Lloyd deMause

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Lloyd deMause (2007)

Lloyd deMause (born September 19, 1931 , † April 23, 2020 in New York ) was an American social scientist and a pioneer in psychohistory .

Live and act

Lloyd deMause graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Political Science . He later trained in psychoanalysis . He taught psychohistory in New York and lectured in the United States and Europe. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the evolution of the human psyche as a result of child-rearing practices throughout history. DeMause was editor of The Journal of Psychohistory and founder of the Institute for Psychohistory . He was married to Susan Hein and had three children.

DeMause's scientific work can be roughly divided into two larger areas: childhood history and psychohistory. Psychohistory is considered a controversial research area. Critics claim deMause's theories are not backed up by credible research. In contrast to many other historians, he assumed that the psychogenic changes in personality and character structures, which are passed on through interactions from generation to generation, represent the central cause of historical change and arise independently of technological and economic changes. DeMause postulated a psycho-emotional evolution, the result of which was that the relationship between parents and children was becoming ever closer. Accordingly, general care for children is becoming more careful and appropriate. His theses are thus in stark contrast to the work of Philippe Ariès .

DeMause's conception of the story of childhood

In 1968 deMause made a project proposal to the Association for applied Psychoanalysis , which became the starting point for several empirical studies on the history of childhood. The 1974 book History of Childhood was the result. In his introductory essay Evolution of Childhood , deMause presented the essential theoretical considerations on the psychogenetic history of childhood. The other nine essays by the other authors are very independent and are not directly related to this essay.

DeMause introduces his essay Evolution of Childhood with the following sentence:

“The story of childhood is a nightmare that we are only just awakening from. The further we go back in childhood history, the inadequate care and care for children and the greater the likelihood that children were killed, abandoned, beaten, tortured and sexually abused. "

In this essay deMause outlines a "psychogenetic theory of history". He sees the psychogenic changes in personality or character structure that result from the generation succession of interactions between parents and children as a central driving force behind historical change. This psychogenic change cannot be traced back to technological or economic change, but is an independent source of historical change. Changed childhoods each time result in an evolutionary process, as a result of which the emotional relationships between parents and their children become ever closer. Correspondingly, adults are increasingly turning towards children.

The psychological principles of childhood history according to deMause

DeMause examined historical forms of childhood, particularly parent-child relationships. For this purpose, he conceived the so-called “psychological principles of the history of childhood” as theoretical tools using psychoanalytic assumptions. DeMause uses these terms to analyze certain behaviors or reactions of parents to their current perception of the needs of their children. He suggests that there are three basic types of parental responses that can be shown to the child when the child shows a need: (1) the projective response, (2) the reversal reaction, and (3) the empathic response.

The projective reaction represents a transfer of one's own feelings to the child. Feelings that are not sufficiently integrated by the adult are experienced as belonging to the child. The projected feelings are then warded off by treating the child, for example through punishment or in the form of massive rejection. According to deMause, the projections often lead to what he calls projective care , which must be distinguished from real care. In projective care, the parent projects their own needs onto the child in a first step and satisfies them in a second step. So there is no empathic understanding of the child's actual needs.

The reverse reaction also consists in a projective misperception of the child, who is experienced by the parents as an important carer from their own childhood. With this type of reaction, the child is faced with the unconscious expectation of having to look after the parents and support them emotionally. The main difference between projective and inverse reactions is that in the projective reaction the parents experience parts of themselves based on their own child and reactivate internalized parent images from their own childhood in the form of the inverse reaction. Reverse reaction and projective reaction can be simultaneously and mutually alternatingly determine the reactions of the adults and cause double bill (double image). The child is perceived as both bad and loving. The adult alternately projects his own frowned upon feelings from the areas of sexuality and aggression into the child, but also perceives the child as a loving and powerful parent who can and must provide care. This distorted perception of the child by the parents is based on a pronounced ambivalence, which has a stronger action-guiding effect the more traumatic the parents' childhood was. These traumas prevent the development of a mature and appropriate integration of need structures.

The empathic reaction is the basis of the appropriate reactions to child's needs. According to deMause, this presupposes the ability of the adult to get involved in the child's age through the regressive revival of memory traces. The caregiver must be able to grasp and satisfy the child's real needs without mixing in their own adult and therefore inadequate projections.

DeMause analyzed and explained the way historical parents dealt with their children, as shown in numerous sources, with the help of the terms outlined above. Problematic parental acts in particular come into focus, such as child killing; sexual abuse; Giving away the child outside the home (to the monastery, to the nurse); Mutilations of children, often in the genital area; Hardening of the toddler with cold water; magical practices with children; religious ideas of children; poor or inadequate nutrition in young children; Frightening children as educational measure; tight swaddling that leads to the immobilization of the child's body; Cleanliness education; regular administration of enemas; physical punishment, especially beating; Locking up children; Awakening feelings of guilt; Children's clothing; rigid control of the child's will and discipline; Control of child sexuality (ban on masturbation).

The psychogenetic modes of parent-child relationships

DeMause developed a rough scheme of the evolution of parent-child relationships in the West from ancient times to the present day. There are six different modes. DeMause assumed that initially only the earlier and more psychologically primitive modes exist and the later forms develop slowly. The older forms are retained, however; therefore, today all forms of parent-child relationships exist side by side. The periodization scheme proposed by deMause contains a brief description of the respective mode and an indication of when the “psychogenetically most advanced part of the population in the most advanced countries” switched to a new mode of parent-child relationship.

