Spring 2021
The Trump Death Cult, Kenneth Alan Adams
ABSTRACT: This article examines “the cult of Trump” to illustrate the concept of the group-trance, beginning with the cataclysmic damage it has wrought to U.S. society. It describes the familial, developmental, and religious origins which produced the loyalty and cruelty of his adherents, i.e., intrusive-mode childrearing. White evangelical religion and its advocacy of patriarchy, combat parenting, corporal punishment, and chauvinism — and the resulting fear induced in children — are assessed, as are the results — a personality primed for the group-fantasy of Racist Nationalism and for restaging childhood trauma by cleansing the homeland of Evil Others at national borders — the Central Purification Ritual of Trumpism. Examples of the intensity of the trance are discussed, including the notion of Trump as the messiah, endangerment to prove one’s faith, and the callous indifference to suffering and death that characterizes what is in reality a death cult following a neofascistic savior.
White Supremacy and the Pursuit of Power, Seth Allcorn
Abstract: This article explores the nature of white supremacy in the Age of Trump. Unpacking white supremacy and its pervasive presence in American society, it must be acknowledged, is a humbling undertaking. Psychodynamically informed analysis will be used to better understand the history of white supremacy to the present. I begin with an overview of the three theoretical perspectives followed by an overview of white supremacy that is then discussed using the three theoretical perspectives.
“I Really Feel I Understand What’s Going on in History:” Excerpts from Lloyd deMause’s Letters to Aurel Ende (Part 1), Juhani Ihanus
ABSTRACT: This compilation of the passages from Lloyd deMause’s letters to his German colleague and translator Aurel Ende gives a view of deMause, at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, in his relation to German psychohistory as well as to pre- and perinatal psychology, primal therapy, and psychoanalysis. The letters also touch upon deMause’s instructions concerning psychohistorical research methods and reveal his position in his personal life. His self-image as the “poisonous fantasy-leader” during the pioneering psychohistory meetings testifies of subjective ambivalences inherent in group dynamics.
Re-dream the Red Dream: China’s Chance to Reframe the Narrative of Humiliation into One of Honor, Jill L. Hurley
Abstract: This article examines the history of China from 1600-1949. By using a psychohistorical approach to understand the deep humiliation enacted upon the Chinese at the hands of primarily the British and the Japanese, we understand how the Chinese Communist Party was so successful in establishing their Cultural Revolution. As a cultural anthropologist, I examine my time in Suzhou, China in October 2019, during the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party and question the Chinese sense of national identity and how they will collectively define themselves going forward.
Keywords: intergenerational trauma, humiliation, China, Red Dream, Hong Kong protests
Ludwig van Beethoven in a Snapshot: Exploring his Own Words, Abigail Jareño Gómez
Abstract: The current year 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth (1770-1827). As he was a major figure in the history of classical music, there has been a significant amount of work both on him as a composer and as a man. This work, a psychobiographical portrait, aims to focus on his personality — analyzed using a multi-theoretical and scientifically well-supported psychological model. This article will present Beethoven’s narrative identity (McAdams, 1993) based on his life story. Through a range of primary sources, including his letters, conversations, books, testament, and diary, his main narrative themes, tones, metaphors, and characters will be discussed, thereby offering an enriched psychological portrait of the composer of the European anthem, Ode to Joy.
Key words: Ludwig van Beethoven, psychobiography, life story, narrative identity, psychological biography
Psychohistorical Perspectives: Poetry
Train Ride, Howard F. Stein
Ready for my trip
I walked to the train station With my two suitcases
To buy a ticket ….
Freight, Ruth Steinberg
I want to shed my frame of reference live in a place
with fewer layers
where selection is something you hear on the radio
Assimilation Blues, Ruth Steinberg
It is a dangerous thing to forget the climate of your birthplace
The Tangible I Trust, June Gould
It’s a sunny January day and that’s all I want to know.
For the Policeman, Brian Sicknick, Killed in the Capitol Riots, June Gould
When they rushed you, trampled you as you tried
to push back, you did not become a river or mountain or a shadow stain on the sidewalk facing the mall. You ran like a stray dog through the black hole
your death made after the insurrection crushed you.