Rezension zu Kritik der Psychohistorie
Journal of Psychohistory Vol.33#3
Rezension von Juhani Ihanus
This German work is aimed at criticizing »independent
psychohistory« as constructed by Lloyd deMause. Its main
theoretical criticism comes from Friedhelm Nyssen whose two
articles fill the third of the work s pages. Psychohistory is here
defined as including three basic areas: the psychogenic history of
childhood, the psychogenic theory of history and the anthropology
of »homo relatens« (as opposed to the anthropology of economic or
political man). Already in its subheading the work labels
psychohistory as a »psychologistic paradigm.« Unfortunately,
»psychologism« is never explicitly defined in this work. There have
been many forms of »psychologism« in the history of sciences and
philosophy (see, for example, Kusch 1995 and Jacquette 2003), and
it would have been of interest how the psychohistorical »paradigm«
might exactly be related to this long tradition.
From reading the work, it becomes evident that deMausean
psychohistory is accused of the »lack of complexity« of giving
priority solely to psychical determinants (individual motivations)
of the historical and political scenes, and thus of discarding such
concepts as »society«, »social class«, »social structure«, »social
institution«, even »culture« and »power« as sociological »myths«
and »holistic« constructs. According to Nyssen, this abandonment of
»social and cultural facts«, while psychohistory is striving to
become »exact science«, is the great fallacy of independent
psychohistory. All contributors of this volume consider social
influences on human action and on history and politics to be
primary, although they also admit psychosocial influences. Should
this attitude, on the contrary, be called »sociologism«, or an
unwarranted »flight from psychology«?
Social dynamics (the dialectics of individual and social dynamics)
is at least favored in this work (instead of psychodynamics), and
social and cultural studies are presented as relevant guiding
disciplines for psychohistory. In the spirit of the dialectics of
Enlightenment and the critical theory of the Frankfurt school,
authors steer psychohistory to the direction of
social-psychological psychohistory, socialization theory and
institution and ideology critique. The psychohistorical project is
not, however, rejected by the contributors. It is assessed to be
necessary-not as an independent and isolationist project, but as an
area for questioning and researching, together with other
disciplines, the relations of human development, emotions and
motivations to historical and current social action.
The history of childhood and group-fantasy analysis are neither
totally rejected in this work but they are treated as »part
analysis« and as »perpetual abstraction« that should be
complemented by psychosocializing psychohistory. While deMause s
work is characterized as an »essential contribution« to the history
and evolution of childhood, well-grounded on developmental
child-parent research, deMauses theory is nevertheless regarded as
a kind of »dictatorship of the empathic«, including too far-fetched
conclusions. These kind of labels may be part of the lack of
empathy in the critics themselves. Maybe the Romanian-born writer
E. M. Cioran (1992) was on the right track when he stated in his
aphorism, »Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to
understand others but to understand ourselves.«
In defense of deMauses work, it must be here mentioned that deMause
and those who have based on his work and developed it in their own
directions (I would not call them »followers« or »advocates« of the
presumed deMausean »circle« as Nyssen does) are not unaware of the
latest advances in the fields of evolutionary and cultural studies,
or of neuroscientific and various kind of psychological research
that focuses on, for example, developmental life-cycle processes,
attachment, parenting, coping and coadaptive strategies in relation
to physical, psychical and socio-cultural environments. Trauma
research (concerning the impacts of trauma on
psyche-history-politics) has long been one of the main issues in
psychohistory. Actually, developmental determinism of the
traditional psychoanalytic frame of reference is not encompassing
present-day psychohistory nor even many psychoanalytic fields.
The above said does not purport to exclude well-argued criticism of
psychohistory (of which there is some portion in the German work).
Critical works that are not totally hostile and try to add to the
co-construction of psychohistorical endeavors deserve keen
attention among psychohistorians. Such criticism may add to
self-reflection and understanding of psychohistorians, against
complacency, deep-rooted belief systems and simplifying
reductionism. Psychohistorians certainly should be more informed
also of other than psychoanalytic or psychodynamic approaches, for
example, of new family, gender, social and cultural historical
research, of the history of the mentalities, and of microhistory.
Still, for psychohistorians, history is never a totally external
force, just happening to people.
There surely can be simplifications, poorly nuanced socio-cultural
contexts, dangers of pathologizing, theoretical and interpretive
fixations and rhetorical seductions inherent in psychohistorical
studies. Still, the matrix of psychohistory is stratified and
many-splendored. Analyzing the lack of love (or the lack of
sensitivity and mutuality), as it is reflected in history, politics
and economics, is not an easy task. It demands recognizing the
effects of such a lack also in the psychohistorians themselves-in
their transferences to research »objects«, and in their
countertransferences to other researchers interpretations.
