Fame: The Power and Cost of a Fantasy

The November 1999 issue of "The Atlantic Monthly" features an article by Sue Erickson Bloland, "Fame: The Power and Cost of a Fantasy." It is available online at http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99nov/9911fame.htm#bio .

Many of Sue Erikson Bloland's insights about her father, Eric Erikson, and other famous people, like Lawrence Olivier and Charlie Chaplin, come fairly close to an Adlerian view of personality dynamics, particularly her comments about an idealized self-image compensating for a hidden feeling of inferiority.

Erikson's lack of faith and trust in Freudian psychoanalysis to help him personally, even after working with Anna Freud, prompts the question of why he never turned to Alfred Adler, a contemporary of Freud and Jung, and one of the fathers of modern psychology.

In many schools of psychotherapy training, one can learn
theory and technique, gain some personal insight, but still come out the same person at the end. It has been a long-standing tradition for Classical Adlerian psychotherapists to undergo a personal study-analysis, in order to remove any contradictions between what they advise and their own style of life.

Adlerians promote the uncovering and overcoming of the hidden, painful inferiority feelings, but we also attempt to dissolve the unconscious, compensatory, fictional final goal of superiority (often of grandiosity) over others. The critical path to psychological growth is building a feeling of connectedness to others.

According to Henri Ellenberger, in "The Discovery of the Unconscious," Erikson's first five stages of development in the individual reflect Freud's stages of libidinal development, and the last three seem inspired by Jung's concept of individuation. It is tragic that Erikson chose to follow, then semi-abandon Freud, adopt a little of Jung, but apparently never gave Adler, a try.

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