Volume 27 Number 3Spring 2021

American politics, democracy, Donald Trump, historical analogies, January 6th insurrection, paranoid style, psychohistory

American politics, Donald Trump, Fox News, impeachment trial, January 6th insurrection, Mitch McConnell, psychohistory, Republican Party

allegory, American history, commander-in-chief, January 6^th insurrection, poetry, politics, psychohistory, United States Constitution

American politics, dialectic, democracy, identity, invasion of the Capitol, Joseph Biden, prosocial behaviors, psychohistory, social position, unity

The author utilizes the theory of opposites to create a framework through which we might view the president’s plea for unity and national healing. He analyzes the act of evil aggression observed in the invasion of the Capitol and Biden’s words of oneness to combat division and prompt unity, comparing good and evil.

American politics, COVID-19, dysfunctional politics, fear, group psychology, historical trauma, insurrection, mass catastrophe, mourning, National September 11 Memorial & Museum, opiate epidemic, psychohistory, sociocultural crisis, traumatic events

Taking a look at the horror of the insurrection as well as the terror caused by previous traumatic historical events, the author questions whether we can understand enough about the present to rebuild the U.S. and make it better than before. The consequences of traumatic events are analyzed and suggestions are made about ways to improve the potential for unifying sociopolitical divisions in the U.S. The author brings up her experience as the Consulting Psychologist to Thinc Design, the exhibition designers of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

contemporary America, Democratic Party, divisive politics, equality, freedom, political factionalism, psychohistory, QAnon, Republican Party, violence, war veterans

In a discussion about political factionalism and the violence it can cause, the author analyzes the forces behind these factional divides. He asks questions about these concepts, relates background information, and attempts to analyze the situation by using the past and applying it to the present.

American politics, blame-shifting, Donald Trump, healing, insurrection, Joseph Biden, populism, projective identification, psychohistory, QAnon, social media, Trumpism

A divide exists in our country because of Donald Trump’s defensive use of projective identification (blame-shifting). We now must all work toward healing our nation. This article seeks to better understand the current situation in the United States relating to Donald Trump and the Capitol rioters as well as demonstrate how mental health professionals and others can help create a better America.

American political system, democracy, Donald Trump, healing, impeachment, January 6^th insurrection, Joseph Biden, post-Trump America, psychobiography, stolen election

American presidents, autobiography, empathy, healing America, Joseph Biden, literary works, poetry, psychohistory, Seamus Heaney, Theodore Roosevelt, William Butler Yeats

The author explores the “superpower” that he believes will give Biden an edge: his empathy. Biden’s passion for literature, especially poetry, is also analyzed and compared to President Theodore Roosevelt. Their ability to empathize with others is connected to their love of literature and can go a long way to healing America.

academia, empathy, history, literary psychoanalytic teaching, psychohistorical pedagogy, psychohistory, teaching

A brief overview of psychohistorical and literary psychoanalytic teaching focusing mostly on its application rather than theory, which will appear more in Part II in the Fall 2021 issue.

anxiety, attachment bonds, COVID-19 pandemic, expressing emotions, fear, Humboldt State University (HSU), online learning, psychohistory, Rogerian Therapy, talking cure, traumatic experience   

A case study of how providing students with a series of opportunities to express their thoughts and feelings about COVID-19 reduced the fear and anxiety they brought to a semester-long university class. This included giving them ten minutes per class to express their concerns on a biweekly basis.

American government, at-risk population, college education, COVID-19 pandemic, educational technology, humanitarian challenge, lockdowns, online teaching, psychohistory

After briefly mentioning the difficulties of teaching online during the COVID-19 epidemic, the author focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on her students and the rising number who become at-risk students, changing her understanding of the concept of being at-risk.

American presidential elections, college education, COVID-19 pandemic, debate, Donald Trump, history, interdisciplinary studies, Joseph Biden, media, political bias, psychohistorical survey, psychohistory, virtual education

The author discusses the unexpected challenges of teaching online during the pandemic a first-year seminar course on the election to a strongly pro-Trump class and a sophomore survey of the human condition.

growth mindset, life narratives, Native American communities, perseverance, personal trauma, psychoanalytic insight, psychohistory, psychology, rhetoric-based inquiries, storytelling, survivance

As a teaching tool, I am interested in how the study of survival narratives can promote a shift in the understanding of trauma through both individual and group psychology; in turn, students in a first-year writing course can use this approach to deepen their academic research and writing. In this article, I offer the example of a course I taught on survival narratives, in which students explored writing as a tool to work through trauma and silence as a means of promoting social change.

Alice Miller, college teaching, compassionate attachment, curiosity, personal development, personal expression, psychic pain, psychohistory, safe space, self-disclosure, self-reflection, therapeutic writing

Teaching therapeutic writing online is made possible by facilitating a safe space for personal expression. This article offers recommendations for working with students as they explore personal topics. Students will inevitably write about painful experiences and they require compassionate attachment and restraint on the teacher’s curiosity so they can choose whether to disclose anything personal.

authoritarian culture, COVID-19 pandemic, group therapy, psychoanalysis training, psychohistory, psychology of women, psychotherapy program, teaching in China, Wuhan

Husband and wife Arnold D. Richards and Arlene Kramer Richards discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Wuhan, exploring their personal history with China. They talk about the work they’ve done there, including lecturing on the psychology of women and group therapy, as well as supervising the staff. This turned into a psychotherapy program, which will continue to run next year. This transitions into a discussion of the authoritarian country’s culture and how they were better able to contain the virus than the U.S.

