History and Theory P

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History and Theory: The Question of Psychoanalysis

Fred Weinstein; Gerald M. Platt

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 2, No. 4, Psychoanalysis and History. (Spring, 1972),pp. 419-434.

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Fred Weinstein and Gerald M . Pla t tHistory and TheoryThe Question of Psychoanalysis The historian s workis affected by the social and cultural background within which he worksand changing times foster new requirements. Nowhere is this moreevident than in the contemporary historian s relationship to the socialsciences. The majority of historians today, at least in the United States,have accepted the proposition that theory is useful as a device by whichthey can structure the data they deal with. The view of the socialsciences held by an older generation of historians, a view objecting tothe social scientific goal of encapsulating human behavior in generallaws or rules, is no longer prevalent or persuasive.Historians have made serious efforts to accolnmodate aspects ofsocial scientific theory to historical work on a number of levels, butlittle interest has been manifested in the use of psychoanalytic theory.Serious methodological problems stand in the way. The ahistorical biasof p~~cho ana l~ s i sust be mediated by a sociological frame of referencebefore it can be applied to history on any level other than biography.But, given the possibility of such mediation, psychoanalytic theory has aremarkable potential for systematically explaining a variety of be-haviors that few can imagine, refine, and make use of on their own. nthe end, historians have to impute motives to historical actors; they haveto explain the fundamental reasons for behavior, not only in terms ofinterest, but also in terms of the emotional bases for compliance or non-compliance. No discipline is as well organized to deal with such pro-cesses as is psychoanalytic theory.1

Fred W einstein is Associate Professor of History at the State Universi ty of N e w Yo rk,Stony Brook. W it h Gerald M . Plat t , Associate Professor of Sociology a t the U niversi tyof Massachusetts, Amhe rst, he au thored Th e W i s h to be Free: Society Psyche and Va lu eChange (Berkeley, 1969).T h e mos t cotnprehensive state of the field review article is by Hans-Ulrich W ehle r,Zutli Verhiltnis von Geschlchtswissenschaft und Psychoanalyse, Hisforisciie Zeit-schrij CC VI II (1969), 529-554. W ehler's bibliographic efforts can be com plem ente d byreference to B ruce M azlish (ed.), Psychoanalysis and History (Eng lewoo d Cliffs, 1971 2nded.), 1-19, 213-217; H . Stu art H ugh es, History as Ar t and as Science: T w i n Vista s on thePast (New York, 1964). See Kurt Eissler, Medical Orthodoxy and the Future of Psycho-artalysis (N ew Y ork , 1965), 155-174, for on e psychoanalyst's view of the relationshipbetwe en the tw o disciplines and on the m eans by w hich psychoanalysis can an d sho uldbecome available to historians. See also note for our ow n comnlents on the prob lemof integrating the tw o fields.

I


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420 W E I N ST E I N A N D PL A T TThe reasons for the historian's reluctance to deal with psycho-analytic theory are not clear. The methodological argument is not de-

cisive-some thought has to be given to the problem, but the positionsof the two fields are not irreconcilable. In any case, this is not the argu-ment that is typically raised. Langer, in his attempt to legitimate theemployment of psychoanalytic constructs in historical work, askedhow it could be that the historian, who must be as much or more con-cerned with human beings and their motivation than with ilnpersonalforces and causation, has failed to make use of these findings ? Langerprovided what he considered to be the answer: many [historians]no doubt have sharcd the fear that the humanistic appreciation ofpcrsonality, as in poetry or drama, might be irretrievably lost throughthe application of a coldly penetrating calculus. 2 It may seem that thepsychoanalytic language of mechanism, force, energy, structure, func-tion, and process is too abstract and remote from people and their realconcerns. But the historian is facing raw data-feelings, strivings,wishes, ambitions, and ideas-and not the mental structures or the

version of them.3 These are only organizing hypotheses,and a felicitous gift for language surmounts this particular barrier.

W e could afford to ignore the issue if the historian's typical as-sumption about his capacity for insight is correct-that he call actuallybring the complex factors of personality, behavior, and motivatiollunder colltrol through imagination, intuition, and insight without theuse of theory. The question is: How successf~~lave historians been inthis area? At one level, historians have been able to deal profoundlywith the problem of character and motivation from the standpoillts ofinterest, rationality, and consciousness.~They have had no troubleputting important cultural figures and social policies in perspective byshowing how men and policies are tied to self- or class-interest. Themandate of objectivity allied to this level of assumption has permitted asignificant degree of insight into personal and social processes.In the process of reconstructing the past, however, historians have

William L. Langer, "Th e N ex t Assigntnent," in Mazlish, P~ ych oar tal~ sisnd History90, 89.R o y Schafer, "Ideals, Ego Ideal, and the Ideal Self," in R o be rt R Holt (ed.),Motives and Thought: Psychoanalytic Essays in Honor ofDavid Rapaport (N ew York, 1967),133 , 1 3 ~ n ; o y S chafe r, Aspects ofInfernalization (N ew Y ork, 1968), 79.4 The factors of interest, rationality, and consciousness are derived from sociologicaland psychological thought. Of course, historians do not necessarily learn about thesethings in a systematic way. But the origins of these ideas can hardly be overlooked inligh t o f the historian's attitud e tow ard the social sciences.


