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The Disappearing Male, by Joan Lachkar. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson, 2013
By way of connecting Joan Lachkar's work with our field, I would like to pull back for a moment and look at who, as psychohistorians, we are and where we variously position ourselves. Historians operate in archives, libraries, professional meetings, and various academic spaces; therapists operate in clinics, mental hospitals and consulting rooms; anthropologists spend extended periods compiling databases in jungles or other remote areas. Having no prescribed venue or certified discipline, psychohistorians selectively synthesize all of the above. In lieu of a home base, we conduct annual nesting activities at the IPA (International Psychohistorical Association) Conferences. There we parade our offspring, cross-fertilize our thinking, and fly off to hatch new possibilities. But more than any other field, we are beholden to our mixed ancestry.
Enter the clinician. At the outset, it's slightly ironic, or perhaps serendipitous, that Lachkar's theme of the disappearing male enters amid cultural discourses about the End of Men, and good riddance. As Maureen Dowd scoffed over the relatively recent scandal of New York congressman Anthony Weiner: men are broke, they can't be fixed, get over it and move on. Not to take it lying down, the denigrated, irrelevant males are insisting, as in the pages of the New York Times that they are still here, so deal with it.
There appears some uncertainty over in what sense men are here or not, and so Lachkar's inquiries are quite timely. Some of the disappearing males, as we'll find, may be physically present but emotionally and functionally absent.
Joan Lachkar is well known among psychohistorians, both as a contributor to the Journal and as a friendly presence at IPA meetings. Her latest work is both a distillation of her extensive studies and a focused inquiry-motivated by the plight of women in her clinical practice who have been "wooed, charmed, and lured" into erotic relationships with men who at first appear to be madly in love with them and promise them the world, only to abruptly vanish, leaving them abandoned, confused, deeply hurt, and often depressed. Allowing for some men who may have valid reasons for bailing as well as for women who also pull out, Lachkar plunges into the pathology-as...