Psychogenic mode

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A psychogenic mode in Psychohistory is a type of mentality that results from, and is associated with, a given type of childrearing style.

The major psychogenic modes first identified by Lloyd deMause are:

Mode Parental Wish Historical Manifestations
Early infanticidal childrearing and late infanticidal childrearing Mother: "I wish you were dead, to relive (i.e. re-experience) my fear of being killed by my own mother." Child sacrifice and infanticide, child as a breast-penis, intolerance of child's anger, hardening, ghosts and magic, child sale, child sodomy
Abandoning Mother: "I must leave you, to escape the needs I project into you." Longer swaddling, fosterage, outside wetnursing, monastery, nunnery and apprenticeship
Ambivalent Mother: "You are bad from the erotic and aggressive projections I put into you." Enemas, early beating, shorter swaddling, mourning possible, child as erotic object, precursor to empathy.
Intrusive Mother: "You can have love when I have full control over you." Early toilet training, repression of child's sexuality, end of swaddling and wetnursing, empathy now possible, rise of pediatrics
Socializing Mother and Father: "We will love you when you are reaching our goals." Use of guilt, "mental discipline", humiliation, rise of compulsory schooling, delegation of parental unconscious wishes
Helping Mother and Father: "We love you and will help you reach your goals." Children's rights, deschooling and free schooling, child therapy, birth without violence, Taking Children Seriously

Psychogenic theory of history