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Q U E S T I O N O F P S Y C H O N L Y S I S 42failed to deal with that dimension of human behavior and motivationthat psycl~oanalysiss especially concerned with: the non-rational andthe non-conscious. When tied to a sociological frame of reference, thisdimension of reality must be as important as any other. Erikson haswritten

Psychoanalysis has amply demonstrated the fact that the individualdevelops an amnesia concerning crucial childhood experiences; there isgood reason to suspect that this individual amnesia is paralleled by auniversal blind spot in the interpretation of history, a tendency to over-look the fateful function of childhood in the fabric of society.5

This blind spot includes not only the role of childhood experiences,but also, to a great degree, an appreciation of the later (adult) ramifica-tions of these experiences, and how they are manifested in social be-havior.

In a random way, of course, the kind of insight implied in intuitivecapacity (i.e., insight comparable to the findings of psychoanalysis) hasappeared in historical writing. But such occurrences are hardly adequatefor a comprehensive explanation of this aspect of man's behavior. Therecertainly is no regular, consistent pursuit of these problems of historicalwriting as there is, for example, of problems of interest. The reason isthat the expressive qualities which historians claim for themselves andtheir work are more readily spoken of than understood or effectivelyutilized. In short, there is no basis for the claim that the historian's in-tuition and imagination are sufficient for the comprehension of humanbehavior at the level of the non-conscious and the non-rational.

Such a point of view brings to mind serious questions about historyas art and about intuition and imagination in historical work. What arethe differences between artistic and historical imagination There cer-tainly are differences in form between the two k&ds of literature, thework in each case being bound by different criteria. The artist's recon-struction, for example, can follow his aesthetic conceptions, which maymean that a figure, symbol, or event can be taken out of its objectivecontext. But the historian is bound by laws of logic, causality, andchronology, and he must re-create characters and events in their ex-plicit conidxt. But are there dynamic differences with regard to thoughtprocesses which lead to an interest in and a capacity for different kindsof thought content? If so, why should these differences exist, and why

Erik H. Erikson, Wholeness and Totality-A Psychiatric Contribution, in Carl J.Friedrich (ed.), Totalitariarzisrn (New York, 1964), 197.


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Q U E S T I O N O F P S Y C H O A N A L Y S I S 4 3service of the ego"), and he can move from the first to the second phaseof this thought process without being overwhelmed and rendered in-effective by his insight. "In the work of art, as in the dream, uncon-scious contents are alive; here too, evidences of the primary [uncon-scious] process are conspicuous, but the ego maintains its control overthem, elaborates them in its own right, and sees to it that the distortiondoes not go too far."9 It is the artist's distinguishing quality, and hismerit, that no matter how painful this internal reality may be, he is ableto deal with it and to express it. What the artist knows is always statedin symbolic terms, at a level of ambiguity that not only separates himfrom the full impact of his own sexual and aggressive wishes, but alsoties him to an audience which can then identify with the symbols. Inthis sense, artists have always known and written about that whichpsychoanalysts have more recently struggled to discover and codify:6 from Sophocles to Proust the struggle against incestuous im-pulses, dependency, guilt, and aggression, has remained a topic ofWestern literature," a fact that is as well established "as any thesis in thesocial sciences."IO

We can infer from these statements that historians do not have thiskind of intuitive insight as a rule, and artistic endeavor as we have beendiscussing it is a qualitatively different experience from historical en-deavor. The sense in which history is art, and the relationship of his-torical writing to intuition is, therefore, not at all clear. Anyone whocan manage the two levels of thought discussed by Kris, and who can beintrospective in this way, writes novels, drama, or poetry; he does notwrite history. The historian's work is difficult, rewarding, and has apopular appeal, but his difficulties, rewards, and appeal should not beconfused with those characteristic of artistic work.Collingwood concluded on this issue that "As works ofimagina-tion, the historian's work and the novelist's do not differ. Thenovelist has a single task only: to construct a coherent picture, one thatmakes sense. The historian has a double task: he has both to do this, andto construct a picture of things as they really were and of events as theyreally happened."I' These judgments are not accurate, however, andthey can lead to confusion because these are two different kinds ofg It was possible w ithin the contex t of earlier approaches to psychoanalytic theo ry tosee the artist and art in a less exalted light, and F reud w as often pro ne to this view. See,for exam ple, Lionel Trilling, "Freud and Literature," in Hen drik M. Ru itenbeek (ed.) ,Psyclzoanalysis and Literature (N ew Y or k, 1964), esp. 257-261.1 Kris, Explorations 17.

