On the Margins of Psychohistory

Every psychohistorian enjoys a different perspective of psychohistory. Because some of us live and work at a distance from the core of it, that is, the New York City area, we have gained a unique point of view. Another aspect that characterizes the field stems from some of us being unable to have regular conversations with colleagues in it. In some other cases the uniqueness of the field stems from some of us being faculty members and yet rarely teaching courses in it. Thus, we choose to express ourselves in our chosen field through reading, presentations, and publications.

The dilemma of not being part of an on-going and direct discourse is being made even more acute in recent years by the dramatic changes altering teaching such as post-tenure review and other forms of accountability, but also through the introduction of instructional technology and new perceptions about teaching. Becoming adept at the new techniques is taking so much time that one can say justly that we are being sidetracked from our fields. Simultaneous has been the rising awareness

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that instruction is not so much about teaching as it is about learning. Thus, while in “the good old days” we were able to choose a pedagogy that was appropriate to us and stay with it, now we must rework our courses. I applaud this reworking and the introduction of instructional technology, particularly because they allow us to reflect and act upon what students are gaining through higher education.

I came to psychohistory because of Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Lloyd deMause, and David Beisel, and stayed with psychohistory because of Howard Stein, Paul Elovitz, and Vamik Volkan. Throughout most of my career, my conversation with these individuals has been at a distance. Yes, I read their work, met some of them many times, and have attended conferences with them. I have even written about some of them. Yet, the more I am engaged with instructional technology and new pedagogies, the less time there is for the field as such.

Something else creates a unique aspect of psychohistory with and for those of us who are not at or near the core territory and discussion of psychohistory. Because we continue to explore with psychohistorical methodologies into other fields, we can become absorbed into those areas and thus drift away from psychohistory. I came into psychohistory through the door of the history of childhood. It ultimately led me to explorations of human space. Initially these explorations were no more than investigations of spaces that children inhabit. But with time I wanted to understand all of human spatiality. By pushing at the borders of psychohistory in such areas as art, architecture, and geography, and by in a different dimension being mentally in such places as Chechnya and the former Yugoslavia, I increasingly noticed my isolation from fellow psychohistorians working in similar areas. I was not able to converse with them on a regular basis and obtain their feedback on my arguments. My most recent interest in ethnic issues rests squarely in my past in Afers in Northern Italy as a German-speaking child and in my career as a psychohistorian. Yet the further I move into this field, the more I feel myself standing at the margins of psychohistory. Being able to teach psychohistory, or being able to engage in steady conversation with colleagues in psychohistory, would allow me to be more firmly grounded in it and at the same time reduce the sense of an isolation as I explore the borders of it.

The most interesting part about living at the borders of psychohistory, both territorially and intellectually, is a certain degree of healthy tension that characterizes all border experiences. It is the same sense of excitement that I experienced as a child in Northern Italy, as an immigrant in New York, and as a Yankee in the South. The border is the many cultural and experiential pasts that reside in me. They offer tension and excitement that is most different and elusive for those who live at the core. I both carry the border of psychohistory outward and I am the border of it; as such I am one other expression of psychohistory. My decrying that I am not part of the conversations at the core, or not able to teach “my subject,” is matched by the realization that the tension of being at the margin of a field, an expression, or a culture allows for a set of experiences and insights that are both rewarding, exciting and unique, and thus continues to enrich psychohistory.

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