The Rich and Varied Journeys of Psychohistorians

The authors in Part II of this path-breaking work of autobiographical insight have a passion for psychological knowledge based on more than the narrowness of any one discipline. By delving into the psychological origins of behavior, these pioneering colleagues have deepened our understanding of family dynamics, individual development, and the formation of group identity. While traditional historians and many academics have often dismissed psychoanalytic-based knowledge as “pseudoscience” and are leery of insights drawn from clinical experience, these pioneers have withstood criticism and preserved their creativity and insight.

In these autobiographies each author reflects on his (“her” in only one case in Part II) educational development as a psychohistorical thinker along with the obstacles faced and overcome. I am struck by Howard Stein’s contribution as he writes: “[psychohistory] is not a road I ever imagined I would travel until I was told I was already on it.” This suggests a psychological dimension that is often unconscious, fueled by personal experience and curiosity. It is fitting that the leaders of the field represented here rely on their own intuitions to direct them to truths about the psyche that are relatable to culture and society. Psychoanalysis can be an integral part of education, functioning as a resource and a tool that researchers can use to help resolve both external and internal conflicts. As Peter Loewenberg has long demonstrated, the psychoanalysis of culture and society means a shift in how we assess institutional biases, and therefore he successfully advocated with others for psychoanalysts by changing the law in California to create a category of researchers who can practice without a traditional psychology PhD or medical degree. Psychohistory is invaluable as a means for diagnosing societal problems and seeking real-life interventions. In addition to doing pioneering scholarship, Loewenberg has been a key person in training psychoanalysts, psychotherapists (recently in China), and psychohistorians.

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Freud argued in his paper on the individual and group psychologies that trying to separate an individual’s social relations from his or her intrapsychic processes is like drawing an imaginary line between the satisfaction derived from gratifying instinctual needs and social ones. For him, the two were mutually interdependent. He also maintained that an individual’s attachments to primary love objects and social abstractions couldn’t really be distinguished from one another—for an emotional current runs through both. While it would be logical to assume that the social instinct is primitive and within our natures from the beginning, it seems less convincing than the assumption by a number of the authors that social psychology only has its development in a narrower circle, such as the inner workings of the family. Among those who conduct research, teaching, and/or are in clinical practice, it is worth referring to Brett Kahr’s emphasis on childhood, practice, and psychobiographical studies. His struggle to give psychohistory a foothold in the United Kingdom is worth noting. Kahr credits Lloyd deMause with bringing him to psychohistory and encouraging his dispersing it in the UK. There are some who came to organized psychohistory through deMause’s Journal of Psychohistory, and the International Psychohistorical Association (IPA) of which he was the founding president; others who came through Peter Loewenberg’s efforts; and a number who came, participated, or returned through Paul Elovitz’ Psychohistory Forum and journal Clio’s Psyche. The reality is that while some like Loewenberg distanced themselves from the IPA and the Journal over editorial missteps, the two groups and journals have worked together in the interest of the field.

There is always risk in finding one’s own way; indeed, the road to psychohistory can be a lonely and winding one, without road maps. In planning the three parts of “The Many Roads of the Builders of Psychohistory Special Issue,” and subsequent book, Paul Elovitz’ editorial vision was to emphasize these trailblazers’ personal experiences, their disappointments, as well as their successes. Thus, the essays compiled here comprise but a small number of the thousands of scholarly contributions to the field representing a variety of original disciplines and methodologies.

This issue’s articles begin with Dan Burston recounting his past experience immigrating to Israel and being forced back to Canada as a child, which led him to make connections between history and psychology and, in analyzing his own personal experience,

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gaining a better understanding of intergenerational trauma, influenced by Erik Erikson. With an enthusiasm for applied psychoanalysis, Burston has been a productive contributor to our field for his many books on psychobiography. Marc-André Cotton takes a unique look at psychohistory and therapy, acknowledging that “adults remain deeply imprinted with unacknowledged emotional experiences” by examining childhood trauma, especially the threat of corporal punishment. Jack Fitzpatrick’s contribution provides a glimpse into the importance of mentorship, which is a common theme throughout the whole of these autobiographies. As a student of Peter Loewenberg’s, he was inspired to take psychoanalysis seriously and later went on to the Menninger Clinic, where he was “enthralled and hooked” by his analytical training. He learned that our symptoms have an adaptive purpose. Fitzpatrick learned to listen, think, and speak carefully. He has applied these principles first with patients and then with clients as a psychodynamic business consultant to small family businesses.

Offering a different perspective is Michael Maccoby’s “learning journey,” beginning as a behaviorist and evolving into a globally known scholar recognized for his work on leadership, especially narcissistic leadership. Like many of these scholars, Maccoby was educated at Harvard, where he pursued several interests, including anthropology. His studies led him to social action and he studied Mexican peasants and others, eventually investing in projects that went beyond academic theory and addressed global social problems surrounding labor and leadership. What is striking about Maccoby’s account and every other account is the way that these authors were inspired by mentors and other professionals in the field of psychohistory, who became lifelong friends and allies.

