Psychoanalysis, International Relations, and Diplomacy: A Sourcebook on Large-Group Psychology by Vamik D. Volkan

Author:Vamik D. Volkan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Karnac Books Ltd.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Political leaders’ personalities

The personalities of our political leaders, in a general sense but not necessarily a psychoanalytic one, have always been scrutinised, especially during elections, crises, or scandals. There is public interest in understanding a political leader's personality and its role in determining the leader's behaviour and decision making. Over the course of a lifetime, an adult exhibits habitual behaviour and thought patterns that can be observed by others. Because political leaders spend a great deal of time in the public eye and have little choice but to allow their modes of speech, bodily gestures, emotional expressions, and other personal habitual patterns to be viewed by anyone with access to the media, attempts are sometimes made to analyse their personality, mostly by persons who have not even studied human psychology.

The term “personality” describes the observable and predicable repetitions that individuals consciously and unconsciously utilise under ordinary circumstances to maintain a stable reciprocal relationship between themselves and their environment. Therefore, personality is associated with self-regulatory and environment-altering ego functions that individuals use regularly to maintain both internal (intrapsychic) and interpersonal harmony. Two additional concepts, temperament and character, are usually included under the umbrella of personality. Temperament refers to genetically and constitutionally determined cognitive and affectomotor tendencies. Character is formed by the egosyntonic modes individuals utilise to reconcile intrapsychic conflicts during developmental years. When temperament and character are combined, they produce adult personality.

The concept of personality, however, is not the same as identity—the latter is not observed by others, but instead is sensed only by a specific individual. The term personality should also be differentiated from “self-representation”, another term that refers to a psychoanalyst's metapsychological description of how a patient's self-organisation (or personality organisation) has developed, and how it theoretically relates to object representations as well as id demands, ego functions, and superego influences.

In our clinical work we observe various types of personalities and name them: obsessive, paranoid, phobic, depressive, narcissistic, and so on. For example, when we see a patient who is habitually dogmatic, opinionated, ambivalent and “clean”, and who exhibits stiff and rigid gestures, and cannot freely express emotions, we say that this patient has an obsessive personality. Most people, however, possess aspects of different personality characteristics and it is difficult to classify their predictable behaviour, thought, and emotional patterns as strictly one type or another. When such patterns are exaggerated, maladaptive, predictable, and cause interpersonal problems, mental health professionals use terms such as “personality disorder”. For example, a “routine” obsessional personality evolves into a “disorder” when patients exhibit ambivalence to such a degree that they constantly frustrate others or cannot complete their own tasks. People with obsessive personality disorder also keep their emotions under control, but on occasion lose control in aggressive and inappropriate outbursts that cause further interpersonal conflicts. They are like a chronically constipated person who suddenly has an explosive bowel movement. I use this anal analogy because, through clinical work dating back to Freud (1905d) and Abraham (1921), we have become aware of the anal fixations of the obsessional personality.

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