A psychogenic mode in the psychogenic theory of history 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 and Late infanticidal | Mother: "I wish you were dead, to relieve my fear of being killed by my 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 put in 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. |
