Fame: Erikson Family Materials (meeting report)

At the April 5, 2003, Work-in-Progress meeting of the Psychohistory Forum, Sue Erikson Bloland presented on her personal experience growing up as the daughter of her famous psycho­analyst father, Erik Erikson, and her research into the life experiences of other famous people, including Sir Laurence Olivier. Bloland, a psychotherapist and a psychoanalytic teacher, is in the latter stages of writing Fame: The Power and Cost of a Fantasy. She has formulated theories on what lies behind the drive to be famous. Some of her preliminary conclusions appeared in a November 1999 The Atlantic Monthly article (Vol. 284 No. 5, pp. 51­62) under the same title.

Sue Bloland was prompted to write this article by the enthusiastic response she received when she spoke on the subject to the Manhattan Institute for Psychotherapy where she teaches. Her colleagues felt that her findings could be important to the therapeutic community. Her book reflects her own family experiences, as well as clarifies some of the materials included in Lawrence J. Friedman, Identity’s Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson (1999).

In Bloland’s findings, the public image of a famous person is the opposite of the private per­son. It reflects what the private person longs to be, it is an ideal self. The narcissism (grandiosity) invested in the ideal self is essentially a defense against shame. It is the early experience of shame so overwhelming to the self that it is being de­fended against in becoming someone extraordinary. The narcissistic solution is: if I am not lovable for who I am, I will have to make people ad­mire me for what I can do. This interactional pattern is the result of a parent-child relationship in which fulfilling parental expectations comes at the expense of the real self – striving to become some special being that is caring, talented, and charismatic, is the vehicle in desperately pursuing emotional nourishment. These individuals are “driven to be famous.” Their extraordinary talent seems characteristically fueled by a desperate longing for human connection. For the famous, the public becomes the connecting parent, and although the deeper needs are not being met, the fame gives the illusion of their being met. Fame helps the individuals ignore the reality of not being really loved or cared for. The acceptance of the idealization is at the expense of the person’s human qualities. Not all trauma leads a person to want to be famous, but Bloland has not yet found a famous person that has not experienced trauma.

Fame came to Erikson after publishing Childhood and Society. Fame suited him. During the writing of the book he was teaching at Berkeley and working in a hut outside the house among the trees. Lecturing and writing were his life. His imposing figure, striking looks with a shock of white hair, penetrating blue eyes, and total engagement when talking about his work made the experience seem very intimate for the individual he was en­gaging at the moment.

To live in “the shadow of fame” of a famous parent is not easy for the children, especially for Sue. Her attempt to get close to her father met with disillusionment. It was not easy to accept that a father who was so perceptive about human development was unable to emotionally connect with his children or meet their individual needs.

It was Bloland’s mother, Joan Serson Erikson, a very charismatic figure in her own right, who reared the children and brought structure to the household. She set very clear rules that were followed by the children and their father. She could do anything that was needed, including translating and editing Erikson’s work. She hosted col­leagues, friends, and others interested in his work. The birth of the fourth child with Down’s syndrome and his immediate placement after birth in a long-term institution without her consent, caused her a great deal of grief. The children were told that the child had died, but there would be no rites or mourning. For Sue, who was promised that she would share in the care of the baby, the loss was very significant. Her father never understood the effect this had on her mother. For her father, Childhood and Society became the child. Sue’s psyche was most affected by the contradiction between her father the man and her father the gifted theoretician, and the family’s need to protect the idealized image.

Bloland’s perceptive and candid sharing of her extensive knowledge of the subject, and her personal working-through of her inner experiences, generated a most enthusiastic group discussion which included our acknowledgment of Erikson’s extensive contribution to the fields of psychohis­

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tory, psychology, and sociology. She has agreed to join us in further discussing this subject and we are looking forward to her return.

Present at the meeting were Sue Erikson Bloland, Sharon Brennan, Mike Briton, Molly Castelloe, Ralph and Charlotte Colp, Paul Elovitz, David Felix, Eva Fogelman, Renee Haynon, Flora Hogman, David Lotto, Geraldine Pauling, H. John Rogers, Vivian Rosenberg, Shirley Stewart, Jacques Szaluta, Hanna Turken, and Isaac Zieman.

On September 20, Lawrence J. Friedman will speak to the Forum on Erikson and on Erich Fromm, about whom he is currently writing a psychobiography.

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