erlstätt (Faustina. A free girl and a captive duchess. The unique pair on the Roman farm near Erlstätt), 2025;Was man so Alles lernt, (All the Things one Learns) 2024; In Troubled Times Beauty. Listen to Rarely Heard Voices (poetry), 2022; An Immigrant in the 1960s. Finding Hope and Success in New York City; Hopes and Fears. Past and Present (poetry); A Perfect Portrait, about a young female artist in 18^th-century Weimar; In the Face of Evil. The Sustenance of Traditions; The Father and the SS.

Articles, etc.: over 250 articles in journals and collections, several hundred presentations/ lectures.

; peterpetschauer.com

Richard Brookhiser

Richard Brookhiser is a historian, biographer, and senior editor of National Review.

Tom Ferraro

Tom Ferraro, PhD, is a writer and psychoanalyst whose work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The London Times. He can be reached at .

How to cite this article

Elovitz, P. H., Charles, M., Seitler, B. N., Schwartz, J., Petschauer, P. W., Ferraro, T., Maccoby, M., O’Keefe, D., Bowker, M. H., Brookhiser, R., Tritle, L. A., Hahn, H., & Rasmussen, K. (2021). Thoughts on healing America. Clio’s Psyche, 27(2), 149-155.

https://doi.org/10.70763/dc6e224a8d74ce03bf301152d6e33e97

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