R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Lo ndo n, 1961), 246.


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4 4 W E I N S T E I N A N D P L A T Tliterary effort, and each faces obstacles and risks peculiar to it. Thenovelist's single task, for example, should be seen in this perspective:The novelist deals with a form of knowledge that is largely derivedfrom internal sources, and this knowledge has a dynamic appeal toothers at that same level. The artist must be careful to refine his wishes,fears, and fantasies so that they can be identified with and borrowedby others, thereby becoming u b l i c rather than private statements. Atthe same time, what he writes about must retain the quality of wishes,fears, and fantasies. It would be a mistake to imagine that hstoricaleffort is more complex than artistic effort. Macaulay observed that atruly great historian would reclaim the materials which the novelisthas appropriated. Iz But this statement again ignores the differencesbetween the two kinds of literature, and, as matters now stand, that isprecisely what cannot happen because of this real (if ill-defined) gulfthat separates the one kind of writing from the other.In more specific psychoanalytic terms, the problem of art may beapproached in two ways, corresponding to the earlier and later theoriesof mental organization that were constructed by Freud. Freud's earliertheoretical structure was designed to explain what he had discoveredwith regard to unconscious behavior, sexuality, repression, and symp-tom formation. This view of mental process is referred to as topo-graphical, and it was intended to define primarily thc quality or degreeof consciousness of behavior ; the elements of the topographical frameof reference were the systems unconscious, preconscious, and conscious.In these terms, intrapsychic conflict was conceived of as a struggle be-tween repressing (conscious) forces and the repressed (unconscious)forces. The distinguishing quality of unconscious (or primary) pro-cesses is that they equate reality of thought with external actuality, andwishes with their fulfillment. 7 U~lconsciousprocesses arc dominatedin this scheme by the pleasure principle, and conscious (secondary) pro-cesses by the reality principle.I3Freud later found that he had to account for a variety of other dis-coveries which were not easily assimilated to this model. For example,12 Quoted in Hans Meyerhoff*(ed.),T h e Pltilosol~hy f History in O w Titire (New York,195912 1113 Sigmund Freud, Formulation on tlie Two Principles of Mental Functioning, inJatnes Strachey (ed. and trans.), The Standard Editiorz of the Conzplete W o r k s S tr~rltzdFrcnd (London, 1 g ~ 8 ) ,X I I , 218-226. See also Merton Gill, The Primary Process, andRobert R . Holt, The Development of Prinlary Process: A Structural View, in Holt,iVotives and Thotr~izt,260-298, 345 383. Freud's essay supplies one of the importantdefinitions of art in psychoanalytic terms 224).


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Q U E S T I O N O F P S Y C H O A N A L Y S I S 4 5he had learned that both sides of a lneiltal conflict could be unconscious(i.e., the repressing forces-the so-called defense mechanisms-weremostly unconscious) and there was also the problem of unconsciousguilt (an affect whose existence Freud inferred from experience withsome mental processes that interfered with the success of the thera-peutic process). hnd there were other, similar aspects of intrapsychicconflict that had to be accounted for. Thus, thc older model and des-criptive terms gave way to what is called the structural model, and the~neiltal rocesses (defined by their fuiictions) were then referred to as id,ego, and superego. After 1923, Freud chose to emphasize functionaldifferences in conceptualizing psychic structure, as opposed to an em-phasis on the qualities of co~lsciousnessand unconsciousness. There issome question as to whether Freud intended the structural view to re-place tile topographical one. But it is still useful to employ the topo-graphical model to describe certain ~nental rocesses, and this is par-ticularly true of artistic processes. Hence, artistic endeavor can be dis-cussed ill both topographical and structural terms. 4

