Psychohistory holds that human societies can change between infanticidal and non-infanticidal practices and has coined the term " early infanticidal childrearing " to describe abuse and neglect observed by many anthropologists.

The principal center for psychohistorical study is The Institute for Psychohistory founded by Lloyd deMause which has 19 branches around the globe and has for over 30 years published the The Journal of Psychohistory.

It publishes Psychohistory News and has a psychohistorical mail order lending library.

A course in Psychohistory has been taught at a four universities at the undergraduate level.

Another theory that has similarities to Psychohistory is " Generational Dynamics " proposed by John J. Xenakis, where he proposes, " Generational Dynamics is a historical methodology that analyzes historical events through the flow of generations, and uses the analysis to forecast future events by comparing today's generational attitudes to those of the past ".

Psychohistory also has echoes of modernization theory and of work in the social sciences that by the 1960s would lead to attempts at large-scale social prediction and control such as Project Camelot.

Psychohistory depends on the idea that, while one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events.

Isaac Asimov's fictional science of " Psychohistory " in his Foundation series also faces with this dilemma ; Asimov even had one of his psychohistorians discuss the paradox.

There is a third underlying axiom of Psychohistory, which is trivial and thus not stated by Seldon in his Plan:

Psychohistory uses a plurality of methodologies, and it is difficult to determine which is appropriate to use in each circumstance.

The Psychohistory Forum, which publishes the quarterly journal Clio ’ s Psyche, was founded in 1983 by historian and psychoanalyst Paul H. Elovitz.

Called forth to stand trial on Trantor for allegations of treason ( for foreshadowing the decline of the Galactic Empire ), Seldon explains that his science of Psychohistory foresees many alternatives, all of which result in the Galactic Empire eventually falling.

According to Krugman, his interest in economics began with Asimov's Foundation novels, in which the social scientists of the future use ' Psychohistory ' to attempt to save civilization.

Since ' Psychohistory ' in Asimov's sense of the word does not exist, Krugman turned to economics, which he considered the next best thing.

Psychohistory is a fictional science in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe which combines history, sociology, etc., and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire.

One of the central tenets of Psychohistory was the belief in standard human reaction to outside stimuli, which the Mule negated, and the practice of dealing with masses of people, not individuals ; an individual capable of altering the Seldon Plan could not be calculated.

* Lloyd deMause, founder of The Institute for Psychohistory.

* The Institute for Psychohistory.

This was the reason for his causing the creation of Psychohistory and Gaia.

It later gained fame for housing Hari Seldon and his " Seldon Psychohistory Project.

Psychohistory gives members of the Foundation a full understanding of the struggle for power between generals and emperors that takes place inside the Empire.

The Wellfleet Psychohistory Group, as it became known, focused mainly on psychological motivations for war, terrorism and genocide in recent history.

Psychohistory relies heavily on historical biography.

Others have dismissed deMause's theories and motives arguing that the emphasis given by Psychohistory to speculation on the psychological motivations of people in history make it an undisciplined field of study.

Psychohistory is based on group trends and cannot predict with sufficient accuracy the effects of extraordinary, unforeseeable individuals ; and, as originally presented, the Second Foundation's purpose was to counter this flaw.

* History and Human Survival: Essays on the Young and the Old, Survivors and the Dead, Peace and War, and on Contemporary Psychohistory, Random House, 1970.

As a fictional portrayal of a far-future Professor of Psychohistory, Hari Seldon is presented at the beginning of " Foundation "

At the 67th science-fiction world convention in Montreal, Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate in Economics, mentioned Hari Seldon, a central character in Foundation who was a psychohistorian, as his inspiration to study Economics since it's the closest thing to Psychohistory, according to P. Krugman.

For examples of the more frivolous and distasteful sort of psychohistory, see The Journal of Psychohistory.

The Mule operated completely outside the Seldon Plan because Psychohistory operated only with probabilities and known human statistics, but the Mule was a mutant, and thus his birth was not predicted by Seldon, nor were his startling mental abilities.

Psychohistory derives many of its concepts from areas that are perceived to be ignored by conventional historians as shaping factors of human history, in particular, the effects of childbirth, parenting practice, and child abuse.

Seldon eventually causes the fall of the junta by dropping subtle false hints about what Psychohistory foresees, leading to the Junta making unpopular decisions.

A collection of research papers by the group was published in 1975: Explorations in Psychohistory: The Wellfleet Papers ( see Bibliography ; Lifton as editor ).

Hari Seldon's Psychohistory Project was a ' backup ' initiated by R. Daneel Olivaw in the event that Galaxia was not determined to be the ideal course of action.

Psychohistory is the study of the psychological motivations of historical events.

Some historians, social scientists and anthropologists have, however, argued that their disciplines already describe psychological motivation and that Psychohistory is not, therefore, a separate subject.

A psychogenic mode in Psychohistory is a type of mentality ( or psychoclass ) that results from, and is associated with, a particular childrearing style.

A black-and-white version of the chart appears in Foundations of Psychohistory.

Psychohistory remains a controversial field of study, and deMause and other psychohistorians face criticism in the academic community.

For more serious and scholarly attempts to understand the psychological dimension of the past, see The Psychohistory Review.

Clio's Psyche and The Psychohistory Forum: Psychological and Historican Insight without jargon.