In fact, more than a few of these articles mention the important role that the IPA has played in their work as psychohistorians. By providing an international outlet for academic and clinical ideas in the field of psychoanalysis and psychohistory, the organization worked to open up communication between members across the globe, so that they could collaborate and strategize for its inclusivity of many ideas. Joseph G. Ponterotto was a quantitatively trained counseling psychologist but changed direction when he encountered the richer field of psychohistory and psychobiography. He came to psychohistory through the Psychohistory Forum and the journal Clio’s Psyche and found resistance to psychobiography in academic psychology to be intense. Ponterotto chiseled out a com-

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promise between competing heuristics and found a way of bridging his quantitative reasearch with psychobiography. As a professor of counseling at Fordham, he continued his research culminating in the psychobiographical books on Bobby Fisher and John F. Kennedy, Jr.

On yet another trajectory, Heinrich J. Reiss, born just after WWII, was thrust into a country going through rapid social change from Nationalist Socialists to the far right National Democratic Party. With education as a renewed goal in Germany, Reiss chronicles his experiences growing up in a rapidly changing political culture and his belief that study meant “dig[ging] where you stand” to gain a better understanding of the past. His exposure to deMause’s theories of childrearing and the psychogenic theory of history compelled him toward further research as a teacher and scholar.

A former colleague of mine when we taught at George Washington University, Robert Samuels, focuses on what he terms “the irrational” as it pervades culture and society. He investigates the nexus between unconscious processes that are at work in group settings as a means of targeting a problem that might be better resolved through applied psychoanalysis. In his essay, he maps out the way emotion, the unconscious, and politics are interconnected by emphasizing how a method for self-understanding is applicable to politics and cultures; he has a fascinating explanation of how Freudian theory and psychical reality can shed light on the unconscious processes funneling into power structures operative in the group. From there he investigates a phenomenon surrounding victim identity and how it galvanizes a group’s desire to organize themselves.

A distinguished figure in the fields of psychoanthropology and psychohistory, Howard Stein is representative of the many roads that psychohistory can take, the curious as well as the learned, leading to a meeting of several complimentary disciplines, thereby advocating for a more holistic approach to interpreting social ills not distinct from the individual neurosis. Key to many of the methodologies noted here is identifying the symptom that may afflict the individual and extends into the social group. Early on, Stein was aware of a calling to psychohistory, believing it could shed considerable light on the human condition. To write about psychohistory is to think as a psychohistorian, and to embrace the countertransference that occurs every time a thinker engages his or her subject of inquiry. He or she can never rule out individual bias-

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es that might distort one’s view. Significantly, Stein goes on in his essay to account for that very dynamic and to use his own responses as instruments for understanding people and situations. He contends, and I agree with him, that he had always been doing psychohistory because that was how his mind collected information and synthesized it. One important aspect of his long road in which he did encounter real hardship was his finding and utilizing “applied poetry” to better analyze himself and how he found figuration to be a means of going beyond calculation and relying on insight. As a poet, I find that particularly refreshing to read—since poetry is one and the same as the personal and cultural moment that produced it, beginning with Sappho.

Arnold Richards writes of his energetic life in applied psychoanalysis, including his drive to democratize a psychoanalytic institute, his editorship of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, his creation of a thriving psychoanalytic press (IPbooks), his active work in bringing psychoanalysis online through the InternationalPsychoanalysis.net, and teaching in China. Richards’ efforts strengthen psychohistory. While most of the authors covered have PhDs, like Rozentsvit, Richards is an MD.

Inna Rozentsvit’s autobiography beautifully details her struggle growing up as a Jew in a “nurturing and cultured very small family” in the Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union where times were hard under the influence of the Communist party. When encountering intense anti-Semitism upon the fall of Communism, she fled with her family to Vienna and then, after a period, to America, where she has devoted her great energy and talents to psychoanalysis, psychohistory, and publishing psychodynamic studies. After the death of her mother, she entered psychoanalytic psychotherapy and trained as an analyst. Like the other authors, Rozentsvit viewed psychohistory as the most cogent way to comprehend and “heal not just individuals but also society.” She writes, “as a rehabilitation specialist, I can ease and heal the suffering of my patients.”

David Cifelli is a young graduate student who encountered psychohistory as an undergraduate and became fascinated with it, authoring or co-authoring several articles while continuing his career in dental education. His involvement is a reflection of the openness of the field to young colleagues and the reality that those devoted to psychohistory must make their living elsewhere.

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In conclusion, this issue is devoted to the many roads that these authors have taken and continue to travel on in their academic and clinical ventures into the invaluable field of psychohistory, and what makes us human in both the individual and collective sense of the word. I am reminded of the line, “history is your own heartbeat,” from the poem, “Nightmare Begins Responsibility” (1974), by Michael S. Harper. These authors affirm that to be true, and have enriched our understanding of who we are and who we can be.

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