PSYCHOANALYTIC ASPECTS OF CHARISMATIC CHARM

                                                                By Barbara Little Horse

                                                ABSTRACT                     

This research study explores the unconscious motivation or defense behind the “charm” or “magnetic” personality exhibited by the charismatic individual: its function and probable genesis. A case example is included as an illustration of the seductive, crowd-pleasing behavior characteristic of this personality type.

Biographies of a representative group of charismatic individuals reveal that the childhood of the less socially developed type is typified by the presence of a narcissistic and seductive mother, and an absent or ineffective father. By contrast, our charismatic hero springs from a family in which there is a strong, authoritarian father and a rigid, often obsessively religious mother. There is intense pressure in these families for the child to succeed.

Both groups lack a fully developed sense of “self.” The charismatic individual compensates by constructing a persona or imposture that attracts and seduces followers who mistakenly perceive this projection as confidence and power. In actuality this construct is an ultimately self-defeating defense against an overwhelming fear of personality dissolution.

A study of writers including Heinz Kohut, Helene Deutsch, Melanie Klein, Phyllis Greenacre, Sue Erickson Bloland, and D. W. Winnicut, on aspects of charisma in relation to narcissism, projective identification, and the “false self,” has served as a framework upon which to construct a uniform psychoanalytic theory of the magnetic charm exhibited by the charismatic individual.