If we were to render Kris two phases of thought process in topo-graphical terms, we would say that artists are capable of dealing withprimary process thought, while historical endeavor is tied to the secon-dary process, essentially at the preconscious and conscious 1evels.I~hilother way of describing the difference between the two styles is thatwhat the artist does depends upon a decrease in couiltercathexis (de-fenses somehow lapse, fail, or are suspended), while what the historiandoes depends upon hypercathexis (attention is focused on a particularidea at the preconscious level).I6 Poets and novelists are able to sur-render secondary thought processes and permit the~~lselveso be in-fluenced by and thereby capture the more archaic level of thought. Theartist has the capacity for rendering feelings through the ~ f thought4 Jacob A. Arlow and Charles Brenner, l~sychoatzalytic Concepts and the StrtrctuvalTheory NewYork, 1964), argue that the structural model was intended to replace thetopographical one. Ku rt Eissler, " O n the Metapsy cholog y of the Preconscious," Psycho-analytic Stirdy o the Child, X V II (1962), 9-41> states that this was no t the case. Kris, w h ohad don e considerable w or k in the area o f art, still emp loyed topographical terms. Seealso Humberto Nagera, "The Concepts of Structure and Structural izat ion," Psycho-

analytic Study q the Child, X X II (1967), 93 Arn old H. Modell , Object Lov e and Real ity:At Introduction to a Psychoanalytic Th eor y of Oiyect Relations (N ew Y ork, 1968), 125.15 A good definition of preconscious thought has been written by Louis Fraiberg,"N ew Views of Art and the Creative Process in Psychoanalytic Ego Psychology," inHendr ik M. Ruitenbeek (ed.), T h e Creat ive Ilnaginatiotl: Psyci~oaizalysis and the Ge nius oj-Inspiration (Chicago, 1965), 229.16 Sce Eissler, "M etapsych olog p of the Precotlscious," 22-23, 27.


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processes which are not always logical, and he can deal with thoughtefore it is structured in logical grammatical and syntactical terms, and

before the contradictions in thought (which exist at the level of the un-conscious) are eliminated.The mechanisms that Freud discovered at work in dreams are the

mechanisms that the artist has learned to use. "Freud discovered in thevery organization of the mind those mechanisms by which art makesits effects, such devices as the condensation of meanings and the displace-ment of accent."I7 Displacement means, for example, that "Almostanything can stand for something else on the grounds of resemblance,often merely a fantastic one, or on those of another unconscious re-lationshiP."i8 But there are a number of other such mechanisms whichfacilitate, among other things, the development of neologistic lan-guage.

Furthermore, the artist is not only able to capture thought before itis organized by logical processes, but he can also tolerate the conterzt ofthat thought as it occurs at the more archaic levels. Thus, what mayappear to others as irrational, embarrassing, or contradictory, or whatmay be shoved aside or denied because it appears trivial or bizarre is, forthe artist, of the greatest importance. Of course, all creative personsfree associate" and have experiences with fantasy, reverie, dream,

and day-dream.19 But, for the most part, individuals can approachprimary process contents only in the therapeutic situation where suchregression is encouraged, where the individual is advised not to sub~nithis thoughts to rational or moral criteria (to ego or superego processes),and where the analyst acts in support as an auxiliary ego.2017 Trilling, "Freud and Literature," 267; Kenneth Burke, "Freud-and the Analysis ofPoetry," in Ruitenbeek, Psychonrznlysis, 127-128. Metaphor in poetry, according to Kris(Exploratiorzs, 258, 254, 256), "serves as a stimulus to functional regression because theprimary process is itself metaphoric and imagistic. The dream lifc, for instance, is pre-dominantly visual, and shows a marked tendency to note silnilarities hat escape thepractical orientation of waking life. Metaphor serves, not to bring poetry closer to thedream, but rather closer to the psychic processes underlying both art and fantasy." Meta-phor, of course, is also eiriployed in history and science; but, as Hughes notes (History asArt, 2-3, 77), metaphors are "radically incon~mensurate."On metaphor, see also GeorgeS. Klein, "Peremptory Ideation," in Holt, Motives and Thought, 120.18 For further explanations of this type of mechanism and the relation of primary tosecondary thought processes, sec Robert Fliess, "On the Nature of Human Thought," inMorton Levitt (ed.), Readings in Psychoannlytic Psychology (New York, 1959), 213-220.19 Jose Barchilon, "Development of Artistic Stylization," Psychoanal~~tictidy o theChild, XIX (1964), 271.20 Sec Rudolf Ekstein, "Thoughts Coiicernillg the Nature of the Interpretive Pro-cess," ill Levitt, Readings, 226.


