WINTER 2022
The Childrearing Modes; Lloyd deMause Revisited, Peter Petschauer
Abstract: Lloyd deMause put forward a sequence of positive developments in the history of childrearing. It remains a breakthrough in our thinking about childrearing, even if we must today question the beginnings and ends, and some details, of the six modes he introduced. Nevertheless, his work supersedes that of previous authors and led to an entirely different approach to the history of childrearing.
KEY WORDS: Lloyd deMause, childrearing modes, infanticide, abandoning, ambivalent, intrusive, socializing, helping
Introduction: Many psychohistorians seem to have almost forgotten that childrearing was the first field of the three-legged stool that also includes the study of large groups and psychobiography. Given the troubled childrearing of practically all the authoritarians who are now undermining democratic institutions, we must have another look at its beginnings.
Zuni Pueblo Culture and the Age of Trump, Howard F. Stein and Seth Allcorn
Abstract: This paper explores the ideological polarization of the Age of Trump in the U.S. through a cross-cultural comparison with two studies of Zuni Pueblo culture of western New Mexico. The authors argue that behind conspicuous cultural differences lie an unconsciously based commonality, perhaps universality, of us/them splitting into good = us, bad = them, idealized/ demonized opposition. Anthropological and psychoanalytic perspectives contribute to a better psychohistorical understanding of the Trump era through cross-cultural comparison, e.g., looking at the dynamics of the U.S. through the lived experience and self-image of Zuni Pueblo peoples. This approach to Othering, which leads to dehumanization and often violence, holds promise for psychohistorical research and scholarship into the question of what is local and time-bound to an historical era, and what is universal human nature.
Dynamic Interplays between Group-processes and Epiphanies, Dan Dervin
Abstract: Presently explored is an innovative technique of epiphanies in highlighting content, breaking up the verbal flow with arresting close-ups, etc. As a manifestation of the hidden or latent, it’s an application of mental processes to writing that injects clarity and variety. Psychoanalysis, whether culturally applied or in therapy, offers analogies to the depths and surfaces of the psyche’s metaphorical river’s flowing current, along with blocks and detours. The example in part 1 introduces the epiphany as a flexible, widely applicable paradigm, and psychohistorical resource. Epiphanies are explored here as a fertile reader-friendly device that concentrates and highlights historical group processes while enlivening and clarifying the reader’s attention
Jewish Self-Hatred: The Internalization of Anti-Semitism, Richard Alperin
Abstract: Throughout history, Jews have been despised and abused. As with other large groups subjected to trauma, they have developed deep psychological scars as well as defense mechanisms for coping with the trauma. One manifestation of this trauma is Jewish self-hatred. Although considered endemic to American Jews, Jewish self-hatred appears to have been largely ignored by psychoanalysts, including Jewish analysts. To understand the etiology and psychodynamics of Jewish self-hatred, and its neglect in psychoanalysis, requires a review of the history and large-group psychology of the Jewish people.
Anti-Semitism may be the world’s oldest and most established form of prejudice. Throughout history, Jews have been despised and blamed for many ills, from control of the world’s gold supply to the rise of Bolshevism and the spread of disease (Brenner, 2007). As history attests, there is hardly an evil that has not been attributed to the Jewish people, and hatred of them has been acted out in numerous ways. Psychoanalysts are very familiar with how a person who has been devalued and abused tends to develop deep psychological scars and, in response, defense mechanisms for coping with them. Nevertheless, they have writ- ten little about the overall effects of anti-Semitism on the psyche of the Jewish people—a surprising fact given the number of psychoanalysts who are Jewish. They seem to have directed their attention away from this topic and toward the psychodynamics of anti-Semitism (Knafo, 1999). For some, this distancing may be attributable to, at least in part, their discomfort with being Jewish themselves.
