Clios Psyche 5-4 Mar 1999

Clio’s Psyche Understanding the "Why" of Culture, Current Events, History, and Society Volume 5, Number 4 March, 1999 Academia, Psychoanalysis, and Psychohistory 17 Authors Explore the Special Relationship Special Session on The Prospects for Understanding the Impact of Psychohistory and Impeachment Psychoanalysis Paul H. Elovitz On Saturday, March 6, in Manhattan, the The Psychohistory Forum and Ramapo College Psychohistory Forum will have a special session in which a distinguished panel will tackle such It is easy to be quite optimistic or difficult questions as: "What will be the impact of pessimistic about psychoanalysis and impeaching William Jefferson Clinton on the psychohistory and their relationship to academia. politics, Let us first examine some of the facts and IN THIS ISSUE From Erikson to Lacan in Chinese History...........137 Lung-kee Sun Academia, Psychoanalysis, and Psychohistory A Conversation in Praise of the Subjective.............138 The Prospects for Psychohistory and Psychoanalysis .. 117 Charles Fred Alford Paul H. Elovitz An Australian Psychohistory Group ...................139 My Experiences in Academia and Psychoanalysis . 124 Lyn Baker John J. Hartman A Psychohistorian in New Zealand.....................140 A Freudian in Middle American Academia........ 125 Norman Simms Tod Sloan Psychoanalysis and Academia in the U.K...........142 Psychoanalysis in the APA................................. 126 Robert Maxwell Young Spyros D. Orfanos Understanding the Impact of Impeachment ...........117 What It Takes to Be A Psychoanalyst ................ 127 Sander Breiner The Dual Character of a President Impeached.......144 Aubrey Immelman Why Was Freud So Hung-Up on Sex? ............... 128 Daniel Dervin An American in Amsterdam: Arthur Mitzman ......146 David D. Lee Research as Autobiography ................................ 131 Hilary Clark Showalter on Hysterical Diseases ..........................150 Book Review by David Lotto Why I Left Academia: Psychoanalyst as Artist .. 132 Jonathan Goldberg Analysts on the Couch: Part III: John Bowlby.......152 Review Essay by Andrew Brink Impossible Knowledge: Teaching Psychoanalysis . 133 Susan Varney Roots of the Jonesboro Schoolyard Killings: Envy of the Feminine.............................................155 Biography and the Use of Psychoanalysis.......... 134 Garth W. Amundson Linda Simon Good Parenting in the 14th Century: On the Margins of Psychohistory ....................... 135 Christine de Pisan...................................................158 Peter Petschauer Norman Simms Pioneering Psychohistory in Kansas................... 136 George Kren Page 118 Clio’s Psyche March, 1999 interpretations supporting optimism. Of late, or Another Academic Discipline Special psychoanalysts have been inclining to affiliate with Issue” (September, 1997) demonstrated the the world of the university or to announce their enormous benefits to the academic in terms of presence within it. For example, the University of insight and methodology stemming from California Interdisciplinary Psychoanalytic psychoanalytic training. Consortium has many talented colleagues who This issue builds on the "Dual Training" meet periodically. Lacanians have been spreading one. In it, seventeen authors reflect on important their version of psychoanalysis in the groves of questions related to the marriage of psychohistory/ academia with considerable success, especially in psychoanalysis to academia. Seven of them are English departments. The Journal for the from literary backgrounds, four from history, three Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (JPCS) is from psychology, one from psychiatry, and -- with now being published by the University of Ohio double and triple counting -- three from Press. Psycho Culture is a newsletter which began psychoanalysis and four from therapy. They are being published in 1997 at Teachers College of about equally divided between having a primary Columbia University. Applied Psychoanalysis is a commitment to psychohistory or to psychoanalysis new journal announced by the Menninger -- several with a strong commitment to both and Foundation. The proliferation of psychohistorical only one sees herself as neither. Thirteen are men publications has been so rapid that Clio's and four are women, with all but one of the women Psyche's “Publishing in Psychohistory Special being in literature. Three of the authors are Issue” (June, 1996) is obsolete because of the Lacanians, presenting a view which has only recent creation of Psychoanalysis and History, recently appeared in this publication, who Tapestry, JPCS, Psychoanalytic Studies, Applied responded to an open invitation on the Internet. Psychoanalysis, and other publications. There are These authors have both very