Lloyd deMause (pronounced ''de-Moss''; September 19, 1931 – April 23, 2020) was an American lay

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious processes and their influence on conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on dream interpretation, psychoanalysis is also a talk th ...

and

social historian Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to co ...

, best known for his pioneering work in the field of

psychohistory Psychohistory is a social science that analyzes human behavior by combining psychology, history, and other social sciences, while also being an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and the humanities. Its proponents claim to ...

. He graduated from Columbia College and did graduate work in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and later trained as a psychoanalyst. He taught psychohistory at the City University of New York. He is the founder of the ''

Journal of Psychohistory The ''Journal of Psychohistory'' (,) is a journal established in 1973 in the field of psychohistory, edited by Lloyd deMause and published by the Institute for Psychohistory (IP) . The journal has been originally published as ''History of Childhood ...

''.

Psychohistory

Beginning in the 1970s, DeMause began conceiving of

, a field of study of the psychological motivations of historical events, and their associated patterns of behavior. It seeks to understand the emotional origin of the social and political behavior of groups and nations—past and present—by analyzing events in childhood and the family, especially

child abuse Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical abuse, physical, child sexual abuse, sexual, emotional and/or psychological abuse, psychological maltreatment or Child neglect, neglect of a child, especially by a p ...

Legacy

In a 1994 interview with deMause in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', interviewer

Stephen Schiff {{Infobox person , name = Stephen Schiff , image = Stephen Schiff at the Peabody Awards 2019.jpg , image_size = 140 , alt = , caption = Schiff at the Peabody Awards 2019 , birth_na ...

wrote that "to buy into psychohistory, you have to subscribe to some fairly woolly assumptions .. for instance, that a nation's child-rearing techniques affect its

foreign policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

", but confessed that "deMause's analyses have often been weirdly prescient."

Controversy

Contributing to his ostracization from psychoanalytic circles, deMause was a contributor to the

Satanic ritual abuse The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organized abuse, or sadistic ritual abuse) starting in North America in the 19 ...

hysteria of the early 1990s, in part via the circulation of his article "Why Cults Terrorize and Kill Children", where he labelled skeptics of reports of the abuse "molesters" and "pedophile advocates". The article was used as a reliable source by ritual abuse proponents.

Publications

DeMause published over 90 scholarly articles and several books.

Books

* * * * * * * * *

Articles (selection)

*DeMause, Lloyd (1974): The Evolution of Childhood. In: ''History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory'', 1 (4), p. 503-575. (Comments and reply: p. 576-606) *DeMause, Lloyd (1987): The History of Childhood in Japan. In: ''The Journal of Psychohistory'', 15 (2), p. 147-151. *DeMause, Lloyd (1988): On Writing Childhood History. In: ''The Journal of Psychohistory'', 16 (2), p. 35-71. *DeMause, Lloyd (1989): The Role of Adaptation and Selection in Psychohistorical Evolution. In: ''The Journal of Psychohistory'', 16 (4), p. 355-372 (Comments and reply: p. S. 372–404). *DeMause, Lloyd (1990): The History of Child Assault. In: ''The Journal of Psychohistory'', 18 (1), p. 1-29. *DeMause, Lloyd (1991): The Universality of Incest. In: ''The Journal of Psychohistory'', 19 (1), p. 123-164. *DeMause, Lloyd (1997): The Psychogenic Theory of History. In: ''The Journal of Psychohistory'', 25 (1), p. 112-183.

Notes

External links

DeMause's bio
*
On-line repository of deMause' books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Demause, Lloyd 1931 births 2020 deaths 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American psychologists Writers from Detroit Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University alumni American male non-fiction writers Child abuse Historians from Michigan City University of New York faculty