Independence of psychohistory should not mean isolationism from
other fields of research. Psychohistorians need to embark on inter-
and cross-disciplinary projects that at their best build bridges,
transform strict disciplinary identities and fertilize
co-constructive research development. For some psychohistorians
this move may figure as a threat of losing ones distinct specialty,
ones uniqueness. Independence is, however, not indifference to
other voices but empathic relating to them. There will, of course,
be mutual projective identifications on »both sides.« They can lead
to fragmentation, but, if insightfully analyzed, they may also
produce more integration.
The German Critics of psychohistory tend to bring forth a
socio-psychological cultural critique apparatus as a secure base
for explaining irrational flights from freedom, whereas deMause
conceives of such flights reflecting inabilities to cope with too
threatening individual freedom that is full of dangerous
emotions-the salvation from »maternal engulfment« fears being a
manic flight to external action from internal reality. Problems and
traumas of developmental social-affective-cognitive processes in
the separation-individuation process are bypassed by the critics.
For example, instead of unconscious emotional motivations of
mentalities, politics, economics and technology, Nyssen presents
»political consciousness« and »rationality and greed« mentality as
explanatory premises. Is this not Nyssens own drive-based
»perpetual abstraction« of which he accuses deMause? Through the
genuine act of rationalization, the »risk society« is evaluated by
Nyssen to be as important an area as the »traumatized childhood.«
Is this not a flight to institutional external reality from the
inner emotional source of social institutions and actions?
Contrary to Nyssens claim, deMause is not caught up in a vicious
circle, and does not refer in his writings to the »impact of the
psychic on the psychic.« Instead of that, deMause refers to the
impact of the child hood-originated and later during life-history
developed psychic on history, politics, economics, technology and
socio-cultural relations. The contents of the psyche are not
postulated in deMauses writings to be only unconscious phantasy
formations. Human actors have, of course, also conscious psychic
acts.
Nyssen is quite clear in his claims, but Peter Jüngst, in his
anthropologically oriented description of three different societal
formations (hunters and gatherers, »simple« agrarian and
state-hierarchically organized societies) and traumatic experiences
in their socialization processes, is more cryptic and touches only
slightly upon deMausean ideas. It is a pity, since there would be
interesting points of connection. For example, in hunters and
gatherers societies mothers were often given the power to decide on
the life and death of newborn babies. An exciting further
reflection would take into account deMauses (and others)
anthropological discussion and his concept of »terrifying mother«
/»Killer Mommy«. Jüngst only mentions »mother imagos« in passing,
and Evelyn Heinemann also briefly acknowledges »bad mother imagos«.
In this context it would have been of further interest to analyze
such a newer deMausean concept as »social alter«.
Jüngsts text has good observations of childrearing practices in
different societies, though these practices are seen as (for
example, narcissistic) aspects and moments in the overall
socialization process. On the other hand, Jüngst does not seem to
notice that social production and reproduction are also programming
»mechanisms« that may block people from becoming conscious of their
own individual infant-based aspirations and their vicissitudes. It
is important to stress, as Jüngst does, the different bestowal of
parental affection at different developmental ages upon girls and
boys. Jüngsts writing style is broodingly circumstantial, and he
would undoubtedly get more readers through relieving his German
armchair-theoretical prose.
Other authors of the work deal with several themes, again only
slightly touching upon especially deMauses thinking. In his article
Hartwig Weber writes about child sacrifice in the Old Testament and
in Christianity. He denies the existence of child sacrifice in
early times, but considers infanticide to have been real in all
early cultures. For him, stories and myths about child sacrifice
and cannibalism are only imaginary, defending against guilt
(derived from real infanticide), releasing from personal
responsibility, and transforming (deifying) the real killing into
mythological dimensions. Gods will take the place of the real
killers of infants. As Weber concludes, »The antagonism between
aggression and intimacy toward the child is a central trait of the
sacrifice and cannibalism stories that let ambivalent feelings
toward the object rise to a mythological level and look like
theologically justified.«
Evelyn Heinemann, who has earlier written more extensively on
witches and their persecution, has two articles in the volume. The
first is on the contribution of psychohistory and
ethnopsychoanalysis to understanding cultural phenomena. It
includes passages from often-quoted Freudian, ethnopsychoanalytic
and historical research. Its discussion about holiness, possession
and hysteria comes closest to psychohistory. Heinemanns second
article on psychoanalytic training in Germany would have belonged
to another work, since it has no connections to psychohistory. The
emotional scene of a psychoanalytic training institution and the
writers reactions to it introduce her conceptions of the »maternal«
vs. the »oedipal Super-ego«, but that hardly serves as an example
of carrying on (or criticizing) psychohistorical research.