similar and now over ten psychohistorical publications in dissimilar experiences and sometimes hold very addition to older ones in applied psychoanalysis different viewpoints on a diversity of related such as American Imago which is published by subjects. The first two, Hartman and Sloan, are Johns Hopkins University Press. While psychologists who have been affiliated with the psychohistory organizations and publications are University of Michigan, one as a professor, the not usually affiliated with academia, they are other as a graduate student. John Hartman came to thriving and influencing the academy. There are Michigan from Harvard’s famed Social Relations many signs of vitality, growth, and creativity. Department. He specialized in group work, but The pessimistic approach is that some later trained as a psychoanalyst and now works psychoanalysts are reaching out for an academic primarily doing individual analysis. He reports lifeboat in desperation. Psychoanalysts are losing Michigan to be less amenable to psychoanalysis their practices in this age of biological than when he arrived there. Tod Sloan feels determinism, managed care, and miracle drugs. somewhat isolated teaching in a traditional, anti- Psychohistorians never had more than a toehold in psychoanalytic psychology department in the university and that will soon be lost as an older Oklahoma. The Internet appears to help connect generation dies or retires. Lacanians and him to a larger community of Lacanians and deMausians are talking to themselves more than lessened his feelings of isolation. anyone else, psychoanalysis is mostly a big city Spyros Orfanos, President-Elect of the phenomenon, and psychohistory is mostly just a 4000 member-strong Division of Psychoanalysis of New York and West Coast phenomenon. Even the 155,000 member American Psychological The Psychohistory Review, the most academically Association, is a talented advocate for respectable of the psychohistory journals, last year psychoanalysis who warns against the mutual was debating closing down after 28 years of being derisiveness which leads many psychology text published by the University of Illinois and its book writers to refer to psychoanalysis as “a failed predecessor. 19th century form of treatment with a dubious Regular readers of these pages will have no scientific basis” and some analysts to call academic doubt that I stand with the optimists rather than the psychologists “rat psychologists.” With such pessimists, but that I do not ignore the problems. mutual disdain is it any wonder why the great Over a dozen scholars in Clio Psyche’s “Dual majority of psychoanalytic programs are in non- Training in Psychoanalysis and History, Literature, academically affiliated institutes? Like so many March, 1999 Clio’s Psyche Page 119 practicing clinicians, he loves to teach and adjuncts discussing his view of the requirements for at several colleges. becoming a psychoanalyst, Breiner recognizes that For decades I have noted a strong interest medical knowledge is quite secondary to other in analysis and psychohistory in the State of training and attributes. Michigan and especially the Detroit area. John Psychologists wishing to practice Hartman, Alexander Grinstein, Lloyd deMause psychoanalysis successfully challenged the (who long ago left his home state for Manhattan), psychiatric monopoloy, but usually their and Sander Breiner are the first four names which organizations used regulatory and legal means to come to mind when I think of Michigan's pull the ladder up after themselves. Yet by the contribution to psychohistorical knowledge. time I trained in psychoanalysis the majority of Breiner is a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst of candidates (students) were from social work with a enormous energy and a broad range of interests. sprinkling of those from academia, nursing, the He is part of a psychiatric tradition which stems clergy, and business. And overwhelmingly they back to the time when American medical doctors were women. A master's or doctoral degree and a had a near monopoly on psychoanalysis despite the suitable personality were the minimal requirements admonitions of Freud himself who strongly for applicants. believed in lay (non-medical) analysis. In In late January, a reference librarian at the 42nd Street Branch of the New York Public Library asked me, “Should psychohistory be listed Clio’s Psyche under history or psychology?” I responded with the pros and cons of listing either way or Vol. 5, No. 4 March, 1999 separately. The understandable impulse to lump ISSN 1080-2622 psychohistory under either psychology or history is perhaps unfortunate for at least two reasons. Published Quarterly by The Psychohistory Forum 627 Dakota Trail, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417 First,

Load more