Lloyd deMause

Lloyd deMause (born September 19, 1931) is an American social thinker known for his work in the field of psychohistory. He did graduate work in political science at Columbia University and later trained as a lay psychoanalyst. He is the founder of The Journal of Psychohistory, which he edits, and has played a major role in the development of the International Psychohistorical Association (IPA), a multi-disciplinary group whose members are to varying degrees influenced by (and often also critical of) his ideas.

Psychohistory remains a controversial field of study, and deMause and other IPA scholars have detractors in the academic community. Some psychologists and anthropologists claim that deMause's own formulations are insufficiently supported by credible research. Others regard him as a seminal thinker who has developed hypotheses that deserve serious attention for their heuristic potential in the social sciences and humanities.

He has written many books about changes in the human psyche in historical times that he believes were produced by progressive development (and/or devolution) in childrearing practices. Key to deMause's thought is the concept of the psychoclass (which emerges out of a particular style of childrearing and child abuse at a particular period in a society's development) and the conflict of new and old psychoclasses (as reflected, for instance, in the clash between Red State and Blue State voters in the contemporary United States). Another key 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.

DeMause's ideas are expressed most comprehensively in Foundations of Psychohistory. His mordant view of the treatment of children down through the centuries is expressed in The History of Childhood. The playful side of his thinking is best displayed in his politically oriented works, such as Reagan's America, which attempt to explain how the group fantasies of today's psychoclasses are expressed in political cartoons and other aspects of popular culture.