BOOK REVIEW ESSAY
Transgenerational Transmissions and Second Generations’ Dialogue on Apartheid and the Holocaust, Angela Moré
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Editor, (2021), History, Trauma and Shame. Engaging the Past through Second Generation Dialogue, London, New York: Routledge, 210 pages.
Dealing with genocides and mass crimes and their consequences for the people and nations or religions involved in them is one of the greatest challenges for representatives of the historical and social sciences, psycho-
analysis, psychology, and ethics. Mass crimes in the name of enslavement, colonialism, imperialism and wars accompany humanity throughout its history. To envisage their effects on the descendants is a challenge that since decades has gone hand in hand with this, but often from the analytically distanced perspective of various academic disciplines. In the psychoanalytic reappraisal of the transgenerational effects of persecution on the descendants of survivors as well as the descendants of perpetrator families, findings have so far largely referred to individual fates, from whose accumulation and comparisons generalizable conclusions could be drawn regarding intrafamilial psychodynamics and consequences. Model explanations such as telescoping (Faimberg), transposition into the past (Kestenberg), or the interlocking of psychic space (Troje) have thus found their way into discussions about understanding the phenomenon of trans- generational transmission of trauma and feelings of guilt and shame. The work of Dan Bar-On, Vamik Volkan, Gerhard Wilke, and others contributed to the broadening of the perspective on social groupings and collectives up to large groups.
Sherry Turkle on Conversation and Empathy Versus Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), Paul Elovitz
The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir, by Sherry Turkle (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2021), ISBN 978-0-5255-60098, pages 384, hardbound, $28.00.
Artificial intelligence (A.I.) is no substitute for human beings listening, looking, and empathizing with each other, yet it surrounds us and changes our lives. When teaching virtually during the pandemic, I don’t know if the screens my students are looking at are of me, the course materials I am showing, each other, their emails, or some computer game. When online, far more students ask me to repeat my question in my discussion classes than they did in the physical college classroom. Last semester, as they prepared for debates in separate groups, I was dismayed to find that there was virtually no talking, just texting and individually researching the subject. I was also astounded by several students wanting to use PowerPoint as a major part of the debate. They had to be told that real debates are about debaters speaking to their audience and each other, making eye contact, and using their body language to hold the attention of those listening! The word “phubbing” has now entered dictionaries, which references people looking at their electronic devices while supposedly talking to other people.
While being constantly connected electronically or in the presence of electronics, we humans are often actually hiding from each other. Increasingly, people raised with electronic devices are forming superficial relationships. In Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age (2015), Sherry Turkle was called in as a consultant for a school where the staff found that real friendships were being replaced with acquaintances (p. 5). True friendship demands intimacy and so much of what passes for friendship in the younger generation is an illusion.
POETRY
Chasing Shadows, Ruth Steinberg
I’m always looking
for something,
or someone,
to fill in the holes of my history.
Something,
or someone,
to illuminate what I can’t access
from the murkiness of childhood memory; the details whose significance doesn’t fade although I can hardly see their outlines.
Something,
or someone,
to say,
unlike Prufrock’s hypothetical companion,1 this is how it was.
But those who knew are long gone, leaving me to chase shadows,
ask unanswerable questions.
(I)
March 15, 1938. German armies march into Vienna to cheering crowds.
Mom
Did you stand at the window,
watch the goose-stepping parade down the Ringstrasse? Did I?
How did you explain it to me?
Dad turned himself in that day, leaving you to fend for yourself and for me, barely three years old.
Did you feel abandoned? Enraged? Or was your fear so overwhelming it crowded out all other feelings?
Did I sleep through Kristallnacht?
How did you get through that November night? Were we still living in Parkring 18
or had that already been taken away from us? Where were we?
Once you learned that Dad was in Dachau who or what persuaded you to leave?
How did you know what to do?
Where did you find the strength?
I’ve seen photos of long lines of desperate people at various embassies in those days
and always I’ve looked for you.
Were you part of that sad scene?
….