George Makari

Last updated
George Jack Makari
Gjm photo.tif
Education Brown University (BA)
Cornell University Medical College (MD)
Notable work
  • Revolution in Mind (2008)
  • Soul Machine (2015)
  • Of Fear and Strangers (2021)
Website www.georgemakari.com

George Jack Makari is a psychiatrist and historian. He serves as director of the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy, and the Arts, which encompasses the Oskar Diethelm Library [1] at Weill Cornell Medical College, where he is also a Professor of Psychiatry. [2] Makari's work has been widely reviewed, and he is well known among historians of the mind sciences, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis for Revolution in Mind, The Creation of Psychoanalysis [3] and Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind. His recent work, Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia, won the 87th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in the nonfiction category. He was the Director and Attending Psychiatrist of a sliding scale Psychotherapy Clinic at Payne Whitney Clinic from 1991-2016.

Contents

Education

Makari received his bachelor's degree in 1982 from Brown University and his M.D. in 1987 from the Medical College of Cornell University. Makari did his psychiatric residency at Cornell's Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in Manhattan, and then received a fellowship (De Witt Wallace/Reader's Digest Research Fellow) at the Department of Psychiatry at Cornell's Medical College. In 1997, Makari completed his psychoanalytic training at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. [2] In 2017, he was awarded the Benjamin Rush Award by the American Psychiatric Association for his body of work.

DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry

The institute's mission, since its founding in 1958, has been to support and carry out historical scholarship that is relevant to the contemporary theory and practice of psychiatry. In 1996 Makari became the director of an historical research institute in the Department of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Under Makari's leadership the Institute has greatly expanded. In 1994 he worked with benefactors to establish the Richardson Seminars on the History of Psychiatry, and a year later, he inaugurated the Eric T. Carlson Memorial Grand Rounds in memory of the institute's founding director. He oversaw the modernization of the Oskar Diethelm Library, a world-renowned archival resource for the history of psychiatry.

Makari has led the Institute toward diversifying its programming to include explorations of the arts, mental health policy, the mind sciences, and the humanities. In 2009 the Institute was rechristened as DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry in recognition of the philanthropic support of the Wallace Foundation. In 2020, to represent this range of scholarly, educational, and archival activities, the institute was renamed the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy, and the Arts.

Revolution in Mind

In his 2008 Revolution in Mind, Makari argues that the creation of psychoanalysis (as both a body of ideas and a movement) can be best understood by focusing on the way psychoanalytics and psychoanalytic communities were created, broken apart, and then rebuilt in the period before World War II. Specifically, Makari declares that early psychoanalytic theory emerged from Sigmund Freud's engagements with French psychopathology, biophysics, psychophysics, and sexology. Accordingly, he writes, Freudian theory was essentially a synthesis, one which quickly drew interest from Freud's contemporaries, many of whom coalesced around him and in the process developed the first psychoanalytic community. [4] However, this community proved fragile.

According to Makari, the period that followed the Nuremberg Congress of 1910 saw a series of schisms, both theoretical and interpersonal, which shattered the Freudian movement and forced early analysts to rethink their work and professional networks. This 'rethinking' resulted in the creation of a variety of new psychoanalytic communities that were more independent of Freud, both conceptually and geographically. These communities placed less emphasis on Freud's personal authority and theories, and instead sought to bind their members with a commitment to shared technique, increased empiricism, and a process of professionalization. Eventually, Makari argues, the rise of fascism led to the destruction of most European psychoanalytic communities, sparking battles for control in the two major psychoanalytic centers that remained: London and New York. [5]

Soul Machine

In Soul Machine (2015), Makari turns to the Enlightenment to historicize the creation of the Western mind. The book recounts the story of how the mind—an emerging concept—evolved as a potential solution to questions about the nature of inner life. These questions, which reached back to the origins of modernity, stemmed from the crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution. The "mind" supplied a possible answer that was, as Makari notes, "part soul and part machine but fully neither."

