Editing Psychohistory (section)

==Criticisms==
There are no departments dedicated to "psychohistory" in any institution of higher learning, although some history departments have run courses in it. Psychohistory remains a [[Controversy|controversial]] field of study, facing criticism in the academic community,<ref name="OnWriting"/><ref>{{cite book |author=Stannard, David E. |title=Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |year=1982 |isbn=0-19-503044-3 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Pomper |first=Philip  |year=1973 |title=Problems of a Naturalistic Psychohistory  |journal=History and Theory |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=367–388 |doi=10.2307/2504699|jstor=2504699}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal  | last = Paul  | first = Robert A.  | title = Review of Lloyd deMause's Foundations of Psychohistory  | journal = Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology  | volume = 5  | pages = 469  | year = 1982}}</ref> with critics referring to it as a [[pseudoscience]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Hunt |first=Lynn |editor=Kramer Lloyd S. and Maza, Sarah C.|title=A Companion to Western Historical Thought |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E2eKDjo4B_IC&q=psychohistory+is+a+pseudoscience&pg=PA339 |year=2002 |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |isbn=0-631-21714-2 |pages=337–357 |chapter=Psychology, Pschoanalysis and Historical Thought -The Misfortunes of Psychohistory }}</ref> Psychohistory uses a plurality of methodologies, and it is difficult to determine which is appropriate to use in each circumstance. Yet this "plurality" is quite circumscribed.

In 1973, historian [[Hugh Trevor-Roper|Hugh A. Trevor-Roper]] dismissed the field of psychohistory entirely in response to the publication of [[Walter Charles Langer|Walter Langer]]'s ''[[The Mind of Adolf Hitler]].'' He contended that psychohistory's methodology rested "on a defective philosophy" and was "vitiated by a defective method."<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Trevor-Roper|first=Hugh|date=February 18, 1973|title=Re-inventing Hitler|page=35|work=[[The Sunday Times]]|department=The Arts}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> Instead of using historical evidence to derive historical interpretations, Trevor-Roper contended that "psycho-historians move in the opposite direction. They deduce their facts from their theories; and this means, in effect, that facts are at the mercy of theory, selected and valued according to their consistence with theory, even invented to support theory."<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Shepherd|first=Michael|date=1978|title=Clio and Psyche: the lessons of psychohistory.|journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine|volume=71|issue=6|pages=406–412|doi=10.1177/014107687807100604|pmid=359805|pmc=1436484|doi-access=free}}</ref>

[[Lloyd deMause|DeMause]] has received criticism on several levels. His formulations have been criticized for being insufficiently supported by credible research.<ref>{{cite book  | last = Demos  | first = John  | title = "Child Abuse in Context: An Historian's Perspective". In ''Past, Present and Personal: The Family and The Life Course in American History''  | publisher = Oxford University Press  | year = 1986  | location = NY  | pages = 68–91}}</ref> He has also received criticism for being a strong proponent of the "black legend" view of childhood history (i.e. that the history of childhood was above all a history of progress, with children being far more often badly mistreated in the past).<ref>{{cite journal  | last = Aries  | first = Philippe  | title = De l'enfant roi a l'enfant martyr  | journal = Revue Psychologie  | volume = 68  | pages = 6  | year = 1975}}</ref> Similarly, his work has been called a history of child abuse, not childhood.<ref>{{cite book  | last = Heywood  | first = Colin  | title = A History of Childhood  | publisher = Polity Press  | year = 2001  | location = Cambridge  | pages = 41}}</ref> The grim perspective of childhood history is known from other sources, e.g. Edward Shorter's ''The Making of the Modern Family'' and [[Lawrence Stone]]'s ''The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800''. However, deMause received criticism for his repeated, detailed descriptions on childhood atrocities:<ref>{{cite journal  | last = Kohut  | first = Thomas A.  | title = Psychohistory as History  | jstor = 1858137  | journal = The American Historical Review  | volume = 91  | issue = 2  | pages = 336–354  | year = 1986  | doi = 10.2307/1858137  | pmid = 11611943}}</ref>

<blockquote>The reader is doubtless already familiar with examples of these psychohistorical "abuses." There is a significant difference, however, between the well-meaning and serious, if perhaps simplistic and reductionistic, attempt to understand the psychological in history and the psychohistorical expose that can at times verge on historical pornography. For examples of the more frivolous and distasteful sort of psychohistory, see ''[[Journal of Psychohistory]]''. For more serious and scholarly attempts to understand the psychological dimension of the past, see ''The Psychohistory Review''.</blockquote>

Recent psychohistory has also been criticized for being overly-entangled with DeMause, whose theories are not representative of the entire field.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://users.ids.net/~marcom/historint/hi-methodnotes.html   |title=Historical Sources On Line - A weblography of Historical Sources on the Internet |author=Marc Comtois | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080312061651/http://users.ids.net/~marcom/historint/hi-methodnotes.html|archive-date=March 12, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref>