psychohistory - Emergence as a Discipline
Sigmund Freud's well known work, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), included an analysis of history based on his theory of psychoanalysis.

Wilhelm Reich combined his psychoanalytic and political theories in his book Mass Psychology of Fascism in 1933.

The psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm wrote about the psychological motivation behind political ideology, starting with The Fear of Freedom in 1941.

Its first academic use appeared in Erik Erikson's book Young Man Luther (1958), where the author called for a discipline of "psycho-history" to examine the impact of human character on history.

Lloyd deMause developed a formal psychohistorical approach from 1974 onwards, and continues to be an influential theorist in this field.

Other notable psychohistorians include Alice Miller and Julian Jaynes, though they are rarely thought of as being specifically psychohistorians.

Next