Psychohistory Forum
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Clio’s Psyche Call for Papers:

The Psychology of Friendship: Bonds, Losses, Betrayals, and
Psychobiographical Explorations of Famous Friendships

(Articles are to be 1,000 – 2,500 words including a brief abstract, keywords, & short biography of the author.)
Due Date: November 1, 2026, for the Fall 2026 issue

Dear Colleagues,

Friendship is one of the most fundamental and yet most psychologically complex of all human relationships. From the earliest bonds of childhood to the deep companionships of old age, friendship shapes our identity, sustains us through loss, and profoundly influences our emotional and intellectual lives. Unlike family ties forged by biology or romantic bonds defined by desire, friendship is freely chosen — and perhaps for that reason, it is among the most revealing of human attachments. At its best, it offers loyalty, intimacy, and the rare gift of being truly known by another. At its worst, it can descend into rivalry, betrayal, and devastating loss.

Psychoanalysis and depth psychology have much to contribute to our understanding of friendship, yet compared to the vast literature on love, family, and therapeutic relationships, friendship has received surprisingly little systematic attention. How do early attachment patterns shape our capacity for friendship across the lifespan? What unconscious needs — for mirroring, idealization, rivalry, or mentorship — animate our closest bonds? How do we grieve the loss of a friend, whether through death, estrangement, or betrayal? And what does it mean when two formidable minds, such as Freud and Jung, or two great literary imaginations, such as Wordsworth and Coleridge, come together in friendship and then fall catastrophically apart?

We invite contributors to explore the psychology and psychodynamics of friendship from a wide range of perspectives — developmental, clinical, cultural, and psychobiographical. In keeping with the spirit of Clio’s Psyche, we welcome personalized first-person accounts and case studies alongside scholarly reflections, and we especially encourage psychobiographical explorations of famous friendships in history, literature, science, and public life.

I. The Psychology and Psychodynamics of Friendship

Some possible psychoanalytic/psychological topics to write about include:

  • The formation of friendship across the lifespan: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
  • Attachment theory and friendship: how early relational patterns shape adult bonds.
  • The role of idealization, identification, and mirroring in close friendships.
  • Friendship and the self: how friendships shape and sustain identity.
  • Loyalty, trust, and the psychology of keeping confidences.
  • Betrayal, estrangement, and the mourning of lost friendships.
  • Envy, rivalry, and competition within close friendships.
  • Gender, sexuality, and the boundaries of intimate friendship.
  • The impact of modern life — social media, mobility, busyness — on the depth and durability of friendship.
  • Cross-cultural and intergenerational perspectives on friendship.
  • Friendship in therapy: the therapeutic alliance, friendship transferences, and the ethics of the therapeutic relationship.
  • The friendships of therapists and their impact on clinical practice.
  • Loneliness, isolation, and the psychological consequences of the absence of friendship.
  • The humor, joy, and life-sustaining power of deep friendship.
  • Reviews of scholarly books, films, or other works on the psychology of friendship.

II. Psychobiographical Explorations of Famous Friendships

History offers a remarkable gallery of friendships between extraordinary individuals — partnerships that shaped the course of ideas, politics, literature, and science. We invite psychobiographical explorations of famous friendships, including but not limited to the following:

  • Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Fliess, Carl Jung, Sándor Ferenczi, or Karl Abraham — the psychoanalytic inner circle and its intense bonds and ruptures.
  • Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham — a lifelong partnership that transformed child psychoanalysis.
  • Carl Jung and Sabina Spielrein — a deeply complex and ethically fraught relationship that raises enduring questions about boundaries, transference, and influence.
  • S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien — a literary friendship at the heart of the Inklings.
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels — an intellectual and personal partnership that endured for four decades.
  • Eleanor Roosevelt and her circle of close confidantes — friendship, identity, and public life.
  • Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald — admiration, rivalry, and ambivalence between two giants of American literature.
  • Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque — the collaborative friendship at the birth of Cubism.
  • William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge — poetic collaboration, dependency, and eventual estrangement.
  • Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West — an intimate friendship that blurred the lines between love, creativity, and influence.
  • Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre — the most discussed intellectual partnership of the twentieth century.
  • Thomas Jefferson and John Adams — friends, rivals, and reconciled elders.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy — the friendship at the core of the Civil Rights Movement.
  • Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton — a partnership that defined the women’s suffrage movement.
  • Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt — a wartime friendship that shaped the modern world.
  • Charles Darwin and Joseph Dalton Hooker — scientific friendship as intellectual lifeline.
  • Albert Einstein and Michele Besso — a lifelong friendship Einstein described as the finest of his life.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

We seek articles from 1,000–2,500 words—including your title, author name with affiliation, a 50-75-word abstract, 7–10 keywords, and your brief biography (3–4 sentences) ending in your email address.

We would also accept an outstanding 3,500-word symposium article provided we get it by August 1, 2026. We urge you to share this Call for Papers with colleagues and lists.

Submit via form below:

 

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Clio’s Psyche publishes thought-provoking, clearly written articles grounded in psychoanalytic, psychological, and psychohistorical insight — psychological perspectives applied to historical lives and events — and illustrated with examples from history, current events, and lived experience. We welcome contributions from a wide range of psychological and psychohistorical perspectives and encourage a personalized style of writing accessible to both scholars and general readers. Technical terminology and extensive citation of authorities should be used sparingly and only when essential.

For more information on our style guidelines, go to https://cliospsyche.org/guidelines. Submissions the editors deem suitable are anonymously peer-reviewed in our double-blind system.

Sincerely yours,

Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, Editor-in-Chief, Clio’s Psyche, Founder and Director of the Psychohistory Forum. E-mail: cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com

Inna Rozentsvit, MD, PhD, Associate Editor of Clio’s Psyche and Associate Director of the Psychohistory Forum. E-mail: innarozentsvit@gmail.com