Editing Psychohistory (section)

==Psychogenic mode==
[[Lloyd deMause]] has described a system of psychogenic modes (see below) which describe the range of styles of parenting he has observed historically and across cultures.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Campbell|first=Joseph F.|year=2009|title=Psychohistory: Creating a New Discipline|journal=Journal of Psychohistory|volume=37|issue=1|pages=2–26|pmid=19852236}}</ref>

Psychohistorians have written much about changes in the human psyche through history; changes that they believe were produced by parents, and especially the mothers' increasing capacity to empathize with their children. Due to these changes in the course of history, different ''psychoclasses'' (or ''psychogenic modes'') emerged. A psychoclass is a type of mentality that results from, and is associated with, a particular childrearing style, and in its turn influences the method of childrearing of the next generations. According to psychohistory theory, regardless of the changes in the environment, it is only when changes in childhood occur and new psychoclasses evolve that societies begin to progress.{{citation needed|date= December 2022}}

The major psychogenic modes described by deMause are:<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/modesw.htm |title = ''The Evolution of Childrearing Modes'' |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091026212029/http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/modesw.htm |archive-date=26 October 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="PsFoundations">{{cite book |last=deMause |first=Lloyd  |author-link=Lloyd deMause|title=Foundations of Psychohistory |date= January 1982  |publisher=Creative Roots Publishing  |isbn=0-940508-01-X |pages=61 & 132–146}}{{cite web |url=http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/p132x146.htm |title=CH 4 pp 132 - 146 - FOUNDATIONS OF PSYCHOHISTORY |access-date=2006-07-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060703011204/http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/p132x146.htm |archive-date=2006-07-03 }}</ref>
{| class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
! Mode
! Childrearing characteristics
! Historical manifestations
|-
| rowspan="2" valign="top" | Infanticidal
| valign="top" | ''[[Early infanticidal childrearing]]:''<br />Ritual sacrifice. High infanticide rates, incest, body mutilation, child rape and tortures.
| rowspan="2" | [[Child sacrifice]] and [[infanticide]] among tribal societies, [[Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures|Mesoamerica and the Incas]]; in [[Assyria]]n and [[Canaan]]ite religions. [[Human sacrifice#Phoenicia|Phoenicians, Carthaginians]] and other early states also sacrificed infants to their gods.

On the other hand, the relatively more enlightened Greeks and Romans exposed some of their babies ("late" infanticidal childrearing).
|-
| valign="top" | ''Late infanticidal childrearing:''<br />While the young child is not overly rejected by the mother, many newborn babies, especially girls, are [[Infant exposure|exposed]] to death.
|-
| valign="top" | Abandoning
| valign="top" | Early Christians considered a child as having a soul at birth, although possessed by evil tendencies. Routine infanticide was replaced by joining in the group fantasy of the sacrifice of Christ, who was sent by his father to be killed for the sins of others.<ref name="PsFoundations" /> Routine pederasty of boys continued in monasteries and elsewhere, and the rape of girls was commonplace.<ref name="EMOL" />
| valign="top" | Infanticide replaced by abandonment. Those children who survived the experience did not internalize a completely murderous superego. Longer [[swaddling]], [[fosterage]], outside [[Wet nurse|wetnursing]], oblation of children to monasteries and nunneries, and [[apprenticeship]].
|-
| valign="top" | Ambivalent
| valign="top" | The 12th century saw the first child instruction manuals and rudimentary child protection laws, although most mothers still emotionally rejected their children.<ref name="PsFoundations" />  Children were often treated as erotic objects by adults.
| valign="top" | The later Middle Ages ended abandonment of children to monasteries. Early beating, shorter swaddling, mourning for deceased children, a precursor to [[empathy]].
|-
| valign="top" | Intrusive
| valign="top" | During the 16th century, particularly in England, parents shifted from trying to stop children's growth to trying to control them and make them obedient. Parents were prepared to give them attention as long as they controlled their minds, their insides, their anger and the lives they led.<ref name="PsFoundations" />
| valign="top" | The intrusive parent began to unswaddle the infant. Early toilet training, [[Psychological repression|repression]] of child's sexuality. [[Hell]] threats turned into the Puritan child so familiar from early modern childrearing literature. On the other hand, the end of swaddling and wet-nursing made possible the explosive modern takeoff in scientific advance.
|-
| valign="top" | Socializing
| valign="top" | Beginning in the 18th century, mothers began to enjoy child care, and fathers began to participate in younger children's development.<ref name="PsFoundations" /> The aim remained instilling parental goals rather than encouraging individuation. [[Psychological manipulation|Manipulation]] and [[spanking]] were used to make children obedient. Hellfire and the harsher physical disciplinary actions using objects to beat the child disappeared.<ref name="PsFoundations" />  The Socializing Mode remains the most popular model of parenting in North America and Western Europe to the present day.
| valign="top" | Use of guilt, "mental discipline", [[humiliation]], [[Time-out (parenting)|time-out]], rise of [[Compulsory education|compulsory schooling]], delegation of parental unconscious wishes. As parental injections continued to diminish, the rearing of the child became less a process of conquering its will than of training it. The socializing psychoclass built the modern world.<ref name="PsFoundations" />
|-
| valign="top" | Helping
| valign="top" | Beginning in the mid-20th century, some parents adopted the role of helping children reach their own goals in life, rather than "[[socialize]]" them into fulfilling parental wishes. Less manipulation, more unconditional love. Children raised in this way are far more empathic towards others in society than earlier generations.<ref name="PsFoundations" />
| valign="top" | [[Children's rights movement]], [[natural childbirth]], the abandonment of [[circumcision]], [[attachment parenting]], [[Taking Children Seriously]], unconditional parenting, [[Parent Effectiveness Training]], [[deschooling]] and [[Anarchistic free school|free schooling]].
|}

