The basic principles of psychohistory, the study of historical motivation. Beginning with the author's famous study of "The Evolution of Childhood" and continuing through such studies as "Historical Group-Fantasies" and "The Fetal Origins of History," this pioneering book has become the standard text for most psychohistory courses around the world.

From the Back Cover
"Brilliant...bold...challenging...heavily documented" - New York Review of Books; "Confronting, ambitious, provocative and comprehensive" - The Historian; "Authoritative, original...highly recommended" - Choice; "An extraordinary book...it would be a tragedy if it were confined to the classroom." - Boston Globe

About the Author
Lloyd deMause is Director of The Institute for Psychohistory, Editor of The Journal of Psychohistory and President of the International Psychohistorical Association.

View Foundations of Psychohistory by Lloyd Demause

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Preface:

Psychohistory is the science of historical motivation -- no more, no less. It is my hope that this book will provide the theoretical foundations for the new science of psychohistory.

It is not often recognized that psychohistory is the only new social science to be founded in the twentieth century - - sociology, psychology and anthropology all having broken away from philosophy in the nineteenth century.

In beginning any new science, the first task is to formulate bold, clear, testable theories. These new theories must be internally consistent and must be able to generate predictions which can be tested against new empirical material and partially disproved. The testing and partial disproof of theory is the aim of all science, and the only basis for formulating new and hopefully better theory and predictions.

The formulation, testing, disproof and reformulation of psychohistorical theory is therefore my sole purpose in this book.

Each chapter is a new scientific experiment, in which I try to identify with the actors in the historical drama and explore my own unconscious as a way of reaching historical motivations. Only if I can accomplish this inner act of discovery can I move back to new historical material to test the patterns of motivation and group dynamics I think I have found. As Dilthey recognized long ago, this is the only way one can do psychohistory. Ultimately, a psyche can only explore itself to discover the motives of another. The motives of another species, insofar as they are wholly different in kind from ours, are literally unknowable. It is only by discovering the "Hitler in ourselves" that we can understand a Hitler. If one denies one has a "Hitler in ourselves," one cannot do psychohistory. I, like Hitler, have been a beaten, frightened child and a resentful youth. I recognize him in myself, and with some courage can feel in my own guts the terrors he felt that helped produce the European Gotterddmmerung. ...

Visit The Institute For Psychohistory Website

Psychohistory, the science of historical motivations, combines the insights of psychotherapy with the research methodology of the social sciences to understand the emotional origin of the social and political behavior of groups and nations, past and present.

The center of psychohistorical research around the globe is The Institute for Psychohistory, which is headquartered in New York City and has 18 branches in other countries. The Institute is chartered by the State of New York as a not-for-profit educational corporation, the Association for Psychohistory, Inc., and for the past 35 years has published The Journal of Psychohistory, various books by The Psychohistory Press, and has been affiliated with the International Psychohistorical Association, which holds an annual convention.

Its director is Lloyd deMause, whose work (see below for full texts) is used in most college courses in psychohistory.

This website contains extensive material reproduced from The Journal of Psychohistory and from deMause's books: Foundations of Psychohistory, Reagan's America and The Emotional Life of Nations. It also contains addresses of Institute branches and links to the International Psychohistorical Association and other websites and discussion lists.

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