Clio’s Psyche

Call for Papers: Music and Musicians

Special Issue, Winter 2023
Submissions due October 1, 2022

Dear Colleague,

For this Winter 2023 Special Issue of Clio’s Psyche, we welcome your submissions, especially ones with psychoanalytic, psychological, and psychohistorical insights on THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MUSIC, MUSICIANS, AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY, including the following subjects:

  • What makes music so emotionally powerful?Why & how does music soothe or arouse us?
  • What musical composition, song, or performance has changed your or someone else’s life?
  • How does music connect to personality structures of individuals?  Including music that is hated.
  • What is the favored music of historical figures and how does it relate to their personalities?
  • What is the relationship between music and dance and the ideals of a particular culture and time?
  • Why and how has American popular music evolved and been so transformative?  What is the impact of race, region, ethnicity, and immigration on this creativity?
  • What makes musicians models, heroes, and heroines to much of the public?
  • What are the similarities in the autobiographies and lives of great musicians?
  • How does psychobiography help us understand music and musicians?
  • What is the changing role of technology in the art, craft, and business of music?
  • What is the role of music in religion?  What makes sacred music sacred?
  • What accounts for shifts in taste over time? What does it tell us about the mood, aspirations, fears, fantasies of the shift in zeitgeist historically and emotionally?
  • How does the music of our childhood resonate through our lives?
  • How did rock music festivals such as Woodstock, Altamont, and others impact the culture?
  • Write a psychobiography of a musician.

We seek articles from 1,500-2,500 words—including your title, author name with affiliation, a 25-word abstract, 7-10 keywords, and your brief biography (3-4 sentences) ending in your email address.  Send documents in Microsoft Word (*docx or doc) format.  One or two high-quality, extremely well written articles of up to 3,500 words may be accepted to serve as symposium articles if received by July 31, 2022.  We urge you to share this Call for Papers with colleagues and lists.


The importance, power, and variety of music are enormous.  Like art and poetry, music touches us directly and powerfully to an extent that words usually can’t.  Writing about nonverbal music can be an exciting although difficult challenge, which you may want to undertake.  Different styles or types of music often define a generation.  We want insights on music that is Broadway shows, classical, country, electro swing, folk, jazz (New Orleans, Chicago, Dixieland), K-pop, Latin, martial/patriotic, opera, political, polka, popular, punk, religious, soul, rock, and much else.  The music of time periods (baroque, classical, romantic, etc.) can make such a wonderful historical study as does the music of different generations.  What is the relationship between enjoying music and alcohol, drugs, and the exuberant feeling of being part of a massive group at a concert?

Clio’s Psyche and the Psychohistory Forum:

It is the style of our scholarly quarterly to publish thought-provoking, clearly written articles usually based upon psychoanalytic/psychological insight and developed with examples from history, current events, and the human experience.  We are open to all psychological and psychohistorical approaches and prefer that articles be personalized, without psychoanalytic/psychological terminology or jargon.  At the moment, we are converting to a modified version of the latest APA citation system, which will have very few references and those overwhelmingly for direct quotes.  We emphasize good literary style without referring to authorities except when essential.  Indeed, we discourage citations except where there are quotations or they are otherwise essential.  Submissions the editors deem suitable are anonymously refereed in our double-blind system.  Once you have submitted your article, please do not make any further edits to the piece until we return it to you if necessary.

For those who are not familiar with our publication and its sponsor, Clio’s Psyche is in its 28th year of publication by the Psychohistory Forum, a 40-year-old organization of academics, therapists, and laypeople holding regular scholarly meetings in Manhattan, at international conventions, and virtually.  For information on our publication and back issues over a year old, go to our website at cliospsyche.org/archives.  Write me for information on how to join our group and read our print journal.

Sincerely yours,

Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, Historian, Research (and retired) Psychoanalyst, Professor at Ramapo College, Editor, Clio’s Psyche and author The Making of Psychohistory: Origins, Controversies, and Pioneering Contributors (Routledge, 2018)  E-mail: cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com

Stefanie Teitelbaum, LCSW, NCPsyA, is a Julliard School graduate, psychoanalyst, and a senior training faculty member at the : National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysts (NPAP); Institute for Expressive Analysis (IEA); and Object Relations Relations Institute (ORI).  Email: stef.teitelbaum@gmail.com

Inna Rozentsvit, MD, PhD, MBA, MSci; Associate Editor, Clio’s Psyche; Associate Director of the Psychohistory Forum; and Group Co-Leader of the Psychobiography Research and Publication Group of the Forum  Email: inna.rozentsvit@gmail.com

Music, Musicians, and Psychohistory: Beyond the Notes

by Howard F. Stein

Abstract: Through a psychohistorical approach to music and musicians, this symposium specifically focuses on the author’s extensive knowledge of classical music and how it applies to the study of psychohistory.  He writes about four examples of stories with musical themes, exploring how they might be translated into the research, scholarship, and writing in psychohistory.

Keywords: arts, Brahms, Charles D. Stein, classical-music, Mahler, poetry, psychohistory, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Wagner