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Q U E S T I O N O F P S Y C H O A N A L Y S i S 4 7Kracaucr writes that one cannot discuss the rclatioil between past

and present without some reference to Marcel Proust, "one of thehighest authorities on thcse matters." Proust is an excellent choice forour discussion because he co~nbines o the greatest degree the depth ofinsight and the quality of risk that scparates art from history. ''111 his[Proust's] view the past gives itself up only to those who lean over back-ward in an attempt to make it speak; and oilly an 'effort of self-transcendence' in this vein will, perhaps, enable us to arrive at an under-standing of our present condition."Z' But Proust leaned so far backwardthat he fell over, and one does not deliberately make such choices. "Dur-ing the last thirteen years of his life, Proust isolated himself fromordinary life. A victim of chronic illness and afflicted with a morbidfear of dying, he shut himself off in his apartment, swathed himself likean Egyptian mummy, drew the shutters and curtains to exclude thelight, and searched feverishly into the past for memories." Of course,Proust knew a great deal about seeking out and finding the past, and hehas left us elaborate descriptions of his several methods ("the associationof ideas, a consideration of dreams, and a manipulation of sensations").But there is no lesson here for the historian-for even if one had theintellectual ambition to follow Proust's path, and if one had the bestwill in the world, he could not do it on his own As Joseph Conrad wroteof Proust, "I don't think that there has ever been in the whole ofliterature such an example of the power of analysis, and I feel safe insaying that there will never be another."z2

The problem of thought process and content, viewed in struc-tural terms, is somewhat differently apprehended. From the structuralpoint of view, activity is understood to be simulta~leously ratifying atthe level of id, ego, and superego. Art, for example, may satisfy super-ego strivings in the sense that the artist communicates ideals and values,or contributes new ones to the community. Art may also be gratifyingin ego terms, in the perfection of a solution, or in the elegance andeconomy of those means by which a solution is reached. In other words,the artist must exercise control over and master an exacting disciplinewhich has its own formal criteria. But the most familiar and appro-priate psychoanalytic definition of art pertains to its unco~lscious

Z I Siegfried Kracauer, H i s t o r y : The L as t T h i q s Bejbre t h e L a s t (Ncw York, 1969), 78,161.zz The quotes on Proust are from E. James Anthony, "A Study of Screen Sensations,"P s y c h o a n n l yt ic S t t r d y o f t h e C h i l d XVI (1961), zzc-zzz.


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428 W E I N S T E I N A N D P L A T Tsources and appeal, to id gratifications, and this is the level at which arthas its most profound effects.23

It is for this reason that a reader's reaction "may be richer in im-plication than the creator ever supposed," and that it is possible to saythat "The genius builds better than he knows."24 There is an implica-tion here that must be clarified It happens that some writers achieve ameasure of control over processes and contents and deliberately manipu-late them-for example, James Joyce and Proust. But artists more regu-larly achieve their effects without conscious reflection on what theyhave done; more often artists can neither rationalize what they haveintended, nor explain all that they meant by what they have written.This is an important point and we will refer to it again below.

History, too, may be gratifying at the level of wish and fantasy;obviously thc historian may identify with a character or group, takepleasure in some victory or defeat, and otherwise express sexual andaggressive strivings through his work. History may also bc gratifyingto the superego; the community values historical endeavor becausepresent behavior is morally legitimated by reference to the past and totradition. But the more important aspects of historical writing are thoseof control, selection, organization, analysis, and the transmission ofaccurate observations. History shares with the reader specific intellec-tual contents (and for this reason may be judged in such terms as true orfalse, which are not particularly applicable to art), while art sharesdynamic processes. The appeal of history is primarily at the conscious,intellectual level, and the appeal of art is primarily at the unconscious,affective l e ~ e l . ~ j

It would be a mistake to exaggerate the extent to which these dis-tinctions can be drawn. These two levels of internal experience are notdiscrete or exclusive. Rather, there is a continuum from primary tosecondary process thinking. All creative imagination has its roots it1primary process-in wishes, fantasies, reveries, dreams, and the like.It is possible that fantasies and day-dreams simplify and focus certainconnections, making them more visible or heightening their intellectualimpact beyond what one might experience with secondary thought23 Robert Waelder, Psychoana2ytic Avenries to rt (New York, 1965), 24 ,44 , 8 . See alsoCharles Brenner, "The Mechanism of Repression," in Rudolph M. Loewenstein, et a].,Psychoanalysis: A General Psychology (New York, 1966), 393.24 Ernst Kris, "The Study of Creative Imagination," in Ruitetlbeek, Creat ive Imagina-tion, 38.~ See, for example, James W. Hamilton, "Object Loss, Dreaming, and Creativity,"Psyclioanalytic Study ofthe Cllild, X X I V (1969), 529.


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Q U E S T I O N O F P S Y C H O A N A L Y S I S 4 9process alone.26 Scientific thinking, for example, is in itself neversharply separated from the realm of the unconscious, and the psycho-analysis of inventors and research workers shows that there is an in-timate connection between these higher mental functions and uncon-scious wishes and desircs and their infantile roots. Einstein said thattheories are a free creation of the imagination, and on a number ofoccasions important discoveries are said to have come to the discovererin a dream (e.g., Raymoiid Poincart). Rapaport, one of the most in-fluential contributors to psychoaiialytic theory in the post-Freudianperiod set about training himself to write with his eyes closed, in thedark, and to record his streams of thoughts and imagery. The task wasby no means easy. But Ile stayed Gith it, developed a capacity forautomatic writing, and was able at times to keep writing while dream-ing. 27 The work of the historian is also no doubt informed by primaryprocess thlnkmg.