The book is a synthetic history of the mind and the emergence of psychological man in the West World. It was rated one of the Best Books of 2016 by author Andrew Solomon in The Guardian [6] and was called "brilliant" and "essential reading" by the Wall Street Journal. [7]

Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia

Published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2021, this book traces the history of xenophobia, chronicling its conceptualization since the term was coined in the late-nineteenth century. Makari investigates the evolution of xenophobia and considers how political commentators, philosophers, social scientists, and psychologists have attempted to account for the hatred of strangers. He discusses xenophobia alongside Western nationalism, mass migration, genocide, and colonialism, and offers an account of its international resurgence in the twenty-first century.

This book was the winner of the 87th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Award [8] and the International Psychoanalytical Association’s 2023 Elisabeth Young-Bruehl Prejudice Award. Author Thomas Chatterton Williams reviewed the book in The New York Times , describing it as "riveting" and "a meditation on a subject that has vexed human society at least since the dawn of consciousness". [9] The book was also reviewed in The Wall Street Journal [10] and The Washington Post. [11]

Personal life

Makari is the son of medical researcher Jack Makari. [12]

Related Research Articles

Psychoanalysis is a theory developed by Sigmund Freud. It describes the human soul as an ‘apparatus’ that emerged along the path of evolution and consists mainly of three parts that complement each other in a similar way to the organelles: a set of innate needs, a consciousness that serves to satisfy them, and a memory for the retrievable storage of experiences during made. Further in, it includes insights into the effects of traumatic education and a technique for bringing repressed content back into the realm of consciousness, in particular the diagnostic interpretation of dreams. Overall, psychoanalysis represents a method for the treatment of mental disorders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sigmund Freud</span> Founder of psychoanalysis (1856–1939)

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.

Herbert "Harry" Stack Sullivan was an American Neo-Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who held that "personality can never be isolated from the complex interpersonal relationships in which [a] person lives" and that "[t]he field of psychiatry is the field of interpersonal relations under any and all circumstances in which [such] relations exist". Having studied therapists Sigmund Freud, Adolf Meyer, and William Alanson White, he devoted years of clinical and research work to helping people with psychotic illness.

Georg Walther Groddeck was a physician and writer regarded as a pioneer of psychosomatic medicine.

Robert Michels is a Professor of Medicine and of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.

Theodore Shapiro is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York, where he is a professor emeritus in psychiatry and pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. He is a faculty member of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Cooper</span>

Arnold Cooper ) was the Tobin-Cooper Professor Emeritus in Consultation-Liaison psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College and the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. He was a supervising and training analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He died in June 2011.

Richard A. Isay was an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, author and gay activist. He was a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and a faculty member of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. Isay is considered a pioneer who changed the way that psychoanalysts view homosexuality.

Girindrasekhar Bose was an early 20th-century Indian psychoanalyst, the first president (1922–1953) of the Indian Psychoanalytic Society. Bose carried on a twenty-year dialogue with Sigmund Freud. Known for disputing the specifics of Freud's Oedipus complex theory, he has been pointed to by some as an early example of non-Western contestations of Western methodologies. Apart from this, he also started the first general hospital psychiatry unit (GHPU) in Asia at the R.G. Kar Medical College, Calcutta in 1933.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Brill</span> Austrian-American psychiatrist & psychoanalyst

Abraham Arden Brill was an Austrian Empire-born psychiatrist who spent almost his entire adult life in the United States. He was the first psychoanalyst to practice in the United States and the first translator of Sigmund Freud into English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weill Cornell Medicine</span> Medical school of Cornell University

Weill Cornell Medicine, formally the Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University, is the biomedical research and medical school of Cornell University. It is located on the Upper East Side of New York City.

Paul Ferdinand Schilder was an Austrian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and medical researcher.

Peter A. Olsson is an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and author. He is author of the book, Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev. Jim Jones to Osama bin Laden. Olsson won the 1979 Judith Baskin Offer Prize for his paper "Adolescent Involvement with the Supernatural and Cults."

