Fantasy and Reality in HistoryIn Fantasy and Reality in History, Peter Loewenberg, a historian, political psychologist, and psychoanalyst, brings what the discipline of psychoanalysis has learned about human conduct and the irrational to bear on the analysis and writing of history. The result is a remarkable series of studies on individual and social anxiety, racism and nationalism, and crisis management. The first section proposes psychohistorical theoretical and clinical perspectives on Freud, psychoanalysis, social structure, and culture. Loewenberg examines creative group process in early twentieth century Zurich and how the earliest practitioners of psychoanalysis - Freud, C.G. Jung, Karl Abraham, and others - established the discipline's understanding of the unconscious and how it functions. The second section explores the tensions in the lives and politics of modern political leaders. Loewenberg offers case studies including the pornographic sexual politics of the nineteenth-century British Liberal Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, interpretations of the self-sacrifice of the German-Jewish foreign minister Walther Rathenau, the ideas of Austrian President Karl Renner at resolving nationality conflicts, and the primitive psychic splitting of the contemporary Russian fascist demagogue Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The final section interprets manifestations of anxiety in history, and its expression in racism, anti-Judaism, Nazism, and nationalism. In each study, Loewenberg blends clinical and historical-political methods which not only produce new and exciting research, but also demonstrate how a psychoanalytic approach enriches our understanding of history, and how historical and social science perspectives mayinform the resolution of clinical conflicts. |
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Abraham accusations aggression ambivalence analysis Anna Freud anti-Judaism anti-Semitism anxiety Archive Austrian Bauer became Berlin Bleuler Burghölzli C. G. Jung canton century child childhood Christian clinical conflict countertransference creativity crisis cultural death Deutsch Diaries dream dynamics economic ego psychology emotional Ernst ethnic experience fantasies father fear feelings foreign German Gladstone Gladstone's hatred Heinz Kohut Hitler Ibid ideas identity inner institutions intellectual International interpretation Jewish Jews Jung's Karl Abraham Karl Renner letter lived modern mother murder narcissistic Nazi object Oedipus Otto Bauer Oxford party patient Peter Gay Peter Loewenberg political psychiatry psychoanalysis psychodynamic psychological reality relationship Rome Russian Sabina Spielrein scientific sexual Sigmund Freud situation Social Democratic socialist Soviet Strachey Swiss Switzerland symbol theory Thistlethwayte thought tion trans trauma Turkish unconscious understanding University Press Verlag Vienna Walther Rathenau writing wrote York Zurich