The norms and mandates that undergird scientific or objectivethought, however, require that the finished product be somewhat re-moved from the original impulses and from conflict-that the primaryprocess be refined out of the work. Thus, Einstein observed that the

free creation of the imagination, out of which theory emerges, islimited by two principles: An empirical one, that the conclusionsdrawn from the theory be confirmed by experiences and a half-logical,half-aesthetic principle, that the fundamental laws should be as few innumber as possible and logically compatible. Now, the accommoda-tion to reality, and elegance, precision, and economy of means-whichare also characteristic of historical thought-are ego gratifying, forthey serve ego purposes. Jerome Bruner has said The elegant rational-ity of science and the ~netaphoric on-rationality of art operate withdeeply different grammars. 28 History is not a science, but rational con-

26 From the fact that repressed ideas are symbol-inducing motivations, they mayoccasion u nintended bu t freshinsights into the reality upo n which they i~ n po sehemselves-innovative restructurings o r symbols which , while fo r the person being a resolutiollinduced by the arousal of unconscious fantasy, also provide as a happy by-product, afresh reorganization of, a ne w slant on, the understanding of reality. Klein, Per e~n p-tor y Ideation, 127.17 Kris , Explorations 296-297; Schafer, Aspects 86-89. Einstein quoted in HeinzHartmann , Ernst Kris, and Ru do lph M. Loewenste in, The Function of Theory inPsychoanalysis, in Ha rtm atm , et al., Papers on Psychoanalytic Psychology ( N e w Y or k ,964 ~121n. Th e statement on R apa po rt is reported in Ro be rt R. Holt , David Rapa-por t : A Mem oir, in Holt , Motives and Thought g

28 Qu oted in Hughes , History as Ar t 2-3.


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43 W E I N S T E I N A N D P L A T Ttrol and transmission of data are historical objectives, so that a similardistinction may be made between history and art.

The historian must concentrate and draw upon his experience andknowledge to bring together a variety of disparate and often uncon-nected thoughts (in which consists his originality). Historians are in-tuitive in this sense (in terms of the pre-conscious), but, at this level ofmental functioning, their work brings them closer to that of the socialscientist than it does to that of the artist.29 Historical work may bedescribed in such terms as creative imagination, but, unlike art, thistypically does not include the repressed. Indeed, the way that thehistorian must work (in the context of factual evidence verified bytextual criticism rendered according to well-defined criteria) is callculated to inhibit the kind of thought process that characterizes art.

That the historian's focus, function, and appeal are different fromthe artist's should not be construed as a weakness-it should be under-stood only as a difference. The historian attempts to master anotherdimension of human experience, the past. History is another instance ofman's desire to bring his world under control, and not only for the sakeof survival, but also for the sake of understanding. The control anddiscipline that the historian exercises represents an effort to separatehimself from the effects of unco~lscious ehavior, and to couiiter theregressive pulls that would plunge him, in an emotional sense, into hismaterial and thus distort it. The historian does not always succeed in thiseffort, and, paradoxically, the control which the historian exercises pre-vents him from observing the extent to which unconscious effects inter-fere with his work because the control inhibits introspective insight.There is a level at which this is an idiosyncratic and random factor; butthere is also a lcvel at which social-structural factors intervene in arather systematic ~ a y . 3 ~

There is no point in dwelling here on the idiosyncratic features thattend to inhibit insight. Historians have accepted the proposition for along time, and it is easily confirmed by psychoanalytic experience.However, a word must be said on the social-structural factors involvedzg See He inz Hartm ami, Co mm ents on the Scientific Aspects of Psychoanalysis, inidem. Essays on Ego Psychology: Selected Problerrzs in Psychoanalytic T l~ eory New Y ork ,19651, 310.30 Artists also fail bu t, because o f psychosexual (ontogenetic) differences, and p erhapsbecause of constitutional differences between artists and other types of creative people,artists are less likely to be so syste~natically naw are of the m eaning and effects of un-conscious processes. See Phyllis Greenacre, The Ch ildh ood of the Artist, in Ruiten-beek, Creative btragination 161-191; F raiberg, N ew V iews of Art, 235


