Decoding the Past: The Psychohistorical Approach Review

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(More customer reviews)In his book, Decoding the Past: The Psychohistorical Approach, author Peter Loewenberg attempts to outline a method of doing history through the eyes of a psychologist. After presenting the problems of a limited scope in historical approach, Loewenberg then discusses how a psychohistorian should be trained and in the last two parts of the book, the author includes what he himself seems to think is psychohistorical writing about leaders and followers in Austrian and Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Peter Loewenberg gives some convincing arguments at the beginning of Decoding the Past as to why psychology should be an avenue towards a greater understanding of history. Loewenberg notices that the task of the historian and the task of the psychologist are similar in that they both seek to use as much "evidence" as is pertinent, they both study human acts and motivations, and they are both dealing with (in some sense) "the past." Loewenberg argues that both the psychologist and the historian should be trained similarly and that it is this precisely this psychological training for the historian that will enable one to have a deeper breath of knowledge about any past events. His argument towards a psychohistorical approach is solid and realistic enough. It gives further credence towards the still shaky realm of cultural studies in that it provides a model for understanding individual and group behavior through psychology. What follows in part II could also have been convincing, but here Loewenberg appears to be taking the notion of psychology in academics a bit too far. Rather than concentrating on how a graduate student can become a psychohistorian, Loewenberg instead applies his own and Sigmund Freud's ideas as to what the graduate student-faculty relationship entails. While he does have some good points here and there (the graduate school is, in some ways, an extension of the "family") Loewenberg is likely to lose the reader with declarative statements such as, "The threat is of temptation to homosexual submission," (52) and "the desire of teachers to have disciples is in part an expression of the urge to transcend mortality and the fear of extinction." (69) It seems as if Loewenberg depends entirely too much on Freud and psychoanalysis in understanding the graduate school relationship, and although he might have had some convincing arguments, it seems as if Loewenberg simply used his psychological education as a carte blanche to make sweeping generalizations and unfounded claims in the name of psychoanalysis. This take-what-you-can-and-run-with-it approach is even more evident in Loewenberg's own historical writing on various groups and group leaders in the last half of the book. What drove Theodor Herzl into becoming a Zionist was his "mental associations with himself as the messiah." (104) Victor and Friedrich Adler are examples of the Oedipal conflict in that, in order to get his true father's attention, Friedrich Adler actually killed Count Sturgkh thereby acting out rebellious fantasies and becoming a hero. Otto Bauer's passivity was a result of his childhood's indecisiveness, and was reflected in his political tactics as well. Heinrich Himmler's childhood anal-retentiveness is extended and realized in the concentration camp and the idea of Jews "polluting" German society is actually manifested by systematically removing them from circulation. Loewenberg's essay entitled "The Psychohistorical Origins of the Nazi Youth Cohort" is actually a well-documented and well-researched look as to why Hitler's policies had so attracted the young. The essay gives numerous figures supporting the idea that their deprivation of goods in childhood as well as the deprivation of a father figure is what gave the Hitler followers reason to support the Nazi regime. The essay is original in that it gives a human element to the Nazi Youth Cohort and in many ways takes away any blame by illustrating the horrific circumstances from which it arose. Although it is clear that Loewenberg's idea of a psychological approach to history is the main thesis of Decoding the Past, it still appears as though the book was a vehicle which gave Loewenberg free reign in applying what he wanted in investigating historical people and phenomena. After a while, Loewenberg's interpretation of history was predictable and, in many ways ludicrous in how it overly relied on Freud's psychoanalytic theories. Only from the first part did I come out of my reading feeling as though I learned something and I agree with the idea that a deeper understanding of psychology can create a deeper understanding of history. However, Loewenberg himself is evidence of how it is dangerous to take one theory so far into explaining events. And after reading case after case of Oedipal explanations for leadership and idol worship, I quickly realized that Loewenberg still has some father-issues with Freud to mull over.

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In Decoding the Past, Peter Loewenberg has collected eleven of his brilliant essays on psychohistory, a discipline that has emerged from the synthesis of traditional historical analysis and clinical psychoanalysis. He surveys this relatively new fi eld-its methods and its problems-to show the special contributions that psychoanalysis can make to history. He then further explores the psychohistorical method by applying it to studies of personality, cultures, groups, and mass movements, demonstrating that psychohistory offers one of the most powerful of interpretive approaches to history.

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