The Next Assignment of Psychohistory
Paul H. Elovitz,
Ramapo College and the Psychohistory Forum
Periodically, we like to take a moment to provide our readers with a description and some analysis of The Psychohistory Forum’s Work-In-Progress Saturday seminar meetings. Our topic was “The Next Assignment of Psychohistory.” The presenters were chosen for their ability to represent a variety of different fields and viewpoints. They were: Ralph Colp, representing psychoanalytically inclined psychiatry; Jerry Piven, representing psychoanalytic psychology; Robert Quackenbush and Henry Lawton as social workers; Jacques Szaluta (in absentia) and the author as historian-psychoanalysts. The sharpest dichotomy among fields was drawn by Ralph Colp and Mary Lambert who, while not a formal presenter, had promised to give her own perspective on social work.
When Ralph Colp entered the field of psychiatry in 1957—which, coincidentally, was the same year that Langer gave his “Next Assignment” presidential address to the American Historian Association—he got the distinct impression that psychiatrists needed to be steeped in psychoanalysis to be at the top of their game. Dr. Colp’s understanding that psychoanalysis was “the way” to best help the patient and his ego ideals have lasted the duration of his lengthy career in psychiatry and was embodied in the persons of Elvin V. Semrad and Les Havens who had been his teachers. To best understand these individuals, he heartily recommended that we read Susan Rako and Harvey Mazer, eds., Semrad: The Heart of a Therapist (1983) and Leston Havens and Alex Sabo, eds., The Real World Guide to Psychotherapy Practice (2000). Colp pointed out the dramatic changes that have occurred within his field as the notion of becoming a psychoanalyst ceased to be regarded as the professional ideal—though perhaps not by all the practitioners. Much of this change has been brought about by the advent of more effective drugs, which have done wonders for many patients, but which have also changed the role of the psychiatrist. Colp has no doubts as to the efficacy of modern drugs, but also appeared to be very appreciative of the diagnostic value of psychoanalytic insights. He does feel a certain sadness regarding the decline of psychoanalysis within the field because it has been an invaluable aid to his work in private practice and during his many years treating graduate students at Columbia University.
By contrast, Mary Lambert spoke to the drastically different situation of psychoanalysis in relation to social work during the course of her career in New York City. When she entered the field many years ago, psychoanalysis was reserved for psychiatrists who did not want to allow social workers access to their special status as “psychoanalysts.” This harkens back to a time when American psychiatrists, in opposition to Freud’s expressed approval of lay (i.e., non-medical) analysis, sought to monopolize the designation of psychoanalyst. Today, all the clinical social workers she knows have become or are becoming psychoanalysts. She reports that the Society for Clinical Social Work has a committee on psychoanalysis and the primary journal in the field is thoroughly psychoanalytic. However, Lambert acknowledges that the relationship of social workers with analysis in New York City, with all its analytic institutes, is not typical of the country.
This author used his presentation time partly to speak as a psychohistorian, rather than as a historian, and to transmit the ideas of Jacques Szaluta, who was scheduled to represent the psychoanalytic historian, but could not be present in person because of a conflicting commitment after the meeting was rescheduled because the original session was snowed out. Fortunately, Szaluta’s ideas are already in print in, “Conclusion: The Future of Psychohistory,” the final chapter of his book, Psychohistory: Theory and Practice (1999) which I brought to the meeting. Among other things, I pointed out what a strong advocate Professor Szaluta has been for psychohistory within the historical community.
My main point was that there is an uneasy relationship between history and psychology in general. This is in sharp contrast to the situation of psychology in literature and political science where psychological insights are widely accepted as valuable tools of insight and discourse. I first heard of the field from a bright graduate student at Rutgers who was broadly denounced by a professor for his interest in psychohistory: he was urged to leave the graduate program and given a low grade to encourage his departure. Historians as a group tend to be quite suspicious of theory as reflected in the cool reaction to William Langer’s American Historical Association’s inaugural call for applying psychoanalysis to history. Nevertheless, historians haphazardly pick up bits and pieces of psychological information for their own purposes. Still, psychoanalysis and psychohistory have had a strong impact within the historical community on those doing biography, but those same historians have been slow to acknowledge their debt because of the misconceptions and prejudices that arise when anything that begins with “psycho” is applied to characterize their work. When they need it, many historians will use what we have to offer, but usually go out of their way to denounce the field. This behavior of taking the message but killing the messenger is quite frustrating. Still, the message is taken.