Adelphi University, COVID-19 pandemic, psychobiography, psychohistory, quantitative methodology, scientific methodology, serendipity, teaching aspirations, teaching psychoanalysis, virtual teaching

In this paper, the author reflects on his long-held wish to teach at Adelphi University, one of the top remaining bastions for psychoanalytic education; the chance meeting that made it possible; understanding and overcoming students’ resistance; and being confronted by and adapting to the exigencies of COVID-19’s sudden appearance.

critical consciousness, critical pedagogy, development of knowledge, dependence, internalized experience, nurturing relationships, oedipal psychology, Peter Loewenberg, psychohistorical stereotype, student-teacher relationship, transference, Wilfred Bion

An exploration of the phenomenology of the student-teacher relationship, this article delves into the topic through the lens of both a student and a teacher. The work of Peter Loewenberg, Wilfred Bion, and other psychoanalytic experts is discussed in detail as it relates to this relationship. The author specifically seeks to add two aspects to Loewenberg’s thoughts on the impact of transferential relations between student and instructor.

analytic neutrality, cultural and political bias, cultural identity, empiricism, higher education, identity politics, modernity, neutrality practice, objectivity, pedagogy, psychohistory, science, Sigmund Freud, universality

The paper explores the current backlash against teachers remaining neutral and objective in the classroom. Drawing from the psychoanalytic notion of analytic neutrality, the article explains why teachers should strive to avoid letting their political beliefs and cultural identities affect their interaction with students. An argument is introduced that education should be based on the necessary but impossible modern ideals of objectivity, universality, neutrality, and empiricism.

“Best Practices in Psychobiographical Research,” biography, Erik Erikson, Henry A. Murray, J. Milton Yinger, James William Anderson, Joseph G. Ponterotto, psychobiographical methodology, psychobiography, qualitative psychology, William McKinley Runyan

William McKinley Runyan and James William Anderson discuss their history writing about psychobiography, beginning with the question of who first wrote about methodology and broadening out to the different ways that they each got involved with the field.

American Historical Association (AHA), David Beisel, Harvard University, historians, Jacques Szaluta, The Making of Psychohistory, Paul H. Elovitz, psychoanalysis, psychohistory, research methodologies

The author bemoans the failure of history departments to support psychohistory, suggesting that the field would be better off in another supportive but unspecified field. He points out that his own experience at Harvard demonstrates the advantages of having prestigious institutions supporting innovative research. He then suggests various methodologies to test and prove the validity of psychoanalytic and psychohistorical research.

American cinema, Blue Jasmine, Charles Dickens, The Compulsion to Create: A Psychoanalytic Study of Women Artists, contrasting analysis, The Creative Mystique: From Red Shoes Frenzy to Love and Creativity, creative work, developmental arrest, developmental mourning, female film characters, The Invisible Woman, literary genre, narcissism, object relations perspective, psychobiography, psychohistory, psychological healing, women’s psyche, Woody Allen

A contrast is discussed between the main female characters in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine and Charles Dickens’ The Invisible Woman. This examination directly relates to the contrasts between developmentally arrested creative women, which is further explored within this article. The other effects of the developmental divide in the psyche of women are also covered.

aesthetic, artistry, censorship, free speech, literature, meaning communication, The Miracle, movies, music, psychohistory, worldview

Movies, an art form of moving images, move us with their immediacy and intensity. Watching movies can be a revelation, communicating as other age-old art forms do-such as literature and music. The writer describes how two movies she saw when very young shaped her aesthetic and worldview.

Brian Dennehy, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III), emotional wound, Euripides’ The Bacchae, film review, hyper-masculinity, police brutality, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychohistory, Rambo film series, Sylvester Stallone, Ted Kotcheff, trauma recovery, Trump as Rambo, Vietnam

This essay analyzes the 1982 film Rambo: First Blood through the lens of trauma and recovery, situating the film within the history of PTSD and exploring its tragic and unexpected political elements, including its critique of police brutality. Whereas the fictional character John Rambo is notorious for his absurd displays of hyper-masculinity, the film offers a touching portrait of the emotional wounds associated with trauma and what survivors need to heal.

American presidents, Anwar Sadat, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Donald Trump, Jerrold Post, Jimmy Carter, memorial, Menachem Begin, personal profiling, political personality profiling, politics, psychoanalysis, psychobiography

collectivism, COVID-19 pandemic, fear, individualism, letter to the editor, lockdowns, psychohistory, social relationships, Thomas Hobbes

Adelphi University, Burton Seitler, experimental psychology, letter to the editor, psychohistory, qualitative research, quantitative methodology, scientific methodology