Instructor: Dorothea Leicher, NCPsyA
Location: Live Video Conference
Dates: May 22, 29; June 5, 12, 19, and 26
7:00-8:30 PM (EST)
Cost: $150
CE’s: 9
This reading seminar will introduce the interdisciplinary theory and movement of psychohistory, which has been developed both by psychoanalytically oriented clinicians and by historians. The theory holds that how we are raised shapes our image of the world and consequently political attitudes. Psychohistory explores how free we can or should be, how much pressure we need to do the right thing (and what that is), and whether individuals or groups should be the primary focus of politics. Research has shown that normative (authoritarian) childrearing, characterized by punishment, increases tolerance or even desire for hierarchical political structures with in- and out-groups and a rigid “law and order” approach. Parallels between individual depression and social submission (“growth panic”) will be explored.
The reading seminar will use the book “Cascades” by Greg Sattell as the main text to discuss strategies on how to change fear-based lethargy to solidarity and hope without escalating polarization.
1. Participants will be able to relate two major types of child-rearing to political attitudes
2. Participants will be able to identify a behavioral example of “growth panic”
3. Participants will be able to list the strategies to engage and audience around a core value of their choice.
Bibliography:
Elovitz P. (2018) The Making of Psychohistory, New York Routledge
Graeber,D. W@ngrow, D. (2021) The Dawn of Evwerything: A New History of Humanity New York,
Picador/Farrar Straus and Giroux Klaas, B. (2021) Corruptible New York, Scribner/Simon and Shuster
Leicher, D. (2023) Movement, Art, Math and Religion, Presentation ant the 46 th Annual Conference of the International Psychohistorical Assoication, New York, May 18
Satell, G. (2019) Cascades: How to Create a Movement That Drives Transformational Change New York McGraw Hill
About the Instructor:
Dorothea Leicher is a certified Modern Psychoanalyst and an alumna of Bryn Mawr and IMPP. She is retired from clinical practice but continues to do research and teach with the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance and publish with the International Psychohistorical Association.