Of course, there have been some more open psychological historians, such as Richard Hofstadter, whose The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (1965) caught the attention of many young historians as an effective condemnation of the low level of political discourse common in our history. Regrettably, Hofstadter, who was developing as a psychological historian, died young. His graduate school friend, Peter Gay kept quiet about his psychohistorical tendencies until he was at the top of his field and would never encourage his students to do psychohistory for fear it would ruin their careers. Gay complains that his book, Freud for Historians (1986) is barely read by historians. The Group for the Use of Psychology in History, with the unfortunate acronym of GUPH, was quite active when founded in the early 1970s, but appears to be dormant at the present time.
None of the speakers claimed that they were typical of people in their fields, nor were they encouraged to speak simply for their fields. This forthright discussion sometimes created tension. When Robert Quackenbush, who is a modern psychoanalyst, child analyst, social worker, teacher, artist, and author/illustrator of over 180 children’s books, referred to his work in writing children’s books as psychohistory, a historian took strong exception as most historians initially would do to this idea. To him, Ralph Colp’s studies of Darwin’s illnesses, Paul Elovitz’ studies of presidential candidates, and traditional psychobiographies of Marx and others are psychohistory or have significant psychohistorical content. To his mind, books for nine-year-old children on Ben Franklin, Darwin, Jules Verne, and many others, which were brought by Quackenbush to the session, had nothing to do with psychohistory. Ralph Colp, the Darwin scholar, perused the Darwin biography for children looking for psychological content as he considered the conflicting viewpoints in the room. He concluded that these are psychobiographies, but worried that the author would have access to the best scholarship in writing for young readers.
Robert Quackenbush was amazed at this difference of opinion and the moderator, who is the author of this report, came down strongly on these as psychohistorical studies, but for people of a different age. Seven-year-olds, nine-year-olds and fifteen-year-olds all need literature and psychohistory to enrich their lives. Quackenbush talked of the need to help children express their fears and aggression relevant to the September 11th attacks. He discussed his 20 years of research on his Davy Crocket book, including the detailed family history of Crockett as a Westerner. To this talented author and illustrator, every book he works on is a psychoanalytic project. I hoped this exchange prompted participants to take a broader view of just what is psychohistory.
Jerry Piven sees himself as an idiosyncratic psychologist because of his own special interest in Buddhism. He complained of the tendency of some psychohistorians to create Procrustean beds in which they distorted the facts for the sake of illustrating their own theories. Ralph Colp talked at some length and with regret about the decline and death of humanistic psychotherapy. Margie Quackenbush, a psychoanalyst and administrator of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP), began a discussion about the television phenomenon “Angels in America” and the manner in which it deals with homosexual themes. The conversation also involved the work of Peter Swales (who now lives in Chinatown) on Freud’s first patient. Henry Lawton spoke from the perspective of his position as an expert on the psychological study of film, a Nixon psychobiographer, and a student of social services for children based on his many years as a caseworker for the New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services. Ralph Colp discussed how Adolf Mayer influenced social work to become psychoanalytic through the intermediary of his wife.
Psychohistory’s relationship to psychoanalysis was also examined in passing. Some see psychohistory as dependent on psychoanalysis and others, such as this author, point out that far from all psychoanalysts base their ideas on analysis. The discussion then turned to the issue of popularizing psychohistory. Would there be another Erik Erikson to find a large audience for our ideas? What characteristics would such a popularizer need?
At one point during the conversation, this author wanted the Forum group to pay attention to its own group process since the meeting had broken down into a number of separate and pleasant exchanges, with one of the attendees focusing on the brilliance of Adolf Hitler, which was far from our topic. I wanted to know why some individuals in the group were switching from very psychoanalytically informed insights about our motivations and the motivations of others to non-psychoanalytic elements that were not at all relevant to our discussion. Upon refocusing on the subject of the day (December 13, 2003), the dominant thought was that both psychoanalysis and psychohistory are doing extremely important work, and that despite many disappointments, the next assignment of psychohistory is to do the best possible psychohistorical thinking, research, and publication.
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