Oskar Pfister was a Swiss Lutheran minister and lay psychoanalyst who was a native of Wiedikon.

The DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy, and the Arts at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, was formerly known as The History of Psychiatry Section. Founded in 1958 by Dr. Eric T. Carlson, the institute is devoted to the study of the history of the mind-sciences and the preservation of resources on the history of psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, neuroscience and other related disciplines. Its companion library, the Oskar Diethelm Library, houses over 50,000 titles on these subjects, with the earliest dating to the 14th century. The present Director is George Makari.

Richard C. Friedman was an academic psychiatrist, the Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, and a faculty member at Columbia University. He has conducted research in the endocrinology and the psychodynamics of homosexuality, especially within the context of psychoanalysis. Friedman was born in The Bronx, New York.

Joseph Wortis was an American psychiatrist, longtime editor of the scientific journal Biological Psychiatry, and a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Zvi Lothane</span> American psychiatrist

Henry Zvi Lothane is a Polish-born American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, educator and author. Lothane is currently Clinical Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, specializing in the area of psychotherapy. He is the author of some eighty scholarly articles and reviews on various topics in psychiatry, psychoanalysis and the history of psychotherapy, as well as the author of a book on the famous Schreber case, entitled In Defense of Schreber: Soul Murder and Psychiatry. In Defense of Schreber examines the life and work of Daniel Paul Schreber against the background of 19th and early 20th century psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew J. Gerber</span>

Andrew J. Gerber is an American psychoanalyst and the current president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut. His principal interests and research lie in studying the neurobiological bases of social cognition, particularly in relation to autism spectrum disorders and change in response to psychotherapy. He is a member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychoanalytic Association and the Psychoanalytic Psychodynamic Research Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisabeth Geleerd</span> Dutch-American psychoanalyst (1909–1969)

Elisabeth Rozetta Geleerd Loewenstein was a Dutch-American psychoanalyst. Born to an upper-middle-class family in Rotterdam, Geleerd studied psychoanalysis in Vienna, then London, under Anna Freud. Building a career in the United States, she became one of the nation's major practitioners in child and adolescent psychoanalysis throughout the mid-20th century. Geleerd specialized in the psychoanalysis of psychosis, including schizophrenia, and was an influential writer on psychoanalysis in childhood schizophrenia. She was one of the first writers to consider the concept of borderline personality disorder in childhood.

References

  1. ↑ "Oskar Diethelm Library".
  2. 1 2 "George Jack Makari, MD: Biography". Weill Cornell Medical College.
  3. ↑ Makari, George, J., Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis (New York: HarperCollins, 2008).
  4. ↑ Express Night Out | Arts & Events | Figuring Out Freud: George Makari Archived 2007-04-28 at archive.today
  5. ↑ For reviews of this book, critical and laudatory, see New York Times, 1/20/08; New York Sun, 1/16/08; Discover Magazine, 3/5/08; The Atlantic Monthly, 5/08; The Guardian, 3/1/08; The Financial Times, 3/29/08; The Australian, 3/29/08; The Australian Book Review, 4/2/08; Literary Review, 4/08; Amer. Journal of Psychotherapy, Winter 2008.
  6. ↑ Solomon, Andrew (November 28, 2016). ""Best Books of 2016"". The Guardian.
  7. ↑ Tallis, Raymond (November 7, 2015). ""The Knot in the Universe," A Review of Soul Machine". The Wall Street Journal.
  8. ↑ "Introducing Our Class of 2022 - Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (2022)".
  9. ↑ Williams, Thomas Chatterton (September 14, 2021). ""Is Stranger Hatred Hard-Wired Into Humans?"". The New York Times.
  10. ↑ Kuper, Adam (October 22, 2021). ""'Of Fear and Strangers' Reviewed: The Others""". The Wall Street Journal.
  11. ↑ Newcomb, Rachel (October 22, 2021). ""The surprisingly modern origins of 'xenophobia'"". The Washington Post.
  12. ↑ "Jack MAKARI Obituary (2013) - West Suffield, CT - Hartford Courant".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.