Elovitz Creates a Quiet Space for Thoughtful Inquiry in Our Turbulent World

My acquaintance with Paul Elovitz began a little over a year

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ago as I ventured into the field of psychohistory with the publication of my first book, A Study of Malignant Narcissism: Personal and Professional Insights (2022). Paul could not have been more welcoming and encouraging. Open, warm, and very personable, he was extraordinarily generous with his time, even though, as I could tell, he was pressed on multiple fronts by his varied commitments to a subject matter he was deeply passionate about. His quiet, thoughtful demeanor belied his incredible energy—energy that he had brought to his work over the course of decades.

I found myself drawn into a personal relationship with him that deepened over the time that we have known each other. This extended into trading jokes, concerns about our personal lives, and, of course, shared apprehension about the many adverse events and contemporary historical currents that have unfolded in the world about us. In the face of all of the threats and disruptions that such events occasion almost daily, it was very consoling to be able to turn to the space that he created. This was a space where I knew I could find sanity, reflectiveness, and a committed effort, however imperfect, to try to understand what was happening to the human community. There don’t seem to be many such spaces in our world, even within the psychoanalytic interface, which of late has been riven by divisiveness and tragic polarities. Despite clinicians’ lifelong commitment to view human experience both dispassionately and compassionately so that we might make better sense of it, pain and trauma seemed to trump insight and analytic equanimity again and again as members of our own community seemingly became lost in the face of the fear and mistrust that all too readily engulfed so many of us.

What was missing? Why did so many of us seemingly abandon our deepest commitments to turn on one another? I would say the missing piece was, on the one hand, an awareness of the crucial intersection between an appreciation of individual and small group psychodynamics and, on the other hand, larger historical perspectives. In other words, there is an awareness of the psychohistorical forces that impinge on us, creating the personal context that defines our responses to each other and the world at large. My own estimate is that calling on the psychoanalytic community to attend to larger psychohistorical forces has, in some ways, been an inherently daunting undertaking. However, inviting individual practitioners to set aside time that they need for their practices and continuing clinical education to look at the broader dynamics critical to

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understanding what is unfolding in the larger world we occupy is important, even if it is difficult.

It has also been difficult for us to attend to psychohistory for another reason: We are deeply reluctant—indeed, if not constrained by formidable ethical concerns, as many of us are—to carry out assessments of important contemporary historical figures from a distance. We believe that the proper place to develop an appreciation of psychodynamics is in the consulting room, not through broader social commentary. My hope is that the space Paul has created and the courage that he has demonstrated will enable more of us to explore the interface between psychodynamics and history. I believe we must do that if we are to use our voices effectively to help the world confront its most dire challenges.

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