Psychohistory Articles

Beyond Belief, Cults, Healers, Mystics and Gurus—Why We Believe by Arthur Janov, a Book Review
In this book published a year before his death, Arthur Janov examines the unconscious motivations that drive us to follow mystics, healers and gurus—and more globally, the impulses that lead us to believe.
(01/2025)

Behaviorism and the Shaping of the American Mind (2/2)
Behaviorism made withdrawal of parental attention—or ‘time-out’—one of the instruments of its Parent Management Training programs. The aim of this second article is to examine the possible side-effects of ‘time-out’ for children’s psycho-affective balance, and the evolution of its social acceptability.
(09/2024)

Behaviorism and the Shaping of the American Mind (1/2)
Historically founded on animal experimentation, behaviorism made withdrawal of parental attention—or ‘time-out’—one of the instruments of its Parent management training programs. However, the question of the effectiveness, or even harmfulness, of this measure for children’s psycho-affective development is still being debated.
(06/2024)

Trauma and Politics of Fear in the Wake of the 9/11 Terror Attacks
After the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush administration launched two military operations that proved to be quite disruptive. This article examines how the 9/11 trauma triggered early coping mechanisms involving victimization and/or identification with the aggressor.
(01/2024)

How to Work Through Transgenerational Transmission of Traumas?
In this short psycho-autobiography, I disclose the influence of family inheritance in my own path of life, discuss the integrating power of awareness and share broader reflections on the way we can work out painful legacies.
(01/2023)

How to Work Through Transgenerational Transmission of Traumas?—The Conference
Like a jigsaw puzzle, pieces of family memories can be recollected to compose a better picture of our personal heritage. One’s earliest imprints are keys to understand later life choices as the past interferes with the present.
(01/2023)

What is at stake with the documentary Who’s Afraid of Alice Miller?
Martin Miller shed a particular light on his mother’s work and gave an enlightening testimony largely confirming her first findings. This lecture starts with a reminder about the singularities of Alice Miller’s work and her distancing from psychoanalysis.
(12/2021)

Religious violence: a paradoxical reality?
The United Nations denounces an overflow of violence based on religion. The psychotraumatic dynamics leading to such extremes remain poorly understood. They are rooted in the denial of the natural sensitivity of children, subjected from birth on to the rigor of a doctrinal set of rules that diverts them from experiencing their true self.
(09/2021)

On the Difficulty of Being a Parent
Since the publication of Le Génie de l’être, Sylvie Vermeulen’s book-testament, new keys to understanding are available to people who want to accompany their children on a path of benevolence (Sylvie-Béatrice Vermeulen, Le Génie de l’être et autres écrits, Le Hêtre-Myriadis, 2021). What questions of consciousness are hidden behind parenthood?
(06/2021)

The Secret History of Alice Miller
An indefatigable advocate for children, Alice Miller passed away eleven years ago, leaving a legacy that raised awareness on issues such as childrearing violence, childhood traumas, and the roots of authoritarianism. But until her very end, she hid a dark secret that her son Martin eventually discovered.
(05/2021)

Bringing Psychohistory in France and Switzerland
Trained through the 2001-2002 Learn Psychohistory OnLine program, I was deeply impressed by psychohistorical concepts that complemented my ongoing therapeutic process.  With therapist Sylvie Vermeulen, I founded “Regard conscient”, a French research project based on the assumption that adults remain deeply imprinted with unacknowledged emotional experiences.
(02/2020)

Psychohistory in the French Speaking Community
One of IPA’s most important challenges is helping educate a wider audience about the childhood sources of adult psychopathology. The relevance and urgency of this agenda is underscored by the psychological state of Donald Trump and right-wing Republicans, as well as the resurgence of fascism in Europe.
(12/2018)

Sigmund Freud, Son of Amalia
Discernible in the works of Freud, imprints of early traumas have been overlooked by biographers. This painful blind spot of the Freudian model accounts for a detrimental lack of concern with mother and infant intimacy.
(02/2018)

Implication of child abuse in the Brexit vote
A ‘values lines’ divide is likely to account for pro- and anti-EU attitude in the United Kingdom, a psycho-demographic approach suggests. Sub-groups motivated by fear of perceived threats swung most strongly to vote ‘Leave’—giving indication of the powerful forces at play when repressed feelings and emotions associated with child abuse are displaced in a heated political context.
(11/2016)