Every year seems to be punctuated with major news stories about household celebrity names – loved by millions – accused of being a different person in reality compared with the persona we had admired. A comedian, a singer, a rapper, a newsreader, an actor, a country’s leader. The media have to try again to make sense of two incompatible versions of someone who has been celebrated. Before their personas were questioned, these people – diverse as they were - had specific things in common: they were drawn to perform; to be admired from a distance, to be famous or powerful. These qualities appear in the psychiatric manuals as features of narcissism. In mainstream median the concept of narcissism has narrowed. But in addition to its perpetrator face, there is a performance face.
As a clinical psychologist specialising in personality disorders I think we misunderstand narcissism, and we misunderstand fame. I want to look at narcissism as a whole by choosing extreme cases based on its performance face. There is a side-effect of the strategies these individuals lived by: their names are far from confidential, and their lives documented in the public domain. They have become iconic. To answer questions of the present, we go back in time – to dramatic moments in cinema and music history. And further – to pivotal and sometimes tragic moments in the life of each icon.
This is a newsletter about the psychology of narcissism and trauma. I want to dive deep into the lives of the greatest icons, using the map of narcissism as a guide. I want to ask: what does narcissism theory tell us about those motivated to become idealised and powerful, and what can the lives of these individuals reveal about narcissism?
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