Psychohistorians maintain that the five modes of abusive childrearing (excluding the "helping mode") are [[Trauma model of mental disorders#Psychohistory table|related to psychiatric disorders]] from psychoses to neuroses.

The chart below shows the dates at which these modes are believed to have evolved in the most advanced nations{{which|date=October 2024}}, based on contemporary accounts from historical records. A black-and-white version of the chart appears in ''Foundations of Psychohistory''.<ref name="PsFoundations" /><!-- p. 61 -->
<br />
[[File:Image-Evolution of psychogenic modes.png|centre]]

The y-axis on the above chart serves as an indicator of the new stage and not a measurement of the stage's size or relation to the x-axis.

The timeline does not apply to [[hunter-gatherer]] societies. It does not apply either to the [[Greece|Greek]] and [[Rome|Roman]] world, where there was a wide variation in childrearing practices. The arrival of the ''Ambivalent'' mode of child-rearing preceded the start of the [[Renaissance]] (mid 14th century) by only one or two generations, and the arrival of the ''Socializing'' mode coincided with the [[Age of Enlightenment]], which began in the late 18th century.

Earlier forms of childrearing coexist with later modes, even in the most advanced countries.  An example of this are reports of [[Sex-selective abortion|selective abortion]] (and sometimes [[Sex-selective abortion and infanticide|exposure of baby girls]])<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html |title=Female Infanticide |access-date=2008-02-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080421141103/http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html |archive-date=2008-04-21 |url-status=dead }}</ref> especially in [[China]], [[Korea]], [[Taiwan]], [[Singapore]], [[Malaysia]], [[India]], [[Pakistan]], New Guinea, and many other developing countries in [[Asia]] and [[North Africa]],<ref>A. Gettis, J. Getis, and J. D. Fellmann (2004). ''Introduction to Geography, Ninth Edition''. New York:  McGraw-Hill, pp. 200f.</ref>  regions in which  millions of women are "missing".<ref>Goodkind, Daniel. (1999). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2584811 Should Prenatal Sex Selection be Restricted?: Ethical Questions and Their Implications for Research and Policy]. ''Population Studies, 53 (1),'' 49-61.</ref> The conflict of new and old psychoclasses is also highlighted in psychohistorians' thought. This is reflected in political contrasts – for instance, in the clash between [[Democratic party (United States)|Blue State]] and [[Republican party (United States)|Red State]] voters in the contemporary United States<ref>{{cite journal | last = Dervin | first = Dan | title = George W. Bush's Second Term: Saving the World, Saving the Country | journal = [[Journal of Psychohistory]] | volume = 33 | pages = 117–124 | year = 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last = deMause | first = Lloyd | title = [Book review of] Jonathan Schell's ''The Seventh Decade'' | journal = Journal of Psychohistory | volume = 35 | pages = 308–309 | year = 2008}}</ref> – and in civil wars.

Another key psychohistorical concept is that of ''group fantasy'', which deMause regards as a mediating force between a psychoclass's collective childhood experiences (and the psychic conflicts emerging therefrom), and the psychoclass's behavior in politics, religion and other aspects of social life.<ref name="EMOL">{{cite book
  | last = deMause
  | first = Lloyd
  | title = The Emotional Life of Nations
  | publisher = Karnak
  | year = 2002
  | location = NY/London
  | pages = 104–109, 391, 430ff}}</ref>

===A psychoclass for postmodern times===

According to the psychogenic theory, since [[Neanderthal man]] most tribes and families practiced infanticide, child mutilation, incest and beating of their children throughout prehistory and history.  Presently the Western socializing mode of childrearing is considered much less abusive in the field, though this mode is not yet entirely free of abuse. In the opening paragraph of his seminal essay "The Evolution of Childhood" (first article in ''The History of Childhood''), DeMause states:

<blockquote>The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken.  The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of childcare, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Shore |first1=Miles F. |last2=deMause |first2=Lloyd |date=1976 |title=The Child and Historiography |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/202668 |journal=Journal of Interdisciplinary History |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=495 |doi=10.2307/202668|jstor=202668 |url-access=subscription }}</ref></blockquote>

There is notwithstanding an optimistic trait in the field. In a world of "helping mode" parents, deMause believes, violence of any other sort will disappear as well, along with [[magical thinking]], mental disorders, wars and other inhumanities of man against man. Although, the criticism has been made that this itself is a form of magical thinking.<ref>[http://primal-page.com/ps4.htm The evolution of psyche and society] – deMause's explanatory chapter of ''The Emotional Life of Nations'' (op. cit.).</ref>