(1.) Infanticidal mode (since prehistoric times):

If this mode prevails, a larger proportion of the children are killed, while at the same time there is a sexualized treatment of the surviving children. It is central and decisive for the adequacy of the naming that the surviving children know about the killing of their siblings. You have to develop defense mechanisms against the knowledge of the parental practices.

(2.) Giving away mode (starts with the Christian era):

The Christians were the first group to largely stop killing children. A characteristic of the mode of giving away is the removal of the child from the immediate vicinity of the parents. Historical manifestations are giving away to wet nurses, to monasteries ( oblation ), as servants to other households. Children's sexual use is decreasing, and beatings are frequent.

(3.) Ambivalent mode (starts with the 12th century):

The central feature is that the child is alternately experienced as a good and bad figure. The term “ambivalence” describes the vacillation between divided, good and bad fantasy images of the child. The parents show action-guiding fantasies of the shaping of the child's body (by wrapping and pressing). In general, the child's body plays an essential role in establishing the parent-child relationship in this mode.

(4.) Intrusive mode (starting in the late 16th century):

The child is now less physically and more mentally controlled. There is a permanent confrontation with the child's will, the child's needs and impulses. The control of child sexuality (prohibition of masturbation) and the creation of feelings of guilt begin. Immediate child obedience becomes a central theme.

(5.) Socializing mode (starting in the late 18th century):

The child is less controlled by the parents than rather “brought on the right path”. The child's will is no longer perceived as a threat.

(6.) Supportive mode (starts in the middle of the 20th century):

The main difference to the socializing mode is the parental idea that "the child knows better than his parents what he needs at every stage of his life." Discipline is no longer carried out.

Psychohistory

Psychohistory is conceived differently by the various authors. Lloyd deMause highlighted three key research areas that are interrelated:

  • Childhood story

Description and explanation of the historical change of central childhood conditions and their effects on the historically specific psyches of children.

  • Psychobiography

Investigation of motivations of historical (also contemporary) individuals, especially of political actors, but also of artists or other sources that can be identified.

  • Group psychohistory

Investigation of the motivations of groups (or societies), whereby in particular the emotional situation of the group and its members becomes the object of the reconstruction.

All three areas deal with the reconstruction of the conscious experience of historical persons as well as unconscious fantasies of historical subjects or the latent structures of meaning of historical structures (religious, political and artistic).

Fonts

Books in German

English

  • 1974: The Evolution of Childhood. In: History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory, 1 (4), 1974, pp. 503-575. (Comments and replies: pp. 576–606)
  • 1975: A Bibliography of Psychohistory . Garland Pub, New York 1975, ISBN 0-8240-9999-0 .
  • 1975: The New Psychohistory . Psychohistory Press, New York 1975, ISBN 0-914434-01-2 .
  • 1977: Jimmy Carter and American fantasy: psychohistorical explorations . Two Continents, New York 1977, ISBN 0-8467-0363-7 . (with Henry Ebel)
  • 1981: The fetal origins of history . In: The Journal of Psychohistory , 9 (1), pp. 1-89.
  • 1982: Foundations of psychohistory . Creative Roots, New York 1982, ISBN 0-940508-01-X .
  • 1984: Reagan's America . Creative Roots, New York 1984, ISBN 0-940508-02-8 .
  • 1987: The History of Childhood in Japan. In: The Journal of Psychohistory, 15 (2), 1987. pp. 147-151.
  • 1988: On Writing Childhood History. In: The Journal of Psychohistory, 16 (2), 1988, pp. 35-71.
  • 1989: The Role of Adaptation and Selection in Psychohistorical Evolution. In: The Journal of Psychohistory , 16 (4), 1989c, pp. 355-372 (comments and replies: pp. 372-404).
  • 1990: The History of Child Assault. In: The Journal of Psychohistory , 18 (1), 1990, pp. 1-29.
  • 1991: The Universality of Incest. In: The Journal of Psychohistory , 19 (1), 1991, pp. 123-164.
  • 1997: The psychogenic Theory of History. In: The Journal of Psychohistory, 25 (1), 1997, pp. 112-183.
  • 2002: The Emotional Life of Nations . Karnac & Other Press, New York 2002, ISBN 1-892746-98-0 .

Web links

proof

  1. deMause, Evolution of Childhood (1989), p. 12.
  2. deMause, Evolution of Childhood (1989), p. 14 f.
  3. deMause, Evolution of Childhood (1989), p. 14 f.
  4. See deMause, Evolution der Kindheit (1989), p. 21.
  5. deMause, Evolution of Childhood (1989), p. 82; Revised dating according to deMause (1990), p. 13 ff.
  6. deMause, Evolution of Childhood (1989), p. 84.
  7. deMause 1977 (crying) - Foreword by William L. Langer . German: Renate and Rolf Wiggershaus, Reinhard Kaiser, Helga Herborth, Christel Beier, Ute Auhagen, 627 pages.
  8. deMause 1984 (Reagan) - Afterword and German by Jürgen Freund and Klaus Theweleit , 268 pages.
  9. deMause 1989 (basics) - German by Aurel Ende, 348 pages.
  10. deMause 2000 (foundation) - German by Artur Boelderl, 487 pages.
  11. deMause 2005 (Nations) - German by Christian Lackner, 383 pages.
  12. 1982 - Foundations in English at web.archive.org
  13. 1984 - Reagans America in English at archive.org