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Q U E S T I O N O F P S Y C H O A N A L Y S I S 43because it is at this level, in a systematic sense, that the differences be-tween artists and historians must be found. Much of our interest in thepast represents a rather necessary attempt to maintain continuity with atradition that legitimates present action. This can perhaps be moreeasily seen at a lower level, such as the way in which history is taught inprimary and secondary schools. History here is used to provide eachindividual with a cultural past that facilitates his integration into con-temporary social tasks, and the way that history is typically presented tothe student allows him to identify with that past so that he can rely onit, rather than on his own personal past. Instead of dwelling on his ownmotives, for purposes that may be summed up in the concept of iden-tity, the individual is invited to dwell on his society's motives. Historyat ;his level is embellished and adorned, and it is subposed to providemeasure of stability and to act as one part of a system of control. If mandid not have a satisfactory historical past to rely on, he would be forcedto create a curriculum vitae for himselfjust as surely as those who have

been deprived of sensory impressions are driven to create false ones illthe form of hallucinations. 31

But such a process goes on at the higher professional levels as well.Men very readily interpret the past in the light of present-internalized-modes of behavior, and it is necessary to see that we are often pre-serving a present identity by giving up (repressing) a significant part ofthe pa~t .3~o a degree behavior in a modern society such as ours ispredicated on rationality and self-discipline-on the deliberate controlover emotions which often leads to a denial of emotion. Rationalitydepends upon a high degree of ego control, but it is itself an affectively-based cognitive style-and therefore difficult to examine and to sur-mount. Reality testing may function in one area and not in another;cognitive processes may be applied to some kinds of experience and notto others. This situation has resulted in the effective segregation inhistorical work of the emotional aspects of the past, and to the virtualabsence of any systematic study of this part of human experience. Thissegregation and denial has been rationalized on a number of familiar31 Samual Nov ey, T h e Second Loo k: Th e Reconstvtlction of Personal History in Psychiatryand Psychoanalysis (Baltimo re, 1968), 3 83 The failure of comprehension can come abo ut through one o r another ego func-tion, no t necessarily throug h failure o f m em or y alone. Thus, the requ ired loss of com -prehension may be achieved by perceptual failure, by breaks in awareness of causalsequences, b y miscarriage of jud gm ent (produ cing attitudes o f naivete) etc.-accordingto which eve r of these is best suited to the circuinstances. Klcin, Pere mp tory Ideation,106-107.


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43 W IN S T IN A N D P L A T Tgrounds: Other dimensions of the past are more important, or are morecharacteristic of man; there are insufficient data with w11ich to work;the data are not amenable to analysis; intuition will lead the historian towhat is important; and so forth.

W e have now dealt, at least tentatively, with two of our questions:how artistic imagination differs from the historical, and why such adifference should exist. W e know of no empirical or theoretical ob-servations that can help us to make this more precise. Still, it is clear thatthere are such differences. There remains, the; the third of our questions:What difference does theory nuke to the historian in these terms Theanswer is actually implicit in everything that has gone on before. It isnecessary and possible for historians to examine non-rational and non-conscious processes as these aRect his present position and as they havebeen manifest in the past. However, as the historian cannot manage this-on intuitive and imaginative grounds, he must employ theory. Becausethis level of awareness and this type of study are indispensable to thereconstruction of the past, theory is indispensable to the historian.3

We stress this point in relation to a point we madc earlier-that theartist may have a special capacity for working with priinary process,but he cannot always know or understand what he has done. Primaryprocess thought is one level of thought process and art would lose its

T h e systematic use of psychoa nalytic the ory by historians raises the que stion o f therelationship of therapy to theory. Psychoanalysts insist that this kind o f wo rk canno t besuccessfully undertaken unless the researcher has undergone a personal analysis. Some-titnes psychoanalysts say even mo re tha n this: It is m y co ntention that the psycho-analytic anth ropic researcher not only needs full clinical traini~lg-such as the tw o o r thre esupervised analyses that students customarily carry out, in the fulfilltnent of presenttraining program s, before graduation fro m an institute-but also that he has to have theopportunity for continuous clinical work, if he is to live up to the requiremcnts of histask. Eissler, Medical Ortilodoxy 164 Erikson speaks more softly: we tnust . . . re -suppose that the psychohistorian w ill hav e developed o r acquired a ce rtain self-analyticalcapacity which w ould give to his dealings wi th others, great o r small, both the charity ofidentification and a reasonably good conscience. O n the Na tur e of Psycho-HistoricalEvidence: In Search o f Ga~ldh i , Daedalrls XCVII (1968), 709 It is difficult to say ho wn ~ u c li r ikson meant by this statement, bu t he certainly meant a g ood deal less thanEissler. O u r o w n opinion on this issue is that the bo dy of theory exists for any one t o em-ploy. A personal analysis is no guarantee of superior insight; as psychoanalysts wellkn ow , consciousness does no t necessarily tnean control. A t the same time, the laclc of apersonal analysis does not automatically d oo tn any effort to failure. N o d oub t fools willrush in and a lot o f bad history will be w ri t ten from a psychoanalyt ic point of view. Bu t alot o f bad history is wri t ten frotn every point o f view, and i t w ould no t be difficult topo int t o failed efforts. All that really can be said is that eve ryon e should w o rk in the areaand with the materials he likes; everyone sho uld write t o the best of his ability; and every-one's w or k should be subtnitted fo rju dg tne nt in the tnantier and by the criteria generallyem ployed by the profession.


