George Jack Makari is a
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
and historian. He serves as director of
The Institute for the History of Psychiatry, which encompasses the Oskar Diethelm Library at
Weill Cornell Medical College
The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York.
Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with NewY ...
, where he is also a Professor of Psychiatry.
Makari's work has been widely reviewed and is well known among historians of the mind sciences, psychiatry, and
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
for ''Revolution in Mind, The Creation of Psychoanalysis'' and ''Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind.'' His recent work, ''Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia,'' is a winner of 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 1991-2006.
Education
Makari received his
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in 1982 from
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
and his
M.D.
Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...
in 1987 from the
Medical College of
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
. Makari did his psychiatric residency at Cornell's
Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic
The Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic (PWC) was a hospital in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, which was founded by an endowment bestowed by Payne Whitney (March 20, 1876 – May 25, 1927) upon his death. Whitney was an American ...
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
.
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
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Specifically, Makari declares that early psychoanalytic theory emerged from
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
's engagements with French
psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of abnormal cognition, behaviour, and experiences which differs according to social norms and rests upon a number of constructs that are deemed to be the social norm at any particular era.
Biological psychopatholo ...
,
biophysics
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...
,
psychophysics
Psychophysics quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce. Psychophysics has been described as "the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation" or, m ...
, and
sexology
Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behaviors, and functions. The term ''sexology'' does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sexuality, such as social criticism.
Sexologists app ...
. 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. 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
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
, 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.
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'' and was called "brilliant" and "essential reading" by the ''Wall Street Journal''.
Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia
Published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2021, this book traces the history of xenophobia. Author Thomas Chatterton Williams reviewed the book in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', describing it as "riveting" and "a meditation on a subject that has vexed human society at least since the dawn of consciousness". The book was also reviewed in ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' and ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
.
Personal life
Makari is the son of medical researcher
Jack Makari.
[ ]
References
External links
George Makari's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Makari, George
21st-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
American psychiatrists
Brown University alumni
Weill Cornell Medical College alumni
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
American male non-fiction writers