ABSTRACT
Looking at the historian as the instrument of the historical investigation, it is reasonable to assume that the effectiveness of the instrument will grossly influence the quality of the work. The basic objective is to facilitate the historian’s capacity to master the complexities of the issues involved and make him more aware of the influence of his own personality on his ideas in general and his basic thesis in particular. Deeper understanding of the historian’s thesis will clarify the nature of the investigator’s commitment and identify to whom this commitment has been made. In the field of psychohistory, the personal analysis of an investigator, as desirable as it may be, is not sufficient to prevent the misuse of psychoanalysis and its clinical concepts. The author or chronicler is a psychoanalyst who both observed and participated in the process and makes a conscious effort to give an objective account of it with the least possible bias.