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Q U S T I O N O F P S Y C H O N L Y S I S 4characteristic quality without it. But it is only one level, and the un-conscious content in art, or in any creative endeavor, can only be u~zdeev-stood at the secondary level, and ~~stentnticallynderstood only in termsof theory. For the historian, this is the primary virtue of Freud's codi-iication and communication of psychoanalytic theory. Freud made itpossible to understand and to study unconscious processes in a syste-matic way.

We can best demonstrate what this means by example. We willquote two statements on the Russian character, one by Dicks, a psychia-trist, which resulted from his intense interviews with Soviet de-fectors; the second by Tarsis, a contemporary Russian novelist. FirstDicks, speaking of a manifest ambivalence in Russian character:

It is the manner in which this ambivalence is manifested and counteredor disposed of which provides a key to the interpretation of Russiancharacter. It is seen to oscillate in large swings of mood in relation to self,to primary love objects, and to out-groups. The quality of these swingsis most readily understood in terms of oral need satisfactions or depriva-tions. At one end there is the omnivorousness, and the lusty greed andzest for life, the tendency to rush at things and swallow them wholethe need for quick and full gratification; the spells of manic o~nnipotencefeeling and optimistic belief in unlimited achieve~nent the overflowingvitality, spontaneity, and anarchic denland for abolition of all boundsand limitations to giving and receiving.

At the other end of the spectrum there is melancholy, drearyapathy; frugality; meanness and suspicion of universal hostility; anxiousand sullen subn~issiveness; elf-depreciation and moral masochism, to-gether with a grudging adnlission of the necessity for a depriving andarbitrary authority, thought of as the only safeguard against the ex-cesses of Russian nature. In this mood we find a diffuse guilt feeling.The Russian can vary between feeling that he is no good and that he issuperior to all the rest of mankind.

Then TarsisRussia is a peculiar country, the bald stranger was saying in his curiouslydry, rustling voice. Birthday party one day, funeral the next-that's thewhole of our history.

number of things can be said about these two statements. First,the thoughts expressed in the two passages are remarkably similar. Onefamiliar with oral character or oral responses to the environment willrealize that Tarsis and Dicks have said about the same thing. Second, thechances that Dicks could do what Tarsis has done are remote, for


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4 4 W E I N S T E I N A N D P L A T TTarsis statement is not only characterized by precision and economy ofmeans, but it is also quite close to the primary processes. Third, wecannot say that Tarsis knew what he was writing about: If Tarsis wereasked to explain the meaning of his passage, one can only wonder whathis answer would be. This is the one clear edge that the psychiatrist hasHe can say what all of this means-because he has control over thetheory.34 And it is precisely this same edge that the historian can acquireby familiarity with and mastery of the theory. It is not difficult toimagine that this would serve to deepen and broaden the historian sability to analyze and interpret the past.34 H enr y V. Dicks, Some No tes on the Russian National Character, in Cyri l E.Black (ed.), T h e T r a nr fo r tn a t io n o f R u s s i a n S o c i e t y : A s p e c t s o f S o c ia l C h a n g e S i n c e 86(Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 638. Valery Tarsis (trans. Katya Brown), W a r d S er ~e rz N e wYork, 1965) , 45. W e chose this mater ia l to make an example of o ur poin t ; w e d o notaccept this in any w ay as a final or definitive statement o n the R ussian national character.

CORRECTIONSTh e last footno te in Louise A Tilly 's The Fo od R io t as a Form o fpoli t ical Conflictin France (Volu me 11, N u m b e r I was inadvertently omitted. Since it contained heracknowledgm ents of comments o n her paper by Natal ie Davis, Julian Den t, StevenKaplan, Orest Ranum, George Rude, and Lawrence Stone , we arc happy to se t the

record straight, albeit so belatedly.An error was also made in footn ote 10 of Emily R. Coleman's Medieval Marriag eCharacteristics: A Neglected Factor in the History of Medieval Serfdom (Volume 11,N u m b e r 2 . Th e footnote should begin: The l ibeui technically, werc legally free in-dividuals. T he c o l o n i werc , for the most pa r t . . .

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