Marion Bornhoff-Nyssens reading of modern German fiction is also
based on »emotional reactions« of the researcher. She
whole-heartedly accepts modern writers who painstakingly describe
confused egos, fragmented psychic states, and antiheroic events.
She is more critical of such appraisals as made by Ludwig Janus who
traces in modern literature signs of growing empathy and in-depth
reconfigurations of our identity. It is actually surprising how
little literary and art studies have been embraced in psych
ohistorical research.
Other articles in this work deal with apocalyptic images in early
modern time in the context of the history of European religions (by
Edmund Hermsen), with empathic relations and economic decisions (by
Wolfgang Priess), and with psychogenic theory and raising of small
children (by Heide Kauert). With his sermon-like ecological tones
Priess is concerned with the childrens rights that are so often
lost in economic power (not empathic) relations. The current child
sacrifice takes place on the altars of the exploitative consumption
race.
This work as a whole raises the question about where, and in what
directions, psychohistorians should seek sources of renewal of
their research and theories. The authors of the work gesticulate to
the direction of social and cultural sciences. There are, however,
other possible directions, and not only among psychoanalytic
reformulations. I mean here the connections of psychohistory with
natural sciences, evolutionary theory and neurosciences. We maybe
witnessing in the future such new fields as evolutionary
psychohistory and neuropsychohistory (with cumulative aids provided
by already existing evolutionary psychology, neuro-psychoanalysis
and cognitive neuroscience).
Lloyd deMausé has already in 1989 in his article »The Role of
Adaptation and Selection in Psychohistorical Evolution« sketched a
»robust« theory of Psychohistorical evolution, with its six central
hypotheses: »(1) that the individual, not the culture, is the locus
of evolution; (2) that childhood adaptations provide the source of
all variations; (3) that adult adaptations furnish the occasion for
group and environmental selection; (4) that the selected
personality types and therefore cultural practices are highly
dependent upon the peculiar evolutionary history of the group; (5)
that cultural traits and historical movements contain shared
defenses constructed to handle the abandonment depression resulting
from lack of parental love; and (6) that these defenses have
periodically moved from rage directed Outwards to
self-destructiveness directed inward, from intergroup belligerence
to sacrifice, from war to economic depression.« This theoretical
perspective was linked by deMause to Gerald M. Edelmans (1987)
»neural Darwinism« that concentrates on the evolution of the brain
organization as a selective process, discarding vitalist concepts
(such as »will« and »desire«).
Thus, the initiative toward combining evolutionary psychohistory
and neuropsychohistory has already been taken. This emergent field
will help in alleviating »the sterility of cultural theory« that is
visible in huge piles of historical research, and also partly in
the theoretical perspectives presented in this German work.
Biological or psychological evolution is not conceived by deMause
as something teleological, parents emotionally installing into
children »preparations« for adult life. Improvements in
childrearing, according to deMause, do not depend on a kind of
»progressive« teleology, on the belief in evolutionary progress
(the rule of the empathic), of which he is often blamed, also in
this work. Neither does the evolutionary tendency of organisms
toward complexity and flexible co-adaptation depend on inevitable
teleology. The absence of progressive teleology is, however, no
reason to pull out of actions and programs that are planned to
improve parenting and the living conditions of the children.
Finally, some minor technical comments on the work. The work would
have benefited from a subject index. The contributors (except the
editors) are not presented at all. And not all sources mentioned in
the notes are included in the references.
REFERENCES
Cioran, E. M., Anathemas and Admirations. Translated by Richard
Howard. London: Quartet Books, 1992.
deMause, Lloyd, »The Role of Adaptation and Selection in
Psychohistorical Evolution.« The Journal of Psychohistory, 16(4),
355-371, 1989.
Edelman, Gerald M., Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group
Selection. New York: Basic Books, 1987.
Jacquette, Dale (ed.), Philosophy, Psychology, and Psychologism:
Critical and Historical Readings
on the Philosophical in Psychology. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 2003.
Kusch, Martin, Psychologism: A Case Study in the Sociology of
Philosophical Knowledge.London: Routledge, 1995.