Editing Psychohistory (section)

==Description==
[[File:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 035.jpg|thumb|right|Rembrandt's painting of the sacrifice of Isaac ([[Book of Genesis|Gen]].22). Psychohistory holds that ritual child sacrifice once occurred in most cultures.]]

Psychohistorians claim to derive many of its concepts from areas that are perceived to be ignored by conventional historians and anthropologists as shaping factors of human history, in particular, the effects of [[parenting]] practice and child abuse.<ref>{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Alice|title=For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the roots of violence|year=1980|publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux|location=New York, NY|isbn=9780374522698|url=https://archive.org/details/foryourowngood00alic}}</ref> According to conventional historians "the science of culture is independent of the laws of [[biology]] and [[psychology]]"<ref>{{cite journal
  | last = Murdock
  | first = G.P.
  | title = The science of culture
  | journal = [[American Anthropologist]]
  | volume = 34
  | pages = 200–215
  | year = 1932
  | doi = 10.1525/aa.1932.34.2.02a00020
  | issue = 2}}</ref> and "the determining cause of a social fact should be sought among social facts preceding and not among the states of [[Consciousness|individual consciousness]]".<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Durkheim
  | first = Émile
  | title = The Rules of the Sociological Method
  | publisher = Free Press
  | year = 1962
  | location = IL
  | pages = 110}}</ref>

Psychohistorians, on the other hand, suggest that social behavior such as [[crime]] and [[war]] may be a self-destructive re-enactment of earlier abuse and neglect; that unconscious flashbacks to early fears and destructive parenting could dominate individual and  social behavior.<ref>{{cite journal
  | last = Milburn
  | first = Michael A.
  |author2=S.D. Conrad
   | title = The politics of denial
  | journal = [[Journal of Psychohistory]]
  | volume = 23
  | pages = 238–251
  | year = 1996}}</ref><ref>{{cite book
  | last = Rhodes
  | first = Richard
  | author-link = Richard Rhodes
  | title = Why They Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist
  | url = https://archive.org/details/whytheykill00rich
  | url-access = registration
  | publisher = Vintage
  | year = 2000| isbn = 9780375702488
 }}</ref>

Psychohistory relies heavily on historical biography. Notable examples of [[psychobiography|psychobiographies]] are those of [[Lewis Bernstein Namier|Lewis Namier]], who wrote about the [[British House of Commons]], and [[Fawn Brodie]], who wrote about [[Thomas Jefferson]].

===Areas of study===
There are three inter-related areas of psychohistorical study.<ref name="Primalpages">{{cite web |url=http://primal-page.com/psyhis.htm |title=Lloyd deMause and Psychohistory |access-date=2008-03-11 |publisher=Primal Psychotherapy WebPages}}</ref>

:1. The history of childhood – which looks at such questions as:
::*How have children been raised throughout history
::*How has the family been constituted
::*How and why have practices changed over time
::*The changing place and value of children in society over time
::*How and why our views of child abuse and neglect have changed
:2. [[Psychobiography]] – which  seeks to understand individual historical people and their motivations in history.{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}}
:3. Group psychohistory – which  seeks to understand the motivations of large groups, including nations, in history and current affairs.  In doing so, psychohistory advances the use of group-fantasy analysis of political speeches, political cartoons and media headlines since the [[Loaded language|loaded terms]], [[metaphor]]s and repetitive words therein offer clues to unconscious thinking and behaviors.<ref name="Primalpages"/>

===Independence as a discipline===

Psychohistorians have argued that psychohistory is a separate field of scholarly inquiry with its own particular methods, objectives and theories, which set it apart from conventional historical analysis and anthropology. Some historians, social scientists and anthropologists have, however, argued that their disciplines already describe psychological motivation and that psychohistory is not, therefore, a separate subject. Others regard it as an undisciplined field of study, due to its emphasis given to speculation on the psychological motivations of people in history. Doubt has also been cast on the viability of the application of post-mortem psychoanalysis by Freud's followers.<ref>[http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/shrinking-history/] Review of ''Shrinking History on Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory'' - Reviewed in 1980 by Cosma Shalizi

: '''Note:''' The book under review criticizes the Freudian approach to psychohistory. It makes no mention of modern psychohistorical research, which uses different methods.</ref>

Psychohistorians maintain that the difference is one of emphasis and that, in conventional study, narrative and description are central, while psychological motivation is hardly touched upon.<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Davis
  | first = Glenn
  | title = Childhood and History in America
  | publisher = Psychohistory Pr
  | year = 1976
  | location = NY}}</ref> Psychohistorians accuse most anthropologists and ethnologists of being apologists for incest, infanticide, [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] and child sacrifice.<ref name="OnWriting">{{cite journal  | last = deMause  | first = Lloyd  | title = On Writing Childhood History  | journal = Journal of Psychohistory  | volume = 16 | issue = 2 Fall  | year = 1988 | url = http://www.psychohistory.com/childhood/writech1.htm}}</ref> They maintain that what constitutes child abuse is a matter of objective fact, and that some of the practices which mainstream anthropologists apologize for (e.g., sacrificial rituals) may result in [[psychosis]], dissociation and magical thinking.