The Making of Psychohistory: Origins, Controversies, and Pioneering Contributors

The Making of Psychohistory is the first volume dedicated to the history of psychohistory, an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences. Dr. Paul Elovitz, a participant since the early days of the organized field, recounts the origins and development of this interdisciplinary area of study, as well as the contributions of influential individuals working within the intersection of historical and psychological thinking and methodologies. This is an essential, thorough reflection on the rich and varied scholarship within psychohistory’s subfields of applied psychoanalysis, political psychology, and psychobiography.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements; Glossary 1. Introduction 2. My Exuberant Journey 3. The Early History of Psychohistory 4. Resistance and Perseverance 5. Comparing the Early Freudian and Psychohistorical Movements 6. A Psychohistorian’s Approach to Childhood and Childrearing 7. Prominent Psychohistorians Lifton, deMause, and Volkan 8. Outstanding Psychohistorians Gay, Loewenberg, and Binion 9. My Journey as a Psychohistorical Teacher 10. My Role in Creating and Nurturing Postgraduate Psychohistorical Education 11. The Dilemmas of a Presidential Psychohistorian 12. Finding My Voice with Halpern, deMause, Ullman 13. Builders of Psychohistory 14. Concluding Thoughts; Appendices A. Featured Scholar Interviews, B. Memorials

About the Author :
Paul H. Elovitz, PhD is a founding member and past president of the International Psychohistorical Association, founder of the Psychohistory Forum, founder and editor-in-chief of the journal Clio’s Psyche, and a founding member of Ramapo College of New Jersey where he teaches history, interdisciplinary studies, and psychohistory. He practiced psychotherapy for a quarter century after extensive training in psychoanalysis, and is the author of over 340 publications.

Review :
"The Making of Psychohistory is an epochal publishing event. Paul Elovitz has the unique position and competence to survey and synthesize the burgeoning and innovative field of psychohistory. He knows and lays out the characters and ideas, the changes and nuanced interrelationships between the major players and concepts, and pulls them together with expertise, verve, and insight." —Peter Loewenberg, PhD, professor emeritus of history and psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and training and supervising analyst at the New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles "Those of us who read and write broadly in the field of psychohistory stand to gain enormously from The Making of Psychohistory. Dr. Elovitz reviews psychohistory more fully and critically than preceding accounts of the discipline. Through his eminently readable narrative, we psychohistorians might now feel ‘grounded’—we stand to know quite clearly when our field began and where we now seem to be headed. Most encouragingly, Elovitz gives us a new confidence in psychohistory’s durability. It will inform our perspectives and those of our students for a very long time." —Lawrence J. Friedman, PhD, visiting professor at the Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative at Harvard University and professor emeritus of history at Indiana University "Elovitz has written the first substantial history of the contentious, often reviled field of psychohistory. He has done so with thoughtfulness and verve. What causes the book especially to stand out is that he was centrally involved in the field since the 1960s, knew most of the key figures, and is able to describe the controversies from the perspective of an insider." —James William Anderson, PhD, professor of clinical psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University "The Making of Psychohistory provides thought- provoking sketches of some of the principal contributions and contributors to this field, which one hopes may encourage more reading of their work. Examples are the classic work of Robert Jay Lifton on the traumatic effects of terror on character, and Vamik Volkan’s writing about the significance of constructed historical memories, and their compression of time, in sustaining contemporary social conflicts. Paul Elovitz’s book provides a valuable record of the evolution of psychohistory thus far." —Michael Rustin, Psychodynamic Practice Journal